How Donald Trump won the presidency

According to an ABC News forecast released at 5:31 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, November 6, former President Donald Trump is expected to be the next President of the United States. As of 6 a.m. Eastern, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were scheduled for Trump, and the future president is also leading in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada. At this point, the most likely end result appears to be a 312-226 Trump victory. Although it will take time to count all the ballots, it is likely that Trump will also win the national popular vote for president.

Over the next few months, we at 538 will be doing a lot of analysis to find out exactly how Trump won. After all, he may be only the second Republican presidential candidate to win the national popular vote since 1992. This requires not only introspection among Democrats, but also a lot of high-quality analysis. And while Trump's victory in the swing states is not surprising, it also represents a new high point for his electoral success.

For now, though, here are three quick possible explanations for Trump's win tonight. These findings rely primarily on the exit poll, which is imperfect for a variety of reasons but is currently still the best source of available data on why and how different types of people voted. (We reserve the right to review these conclusions as more data becomes available.)

inflation

For all the hubbub over various issues, statements, rallies and rhetoric during this election, the economy is unique in holding the most obvious appeal to Trump. For voters, the cost of living in America is one of their biggest concerns – and undoubtedly one of the most pressing, salient and visible issues in their lives. It is not an exaggeration to imagine that they would punish the incumbent party for this, regardless of how negatively they viewed Trump. That's exactly what voters around the world have been doing over the last three years.

According to the election survey, 35 percent of voters nationwide rated the “state of democracy” as the most important factor in their vote. 81 percent of those people voted for Harris and only 17 percent for Trump. But the economy was the second most important issue. Among these voters, Trump was ahead 79 percent to 20 percent. In the end, abortion was not rated as highly as Democrats would have hoped; only 14 percent said this was their biggest concern.

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

Racial polarization

Early exit poll estimates also suggest that Democratic support has declined among non-white voters and increased among white voters (particularly those with college degrees). The exit poll shows Trump won white voters by 12 percentage points, 55 percent, to Harris' 43 percent. Compared to the 2020 election poll, this is an improvement of 5 points for the Democrats.

Among college-educated white voters, Democrats performed best compared to 2020. They moved 7 points left, voting for Harris 54 percent to 44 percent. Non-white voters without college degrees, meanwhile, leaned toward Trump by 13 points.

Republican success among non-whites was particularly pronounced among Hispanic and Latino voters. According to the election survey, the Democrats' vote lead over the parliamentary group fell by 26 points to just 53 percent to 45 percent. Trump's Latino vote share could be the best since George W. Bush's 44 percent in 2004. Latino men moved 33 points toward Trump, one of his biggest swings.

Democratic turnout was low

In addition to the economic headwinds and the deteriorating margins of their base, it appears that the Democrats also simply had poor turnout. So far, around 137 million ballots have been counted for the 2024 presidential election. Final turnout projections are somewhere in the neighborhood of 152 million votes. That would be a decrease from the 158 million voters in 2020 and would represent about 61 percent of eligible voters. That would be a decrease from 66 percent in 2020.

It's also likely that the decline in voter turnout has disproportionately affected Democrats. While we can't be sure until we can review the records of who actually voted (states will release these in the next few months), the drop in turnout is currently larger in the most Democratic counties in the battleground states. This is something that would be uniquely damaging to Harris; If you're a Democrat, lower turnout in the suburbs is obviously bad, but not as bad as missing turnout in Philadelphia or Milwaukee, where you rely on lots of votes to win.

Over the next few months, we'll be able to dig into even more data about why Trump won (again). The basic explanation is that it was always going to be difficult for Harris to win this election. She failed to convince swing voters and get her base where it mattered most. Democrats will have to do a lot of research to figure out how to recover.