This is part one of a two-part series exploring Trump’s 2024 victory, why it happened, where his support comes from, and the implications for both parties going forward.

IN THE EARLY HOURS of November 6th, 2024, Donald Trump declared victory in the 2024 presidential election, announcing that he had been given an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” The nation saw a map covered in red and an outcome many didn’t think was possible: the first popular vote victory for a Republican presidential candidate in 20 years.

In the following days, it became clear that Trump’s supposedly commanding victory was smaller than it initially seemed, particularly because of slower counting on the West Coast. While the final votes are still being counted, it seems likely that Trump didn’t break 50%, and the vote percentage margin between him and Kamala Harris is the slimmest margin since 2000.

Even still, Trump’s win in the Electoral College and the popular vote strikes many as a resounding victory for a candidate who had been soundly defeated just four years prior. Many Americans, particularly those on the left, have asked a crucial question: why did he win?

Here, I want to stress that elections are complicated. Over the past few years, much of how our politics operate has changed. This includes the information environment, people’s relationships with political parties, and the makeup of each coalition. With such significant change, there’s no singular, simple reason for the outcome of this election. However, one can offer a theory — after two weeks of looking at the results and polling data and talking to many of Trump’s supporters, I’m here to do just that.

ONE: IT’S THE INFLATION, STUPID

The Clinton-era adage “it’s the economy, stupid” has sometimes been scorned as an overly-reductive way of viewing politics. However, this year, the economy was clearly at the forefront of voter’s minds.

The American economy is doing well by most metrics, especially considering the circumstances. Unemployment has consistently hovered at around 4%, GDP growth is solid, inflation has cooled, and consumer spending on nonessentials has increased significantly. In the wake of a life and economy-altering pandemic, the United States has bounced back well — especially compared to its peers. Most of our allies, especially those in Europe, have faced higher inflation, higher unemployment, and lower GDP growth than the United States has post-2020.

However, most people don’t evaluate the economy by fundamentals, and they don’t necessarily feel the impacts of all variables equally. During the Biden administration, the United States underwent a period of high inflation, particularly for the 21st century. Wage growth generally outpaced inflation, especially for the poorest Americans, but higher prices were real and far more visible than any other metric. People also don’t evaluate prices like economists evaluate inflation; prices that remain higher than before the pandemic mean continued dissatisfaction, even if inflation has decreased. So, people can have higher wages and still feel the pain of the higher prices right in front of them every day. This is especially true for lower-income Americans, who bear the brunt of inflation.

Voters saw higher grocery prices, bills, and housing costs and concluded that the economy wasn’t doing well. Wanting change that never came, voters blamed the president and his party — that blame easily extended to Harris. 

Perhaps this alone set Democrats toward an inevitable loss given the near-impossibility of creating lower prices without trade-offs or the downsides of deflation. But this, and whether Trump’s economic plans will keep inflation low, are functionally irrelevant. This was simple, reasonable calculus: people were dissatisfied with the economy, blamed those in power for not creating the change they wanted, and voted for the opposition candidate who promised change. Voters, especially those who felt inflation the most, were willing to roll the dice and back someone they thought could improve things.

TWO: DEMOCRATIC DISENGAGEMENT

Despite lower national turnout, across all seven swing states, more votes were cast in 2024 than in 2020. Harris actually received more votes in some of these states than Biden did in 2020, but Trump outpaced this growth.

However, there was deep dissatisfaction with Biden and Democrats, even within the party. In many states, Democrats lost votes. In some instances, this was partially the result of persuasion, where Trump managed to flip some voters within the Democratic base. But many Democratic voters didn’t even flip to Trump; they just didn’t show up. Take Michigan, where 125k more votes were cast in 2024 than in 2020. In Wayne County, the state’s largest county, there were 20k fewer votes cast in 2024 than in 2020, and Trump won a slightly larger share of the vote than he did in 2020. If Harris had matched Biden’s share of the vote in Wayne County, Trump still would have won the state. However, if she’d received the same share without lower turnout, she would have won Michigan. So, persuasion alone didn’t create Trump’s win; lower turnout in Democratic areas helped swing the state.

The chart below helps display this phenomenon; Trump gained some ground through persuasion and widened his margin because Democrats didn’t turn out to vote. Wisconsin, Missouri, and Colorado all have similar populations. In Colorado, a Democratic-leaning state and one of the highest turnout states in 2020 — over 340k voters did not show up, including 216k people who’d voted for Biden. Meanwhile, Missouri, a safe state for Republicans, saw Republicans gain some votes and Democrats lose even more, with many people opting to stay home.

