The 2024 Presidential election, won by Donald J. Trump, marks a significantly positive shift for the Republican party. The sweeping win by the Republican candidate was shocking to many voters, especially considering the previously close poll numbers as well as Trump’s felony convictions. He was also the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote since George W. Bush. So, what allowed for what many would denote as such a surprising win by Trump?
As is the case with many elections, the results of the 2024 elections came down to swing-state voters. The Republican candidate was able to win all seven of these battleground states; Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were especially interesting cases, as Trump was able to regain victory in these states which were won by Biden in 2020. Trump’s campaign made significant strides in collecting votes in rural, semi-urban, and (while less noteworthy) urban areas. Ultimately, it was the swing state victory, combined with the marked Republican shift in almost every single US county which allowed for a second Trump victory.
Donald Trump’s campaign was the key to his success. They put a major focus on garnering support from working-class white votes, Latinos and African Americans (especially men), and Hispanic men. He was able to increase turnout from these demographics as opposed to his results four years prior. He also employed specific strategies to win votes from notoriously hard-to-reach young voters, especially young men. Trump did this by appearing on a variety of podcasts and media and funneling more resources into appealing short-form content. Three tactical choices were also made by the campaign, which were imperative to the Republican victory. First, they decided not to invest heavily in traditional measures of convincing supporters to spread the word and get out the vote for their candidate. Instead, they relied on Trump’s personal bond with his supporters to mobilize most of the vote. Second, the campaign invested heavily in negative advertising, especially in southern states. These advertisements undermined Kamala Harris, especially her stance on transgender issues. Finally, Trump chose to change his stance regarding abortion. He amended his earlier ideas and decided that as president he would allow each state to choose their position on the topic, and would veto a national abortion ban.
Harris’s campaign fought an uphill battle and suffered a multitude of failures which led to their loss. Harris entered the race with relatively low approval ratings, inherited from Biden during the middle of his term due to his approaches to immigration and inflation. The fact that Biden waited so long to enter this race meant that Harris also had very little time to introduce herself to voters, prepare for debates, and strengthen her arguments and debate strategies. During her campaign, Harris also put far too much of a focus on reproductive rights in an attempt to garner more female votes. However, Harris’s female turnout only saw a marginal rise from Biden’s, and the male vote suffered a 5% loss. Her campaign also tries to argue that Trump was a threat to democracy, but this unfortunately did very little to sway the public’s pre-existing connotations of him, which were essentially set in stone due to his ubiquity in the media. Harris’s tactical choices (many rooted in ambiguity) were also detrimental. First, she rejected numerous opportunities to clearly outline her political profile and didn’t separate herself enough from President Biden in a way meaningful enough to change voter opinions. Second, Harris refused to justify her abandonment of some of her more progressive political policies, which blurred public opinion and allowed the Trump campaign to negatively depict her and paint her as a closet radical. Finally, Harris avoided media interviews during the beginning of her campaign, which made many voters believe she was unable to think on her feet or answer complicated political questions.
The impact of this election will be interesting to see, and will certainly spark meaningful discourse on the policies and candidates of our country going forward.
