Just in case you didn’t have phone or internet access this week: Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris.

Major news outlets called Trump’s victory hours after the final polls closed.

TDA covered the election in-depth and provided rolling coverage of the latest developments. We also took a closer look at what we can expect from a second Trump presidency.

As the dust settles, I wanted to look into what we understand about voting patterns in this election, and how they changed from last time.

P.S. A correction from yesterday's newsletter. The recommendation should have said that Up does not invest in fossil fuels.

It's a good thing Up is also the partner of today's newsletter to again share their values. Thank you, Up!

The 2024 election was unusual for many reasons, with historic implications for both major political parties – the Democrats and the Republicans.

Democrats:

Joe Biden withdrew as the Democratic candidate in July, marking the first time in modern political history that a candidate dropped out of the race so close to an election. 

With only months until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris secured her party’s support to run in Biden’s place as the Democrat nominee. 

Harris was the first woman of colour in U.S. history to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

Republicans:

At 78, Trump’s victory makes him the oldest person ever elected President (Biden was 77 when he won the 2020 election).

Trump has also become one of only two American Presidents to win a second nonconsecutive term – a feat no one has achieved since Grover Cleveland in 1892. 

Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President-elect JD Vance, will also make White House history as the first Indian American second lady, and the first Hindu second lady.

At every election since 2004, research company Edison Research has worked with a group of media organisations called the ‘National Election Pool’ (NEP) to conduct an “exit poll”. This is a survey of people leaving polling booths. They are asked questions about who they voted for, their age, race, and other details.

Similar surveys are conducted over the phone or via text with people who’ve mailed in an early vote.

This data can help to break down how different demographics of people voted on election day.

This year, more than 22,500 people took part in the Edison/NEP exit polls.

There are two things to note when looking at the data: first, these findings give us an estimation but they aren’t a perfect representation of how every group of Americans voted.

Second, the figures won’t add up to 100 because some independent candidates were also in the race, like Jill Stein and Robert F. Kennedy Jr – who suspended his campaign and backed Trump, but remained on the ballot in some states.

Here’s how America voted this year compared to 2020.

One of the Harris campaign’s key focus areas was abortion and reproductive rights.

However, a lower proportion of women voted for her than Joe Biden in 2020. Donald Trump gained 3% between 2020 and 2024 when it came to women voters.

The number of 18-29-year-olds who voted for Harris dropped by 6% compared to Biden in 2020. This was despite attempts to reach young people on social media and endorsements from celebrities like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.

Trump’s 2024 campaign – which included an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience (America’s most popular podcast) – had more success with younger voters compared to 2020. The only age demographic where support for Trump declined was among those over 65.

Harris had a 13% drop in support among Hispanic and Latino voters, compared to Biden. 

This is part of a long-term decline for the Democrats among Hispanic and Latino communities. Biden carried 61% support, Hillary Clinton had 66% support in 2016, and Barack Obama had roughly 70% support in 2012.

Harris lost ground with non-college-educated Americans in outer suburban areas but appeared to hold the same majority share of university-educated voters as Biden. 

Overall support for the Democrats dropped in 48 out of 50 states, according to analysis by the New York Times.

The Democrats increased their percentage of voters in just two states: Washington and Maine.

Some of the biggest increases in support for Trump occurred in Democrat-held states. For instance, Trump got 46% of the vote in New Jersey – reliably a Democratic stronghold – up from 41% in 2020.

Trump gained support in all seven swing states – those that have flipped between Democrat and Republican at previous presidential elections – allowing him to clinch victory.

Commentators, political scientists and analysts around the U.S. (and the world) have put forward a range of theories to better understand these election results. 

The cold hard numbers whittle it down to three key areas: The economy, Biden, and time (or Harris’ lack thereof.) 

In the Edison/NEP exit polls, voters were asked to name their top concern going into this election. The top five issues were democracy (34%), economy (32), abortion (14), immigration (11), and foreign policy (4). 

Analysts have suggested that Harris lost voters who blame the Biden Administration for recent economic conditions including high inflation and cost of living pressures. 

Annual inflation peaked above 9% in mid-2022. Grocery costs and energy bills have soared over the past four years. The U.S. economy is growing, but this shift may have come too late to change attitudes among voters.

Poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight shows Biden’s approval ratings have been in negative territory consistently since September 2021. 

Results from the exit polls on election day re-iterated this declining popularity: 59% said they disapproved of his presidency while 40% approved.

Harris isn’t Biden, of course, but she is his second in command. One argument being put forward about her loss to Trump is that voters wanted to send the current White House administration a clear message.

Harris’ 106-day campaign runway also compares sharply to Trump, who has been politically active since announcing plans to run for President in 2015.

Ultimately, everyone voted for different reasons, but it seems as though the majority of Americans voted for change from the status quo of the last four years.

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In this week's wrap of good news, TDA discusses the alpaca who visits aged care homes, the surprise community group that accompanied Coldplay, and the oldest New York marathon runner.