How did Trump do it? The former president shocked the world with a sweeping victory and the exit polls give a clear indication of how he defied late indications of a Kamala surge.
Trump Made Gains With Women
In 2020, Biden won women by a margin of 12.5-points over Trump. This time round Harris is set to win them by only 10 points.
That wasn’t supposed to happen after Dobbs, the epochal Supreme Court decision on abortion, which alienated voters ahead of the mid-terms in 2022.
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Women, the argument ran, would flood to the polls this year too, and hand Harris victory despite her deficit of support among men.
In reality, women trended to Trump—and men shifted towards him by 6 points. He won them by 10.
Trump Made Gains With White College-Educated Voters
White college-educated voters were the other apparent bedrock of Harris’ coalition. But Trump also made gains with them, according to exits, improving his margins versus 2020 by 3 points.
He still lost them (by 10 points), but he improved on 2020, which was all he needed to do given his strength elsewhere.
He also gained with white non-college-educated voters, improving his extraordinary margins among them by 2 points, winning them by 31 points over Harris—exit polls suggest.
Trump Won Hispanic Men
In 2020, Trump lost Hispanic men to Biden by 23 points. He just won them over Harris by 10—a 33-point shift.
Hispanic men only made up 6 per cent of the national electorate, but they made up closer to 10 per cent of the vote in the swing states of Arizona and Nevada, and were harbingers of a more general swing among non-white male voters.
Trump did 16 points better with Hispanic voters than in 2020: his biggest improvement with any voting bloc.
One-in-five Black men voted for Trump, according to initial exit polls, as Trump cut the Democratic lead among Black voters by 9 points.
Trump Won Late Deciders
Trump narrowly won among voters who decided in the last few days (by 2 points) and the past week (by 8) according to exits—a finding that is as counter-narrative as it gets.
Harris won narrowly among voters who decided earlier in the campaign.
Trump Barely Lost Among Mildly Pro-Choice Voters
Abortion was supposed to be one of Harris’ strongest issues. She led strongly among voters who were avowedly pro-choice.
But Trump was, crucially, able to reassure voters who are mildly pro-choice, believing it should be legal “in most cases”.
He lost this group—who make up a third of the electorate—by only 4 points, neutering a key attack line of the Harris campaign.
Trump Won Among Voters Who Think Democracy Is ‘Very Threatened’
Harris won among voters who said they were most concerned about democracy. But Trump, in a finding that will surprise a lot of liberal voters, narrowly won among voters who consider democracy “very threatened.”
Republicans have made their own claims about the threats Democrats pose to democracy, ones that have not much penetrated the mainstream media environment but have great purchase with his base.
Trump Won One-in-Ten of the Voters Who Didn’t Like Him
Only 44 per cent of the 2024 electorate, according to exits, had a favorable view of Trump. 54 per cent did not. A clear majority in the country existed to reject him.
Yet Trump won 9 per cent of this 54 per cent bloc. They didn’t like him, but they chose him over Harris.
This, perhaps more than any other, is the number that should haunt Democrats after Trump won re-election to the White House.
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