November 5, 2024: The redding of the blue, a billionaire’s infusion, and a former President’s trademark incendiary rhetoric marked a historic election cycle. The 45th President of the United States, who reluctantly left office, has returned to power with a thumping victory to become the 47th President of the United States. The world watched the biggest political pendulum swing, as the scion of the Democratic Party royal family, RFK Jr, and other democrats like Tulsi Gabbard supported the Trump/Vance ticket while stalwart Republicans like the Bushes, the Cheneys, and many former Trump White House officials, supported Harris/Walz.
President Trump joins the likes of Grover Cleveland after returning to office four years after President Joe Biden defeated him. The former President defeated Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris with a nearly 2 million lead in the popular vote and a 312 to 226 lead in the Electoral College. His victory was accompanied by a Republican sweep in the House and Senate, effectively securing a Republican hold on both chambers of Congress and the White House. With both chambers of Congress and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court- can it get any better for the 47th president?
In a repeat of his 2016 victory, Trump successfully broke through the “blue wall,” defeating Harris in key swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He also swept the Sun Belt battlegrounds, winning Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona. Trump and Harris’s campaign zeroed in on these seven battlegrounds, with pre-election polls predicting a dead heat.
What explains Trump’s victory? Trump’s emphasis on the economy, border security, and anti-abortion, and anti-trans stances struck a chord with many Americans. Americans chose anti-incumbency despite being at the economic “sweet spot,” with the GDP growth rate at 2.8%, inflation at 2.4%, and unemployment at 4.1%. CNN exit polls show that Trump made gains with nearly every demographic group compared to 2020. White voters, a consistent voting group for the Republicans since the 1970s, went up as a share of the electorate from 67% to 71%. Perhaps the most notable takeaway from the race was the expansion of Trump’s coalition, driven by Latino men. Trump won 46% of Latino votes, a staggering 25% increase from 2020. Trump’s gains in the fast-growing demographic are likely to compel a reckoning within the Democratic Party as to why they are hemorrhaging support in historically Democratic voting groups. Trump succeeded in breaking the traditional affiliation between black and Latino working-class men with the Democrats. The working-class men across racial and ethnic groups rallied for the billionaire businessman.
The results devastated Democrats and Vice President Harris, a Democrat nominee with unprecedented support that cut across party lines, including Republican leaders like Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, members of the Bush family, and several Republican Congress members. Did Harris fail to separate herself from President Biden? Did she enter the race too late? Would primaries have helped gain a more reliable voter base? Did Democrats take their traditional voting block for granted? And last but not least, the most compelling question is, is America not ready for a woman of color to be their Commander-in-Chief?
SOURCES:
https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0