In Democratic strongholds, Democrats generally lost more votes than Republicans gained, with fewer votes overall than in 2020. This indicates that Trump found new voters and flipped some Democrats but that far more Democrats just didn’t vote.

A strange picture emerges: Trump won the electoral college on persuasion, flipping voters and finding some new ones in the states that mattered. Even in the competitive states where Democrats didn’t lose votes, Trump’s gains outpaced Harris’s, allowing him to flip these states. Meanwhile, in bluer parts of the nation, unenthusiastic Democratic voters stayed home, costing Harris a popular vote victory. 

For many voters, Harris’s campaign proved effective at turning out support. But in deep blue states, the desire to keep Trump out of office was weaker than the desire to get him out had been, and the energy behind Harris was far less enthusiastic than the optimism behind Biden. 

The “why” here is complicated, but I suspect that much of it comes down to exhaustion and unfulfilled hopes. Many voters saw Biden as a way to close the book on the Trump era and rebuild post-pandemic. The results of the past four years struck many Democrats as less-than-satisfactory. In particular, many voters felt that Biden should’ve done more to lower prices, address extreme legislation in GOP-led states, and secure a ceasefire in Gaza. Additionally, many voters wanted a more robust safety net expansion, something Biden backed but couldn’t materialize.

Hopes for what Harris could accomplish with such severe gridlock and a slim trifecta — if Democrats could even win one — were low, and she did not promise dramatic system change that could feed into populist energy in the way that Trump does. She tacked toward the center to win moderates; this seems to have avoided a greater loss in purple states but turned off some of the party’s base who wanted more progressive change and a stronger break from Biden. Coupled with Trump’s persistence, many Democratic-leaning voters simply lack the energy for politics that they once had. Democratic-leaning voters in purple states who felt the impacts that Trump and Republican governance have with issues like abortion remained motivated to vote against him — but voters in blue states who are more insulated from Republican policy weren’t.

Overall, polls indicated that Democratic voters were enthusiastic about the election, which does problematize this hypothesis. However, there were huge enthusiasm gaps within the Democratic coalition — young voters, in particular, were less interested in the 2024 election than they were in the 2020 race and even the 2016 one, probably because they were less enthusiastic about the Democratic vision in general.

The result? Young voters swung right and, outside the battleground states, had much lower turnout. Did Trump suddenly make huge gains among Democratic-leaning young people? He probably made some, but most of these lost votes were because Democratic voters stayed home.

3. DO DEMOCRATS CARE ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE ME?

Big tent parties often face an issue with appealing to the interests of different voter groups. If a party must win ten different groups with different, sometimes opposed sets of interests, making everyone feel heard is difficult. 

Democrats did much better with voters who follow politics closely than those who don’t. Trump effectively targeted low-information, low-propensity voters by getting more air time on social media and podcasts with big names like Joe Rogan and Theo Von. This, in particular, is likely why he won younger men — he went to where they are and shaped the narrative.

Swing voters didn’t see Harris’s economic vision and instead believed that she was focused on social issues and catering only to minority groups. A poll conducted by opinion research firm Blueprint 2024 found that of swing voters who chose Trump: 

• 73% thought Democrats support immigrants more than natural-born citizens 
• 67% thought Democrats are too focused on identity politics 
• 54% thought Democrats are unwilling to stand up for working people
• 54% thought Democrats are unwilling to stand up against big corporations

Among these voters, the most impactful reason for their vote was that Harris was “focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” 80% of swing voters who ultimately backed Trump thought he prioritizes “Americans like me.” For Harris, that number was only 22%.

Trump’s campaign exploited these perceptions further, focusing on creating misinformation about Harris’s stances and the primary focuses of her campaign. Roughly half of Trump’s TV advertisement spending in the final month of a half of the campaign focused on transgender Americans, including the infamous “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” ad.

Many voters walked into the polling booth with deeply inaccurate information on what Harris’s positions were, concluding that she was a radical who wasn’t focused on them or people like them.

