How Donald Trump won the presidency

Former President Donald Trump is expected to become the next president of the United States, according to an ABC News projection broadcast at 5:31 AM Eastern Wednesday, November 6th. From 6 a.m. Eastern, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had been projected for Trump, and the once-and-future president also leads in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada. At this point, the most likely final outcome appears to be a 312-226 Trump victory. Plus, while it will take some time to count all the ballots, it looks like Trump will win the national popular vote for president as well.

Over the next few months, we at 538 will be doing a lot of analysis to find out exactly how Trump won. He may, after all, be only the second Republican presidential candidate since 1992 to win the national popular vote. It warrants not only introspection among Democrats, but also a lot of quality analysis. And Trump’s swing of the swing states – while not surprising – also represents a new high-water mark for his electoral success.

For now, though, here are three quick possible explanations for Trump’s victory tonight. These insights draw primarily on the exit poll, which is imperfect for a variety of reasons but is so far the best source of available data on why and how different types of people voted. (We reserve the right to revise these conclusions when more data become available.)

Inflation

For all the noise about various issues, statements, rallies and rhetoric during this election, the economy is unique because it provides the most obvious gravitational pull against Trump. Voters rank the cost of living in America as one of their top concerns — and arguably one of the most pressing, prominent and visible issues in their lives. It is not a stretch of the imagination to imagine that they would punish the incumbent for this regardless how unfavorably they viewed Trump; in fact, that’s what voters around the world have been doing over 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 those people voted for Harris and only 17 percent for Trump. But the economy was the second most influential issue. Among those voters, Trump led 79 percent to 20 percent. In the end, abortion did not rise as much as Democrats might have hoped; only 14 percent rated it as their biggest concern.

It is possible that inflation has contributed to the widening gap between high-income voters 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-income households, which account for about 60 percent of voters, Republicans gained a 12-point margin.

Racial Polarization

The original exit poll estimates also suggest that Democratic support fell among non-white voters and rose among white voters (especially college graduates). 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 5-point improvement for the Democrats.

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

Republican gains with non-whites were particularly acute among Hispanic and Latino voters. The Democrats’ margin with the group fell by 26 points, according to the exit poll, to just a 53-to-45 percent margin. Trump’s vote share with Latinos appears to be the best since George W. Bush’s 44 percent in 2004. Latino men moved 33 points against Trump, one of his biggest swings.

Democratic turnout was low

In addition to economic headwinds and deteriorating margins with their base, it appears that Democrats also simply had poor turnout. So far, about 137 million ballots have been counted for the 2024 presidential election. Predictions by final attendance hovering somewhere in the neighborhood of 152 million votes. That would be a fall from 158 million who voted in 2020 and would respond to sore 61 percent of those entitled to vote. That would be a drop from 66 percent in 2020.

It is also likely that the decline in voter turnout disproportionately affected Democrats. While we can’t be sure until we can review records of who actually voted (states will release them in the next few months), the decline in turnout is currently greater in the most Democratic counties across the battleground states. It’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 mark in philadelphia or milwaukee, where you depend on a lot of votes to carry you to victory.

Over the next few months, we will be able to examine even more data about why Trump won (again). The basic explanation is that this was always going to be a tough election for Harris to win. She managed both to fail to persuade swing voters and to get out of her base where it mattered most. Democrats will have to do a lot of soul searching to figure out how to recover.