A lot of Americans are understandably exhausted by the presidential election, eager to turn away for a while and distract themselves with Mariah Carey Christmas videos or arguments about college football playoff rankings. But with surprising alacrity, a new battle has broken out with stakes that could be even more critical for the next four years.
This fight to define Donald Trump’s victory is as important as the victory itself. The post-election debate will go a long way to determining how Democrats regroup and respond and, more importantly, how Republicans govern now that they have massive power—and fewer guardrails.
There’s a reason that one of the oldest truisms in Washington D.C. is “beware the mandate.”
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So far, the battle over why Trump won is coalescing around three theories. Let’s look at how each one is faring.
1. It’s the economy, stupid.
Case #1 is coming strong out of the gate. Here’s how The Associated Press summarizes its sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide: “President-elect Donald Trump tapped into deep anxieties about an economy that seemed unable despite its recent growth to meet the needs of the middle class.”
Trump made inroads among lower-income voters, middle-income voters and voters without college degrees, the AP found, all of whom ranked the economy as a greater priority than the future of democracy, immigration, or reproductive rights.
The Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey agreed. Her article, Voters Wanted Lower Prices at Any Cost, opens, “Donald Trump is heading back to the White House. He has inflation to thank.”
In some ways, the economic argument is a proxy for the pandemic. Having blamed Trump in 2020 for his reaction to Covid-19, voters turned around four years later and blamed his opponent for the consequences, namely inflation. As Lowrey wrote, “in poll after poll, focus group after focus group, Americans said the economy was bad—and the economy was bad because prices were too high. This was always going to be a problem for Kamala Harris.”
So even though James Carville was wrong about this election, he was certainly right when he told Bill Clinton a generation ago, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
2. It’s the culture, stupid.
Not so fast! Lots of commentators are equally convinced that culture wars won Trump the election. Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist and onetime Trump dining companion, shared a combative post on X the day after the election that addressed abortion rights in no uncertain terms: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” It got 30,000 likes. He followed that post with a video boasting, “Hey, bitch, we control your bodies.” It has since been viewed more than 16 million times.
Culture warriors and trolls aside, however, even more sober-minded analysts, found fault with Democrats’ fixation on identity politics, across hot-button topics like racial justice, gender inequality and LGBTQ rights. Writing for The New York Times, David Brooks assigned blame thusly: “Donald Trump is a monstrous narcissist, but there’s something off about an educated class that looks in the mirror of society and sees only itself.”
The culture case has at least one strong piece of data on its side. Between August and November, Republicans poured more than $65 million into television ads tapping into fears over the presence of transgender women and girls in sports or concerns about taxpayer-funded gender transitions in prisons. (The latter policy was, in fact, in place under the previous Trump Administration.) Surely they would not have invested those funds that if they didn’t believe the message was working?
So while the economy may have been an acceptable reason to tell pollsters, really, it’s the culture, stupid.
3. “It’s the candidate, stupid!”
Not so fast! Many people blame—or credit—the candidates themselves. Shadi Hamid, a columnist at The Washington Post, placed responsibility firmly on the Democratic nominee. “I find it remarkable that people are mystified by Harris’ defeat,” he posted on X. “She was a uniquely weak candidate. It’s not rocket science.”
Hamid elaborated in a column arguing that Harris took minority voters for granted. “Even if Kamala Harris should have won,” he wrote, “she didn’t deserve to win. In a democracy, no one is entitled to anyone’s votes. Votes must be earned, and she failed to earn them.”
The flip side of the argument is that Trump himself is a singular candidate, unlikely to be replicated. Even his formidable sweep was not enough for coattail swing-state acolytes including Kari Lake in Arizona, Eric Hovde in Wisconsin and Mike Rogers in Michigan into the Senate—or help Mark Robinson get anywhere near the governor’s mansion in North Carolina.
Make all the economic or cultural arguments you want, but the candidate is still what matters most of all.
The final answer to the question of why Trump won? will almost certainly be a combination of all three of these reasons. The final answer to the question which reason wins? will almost certainly decide not just the short-term fate of the country but the fate of each party as well.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said in his victory speech Tuesday night. Leaving aside the predictably hyperbolic overstatement (if Trump goes on to win Arizona and Nevada, he would have 312 electoral votes, or 58%—a percentage behind both Obama and Clinton victories, for example) though, the claim itself is a warning for all.
As political scientists Lawrence Grossback, David Peterson and James Stimson write in their 2006 book Mandate Politics, a mandate is a “shared conclusion that derives from public interaction over the interpretation of an election.” It’s less important what voters do or do not want, they argue, it’s more important what politicians, commentators, and those in power believe voters want.
In other words, how we allot credit will determine our lot.
It’s the analysis, stupid.
Bruce Feiler is the bestselling author of seven books, including Life Is in the Transition, The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, and writes the popular newsletter, The Nonlinear Life. his four Ted Talks have been viewed more than five million times.
