How Donald Trump won the presidency

Former President Donald Trump is expected to be the next president of the United States, according to an ABC News projection issued on Wednesday, November 6 at 5:31 a.m. Eastern. As of 6 a.m. Eastern, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were forecast for Trump, with the former and future president also leading in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada. At this point, the most likely final outcome appears to be a Trump victory of 312-226. And while it will take some time to count all the ballots, it seems likely that Trump will also win the national popular vote for president.

In the coming months, ABC News and 538 will be doing a lot of analysis to figure out exactly how Trump won. After all, he could be only the second Republican presidential candidate since 1992 to win the national popular vote. That warrants not only introspection among Democrats, but also a lot of quality analysis. And Trump’s influence in swing states, while not surprising, also represents a new high for his electoral success.

But for now, here are three quick possible explanations for Trump’s victory. These insights are based primarily on the exit poll, which is imperfect for several reasons but remains, for now, the best source of available data on why and how different types of people voted. (We reserve the right to revisit these conclusions when more data becomes available.)

Inflation

For all the buzz about various issues, statements, rallies and rhetoric during this election, the economy is unique in that it has the clearest appeal to Trump. Voters rank the cost of living in America as one of their top concerns – and undoubtedly it is one of the most pressing, salient and visible issues in their lives. It is not a stretch of the imagination to imagine that they would punish the incumbent for this, no matter how unfavorable they were to Trump; In fact, that’s what voters around the world have been doing for the past three years.

According to the exit poll, 35 percent of voters nationally rated the “state of democracy” as the most important factor in their vote. Eighty-one percent of these people voted for Harris and only 17 percent for Trump. But the economy was the next most influential issue. Among these voters, Trump led 79 percent to 20 percent. Ultimately, abortion did not score as high as Democrats had hoped; only 14 percent rated this as their biggest concern.

It is possible that inflation has contributed to the growing gap between high-income and low-income voters. According to the exit poll, Democrats increased their vote share by 9 points among voters living in households earning more than $100,000 a year. Among lower-earning households, which account for about 60 percent of voters, Republicans gained a 12-point margin.

Racial polarization

Initial exit poll estimates also show that Democratic support has declined among non-white voters and increased among white voters (particularly college-educated ones). The exit poll shows that Trump won white voters by 12 percentage points, 55 percent to Harris’ 43 percent. Compared to the 2020 exit poll, that’s a five-point improvement for Democrats.

Democrats performed best compared to 2020 among white, college-educated voters. They moved 7 points to the left and voted 54 percent to 44 percent for Harris. Non-white, non-college-educated voters, meanwhile, moved 13 points toward Trump.

The Republican’s gains among the nonwhite population were especially acute among Hispanic and Latino voters. Democrats’ voting margin with the group fell 26 points, according to the exit poll, to just a margin of 53 percent to 45 percent. Trump’s vote share relative to Latinos appears to be the best it could be since George W. Bush’s 44 percent in 2004. Latino men moved 33 points toward Trump, one of his biggest swings.

Democratic turnout was poor

In addition to economic headwinds and worsening margins among their base, it appears that Democrats have also simply had poor turnout. So far, approximately 137 million ballots have been counted for the 2024 presidential race. Predictions of the final turnout hover somewhere near 152 million votes. That would be a decrease from the 158 million who voted in 2020 and would represent about 61 percent of eligible voters. That would be a decrease from 66 percent in 2020.

It is also likely that the decline in turnout has disproportionately affected Democrats. While we can’t be sure until we can look at the data on who actually voted (states will release this in the coming months), the decline in turnout is currently larger in the most Democratic counties of the battleground states. That’s something that would uniquely hurt Harris; If you’re a Democrat, lower turnout in the suburbs is bad, of course, but not as bad as missing the target in Philadelphia or Milwaukee, where you’ll need a lot of votes to carry you to victory.

In the coming months we will be able to study even more data about why Trump won (again). The basic explanation is that this was always going to be a difficult election for Harris to win. She both failed to convince swing voters and abandoned her base where it mattered most. Democrats will have to do a lot of research to figure out how to recover.