US Election 2024: 5 Reasons Donald Trump Won and Kamala Harris Lost
- Former President Donald Trump will return to the White House after seeing off the challenge from Kamala Harris
- In a decisive victory, Trump won a series of battleground states, while his Republican Party also gained control of the senate
- Legit.ng sheds light on how Trump achieved success, highlighting five possible reasons in this report
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Legit.ng journalist, Ridwan Adeola Yusuf, has over 9 years of experience covering politics, elections, and global issues.
Washington, D.C., USA - Donald Trump completed his stunning political comeback on Wednesday, November 6.
The Republican comfortably defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in what polls had suggested would be a very tight election after he swept several key battleground states and won a commanding lead in the national popular vote.
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In this report, Legit.ng looks at five things that contributed to Trump's triumph.
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1) Performance in rural areas
Trump’s margins in rural America appear to have been too large to overtake.
It turns out that there were, in fact, more votes for the former president to mine in counties like central Pennsylvania’s Huntingdon, a short drive from the campus of Penn State University, where he’s on pace to outperform both his vote total and margin from four years ago.
Harris’s performance in corresponding strongholds was pretty much the inverse. Small numbers in the grander scheme of an election so big, expensive and complicated could seem negligible – but they add up. And on Tuesday, November 5, the math appeared to be on Trump’s side.
2) Economy as a top election issue
There will be no end of numbers to crunch after the darkest, most dramatic White House campaign of our lifetimes. But here’s one to focus on: 45%.
That’s the number of US voters nationwide who, in exit polls, said their family's financial situation was worse off today than it was four years ago. This is compared to only 20% of those who felt worse off after the 2020 election, following Donald Trump’s first term.
For now, the adage coined by Bill Clinton’s strategist, James Carville, has proven true. What matters most? “The economy, stupid.”
3) Immigration motivation
Voters for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump who cast their ballots for Tuesday’s presidential election had vastly different motivations.
Those who voted for Trump were more motivated by economic issues and immigration. About half of his backers labelled the economy and jobs as the top issue facing the country, while about one-third said the top issue was immigration.
Harris’s base, by contrast, was focused on a broader range of issues. About 3 in 10 called the economy a top issue, while about 2 in 10 said pregnancy termination and about 1 in 10 named health care or climate change.
4) Trump is stronger than in 2020
Trump didn’t lose reelection in 2020 by much. If a few thousand votes in a few key swing states had broken the other way, he would have been president instead of Joe Biden.
So, any shift toward Trump in 2024, even a minor one, had the potential to be decisive. Much of this movement — winning red states by more than expected; and losing blue states by less — didn’t scramble the electoral math.
But it reflected larger demographic and geographic trends that could propel Trump to victory in the all-important battlegrounds once all the votes there are counted.
5) Latinos' support
A realignment among Latino (immigrants from Latin America and their descendants) voters ensured a positive outcome for Trump.
Voters from Latino and Hispanic (people whose heritage is from Spanish-speaking countries) backgrounds contributed significantly to Trump’s resounding victory over Harris.
Overall, Trump increased his share of the Latino vote to 45% nationwide, up substantially from 32% in his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
Biden congratulates Trump
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that President Biden spoke to the president-elect, Trump, on Wednesday, November 6, to congratulate him on winning the presidency.
Biden also invited the incoming president to the White House.
Proofreading by James, Ojo Adakole, journalist and copy editor at Legit.ng.
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