I want to note here that I do not think swing voters were heavily motivated by animus. Many Democratic politicians, including a congressman from my state, have suggested that the party lost major ground by supporting the rights of transgender people. While we have seen a backsliding in support for LGBTQ+ rights, I don’t think most Americans have very conservative views on civil rights or strong animosity toward marginalized communities. Rather, I think most people don’t really care but believe that Democrats care too much. The Democratic brand as a party of the working class, a party focused on economic policy to uplift Americans, has eroded. People simply do not think that Democrats are talking to them personally — the party’s messaging is not working.

4. HUNGER FOR CHANGE, BUT JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT

It’s been a rough couple of years for incumbent parties, and that isn’t limited to the Democrats. Governing parties across most large democracies have lost seats or fully lost power post-pandemic. After 15 years of continued control, the conservative parties in Germany and the UK were ousted. Digging into this would go far beyond the scope of this piece; still, it’s clear that the United States has been part of an international trend towards populism and increased skepticism of liberal democracy and its (lack of) speed in producing change. With incumbent governments of all ideologies struggling to handle situations far out of their control — a pandemic and its ripple effects, foreign wars, and generally increased discontent — voters across the globe keep opting for change.

Many Americans view Trump as a necessary shock to the system, an outsider who can restore order and improve the economy and government by taking a hammer to everything. However, his appeal goes beyond this. Trump is a unique Rorschach test for voters. Extremists can take his promises faithfully, supporting power consolidation and a presidency used as a weapon for some revenge tour. People focused on immigration can see his plans as effective, more restrictive policy — those who disagree with the demonization of immigrants can brush his rhetoric aside as hyperbole and showmanship. Isolationists can focus on his pledge to end foreign wars, while neoconservatives can trust his claim that he presents a strong front against America’s adversaries.

Looking at Trump from the right angle, one can see anything they want, including just the right amount of change.

CLOSING THOUGHTS: PERCEPTION IS REALITY

My initial reaction on November 6th was that Trump had an ideological victory,  that voters swung toward him because they agreed with his stances. I’ve pulled away from this initial assessment. 

This was a persuasion victory but not an ideological one. Trump painted Harris as a more extreme candidate who was focused on minority groups while selling himself as someone who could bring change. In purple states, this worked; however, many voters don’t fully know or support what this change could entail. The national sentiment has moved to the right on immigration, but not all of Trump’s extreme stances are popular or even believed. Once again, he also found many new votes — he got people who do not vote, particularly younger nonwhite men, to go to the polls.

On the flip side, Democratic losses were less about ideology and more about the approach – swing voters didn’t feel heard, and the base wasn’t energized, especially in blue states. While ideology matters a bit, as trying to appeal to the center caused more dissatisfaction with the left, that isn’t the full story. Democratic-leaning voters were looking for tailored, bolder policy, and they stayed home when they didn’t get it. 

Voters also had inaccurate ideas about the stances of both candidates. The information environment has changed significantly. People have turned to more immediate sources, particularly their personal circles and social media influencers, and are receiving lower-quality information.

This is an issue for both sides, but I think it’s impacting voters on the right more for two reasons. Firstly, Trump relies more on low-propensity voters, who he has a unique ability to turn out. Secondly is Trump’s Rorschachness. He is not a coherent politician. He has a generally authoritarian, nationalistic ideology but isn’t fully consistent across his stances. This, combined with showmanship, allows voters to believe anything they want to about him. Trump didn’t win on a clear ideology that he offered — he won with whatever views people projected on him.

Some voters believe that Trump will temper Israel’s actions in Gaza even though he’s repeatedly said that the United States shouldn’t hold Israel back. Some undocumented immigrants think Trump’s mass deportation plans won’t target “good people,” only criminals. Among the Trump voters I spoke to, there was skepticism that many of his stances were real, that he actually meant things that he said. This has been a more widely observed phenomenon, with Trump voters often believing that his statements are made just to generate attention.

The skepticism is understandable, especially after Trump’s first term. Many of Trump’s most dramatic promises did not fully pan out. Many of the ways he damaged the nation’s institutions, eroded civil rights, and pulled the country to the right were not highly visible. When I asked Trump voters about his record on LGBTQ+ rights — the numerous antidiscrimination protections that his administration eliminated and the hesitancy to enforce others — most of them were unaware that this had happened and confident that he would not do anything like that in his second term. That’s how a lot of this stuff goes; people don’t see the impacts of these decisions because most of them impact someone else. 

Will that be the case this time? Will Trump’s policies, if he tries to implement them, have a more visible impact? If so, will his voters hold him accountable? We’ll just have to wait and see.