There was a little bit of deja vu after this week’s US election when Donald Trump defeated a Democrat candidate seeking to become the first female US president.
When he won against Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump defied expectations. Predictions ahead of that election had ranged from a likely to an almost certain loss for Trump. This time the polls had predicted a much closer race. In the end, Trump was the clear winner.
Despite facing several court cases, some of which may soon be dismissed, Trump is back, only the second president after Grover Cleveland to have non-consecutive terms in office. Trump will return to the White House in January to be sworn in.
Key shifts in who the electorate supported, identified in exit poll data between defeat in 2020 and triumph in 2024, may show what happened, and who voted for the Trump ticket, and contributed to his second victory.
Race as a factor
First, there is some evidence that Trump attracted more ethnic minority voters than during his previous win. In the build up to the election, there were a number of reports about how polling cross tabs (reports used to compare side-by-side data) were showing a swing towards Trump among black voters.
However, on the day, the real improvement for Trump among minority voters was with Latinos, who constituted 12% of the voting population. If taken as a group, the overall Latino population rose from 13% of the population in 2000 to 19% in 2021 (Although it should be noted that this is an umbrella term for people from disparate backgrounds with differing political traditions.) According to exit polls, Trump’s numbers among Latino voters improved from 28% in 2016 to 32% in 2020 and then to 46% in 2024.
Harris did better among white voters than Clinton in 2016, and the same as Biden. Clinton received 37% of the white vote, Biden 41% and Harris also did 41%. The Clinton number was deflated by a slightly higher third-party vote in 2016, but white voters still make up 70% of the electorate, so these margins matter.
If all of these figures hold up under further scrutiny it could upend assumptions that minority groups are natural supporters of the Democratic party. In the longer term, whatever your views on the 2024 election result, a decline in voting patterns defined by race seem a healthy trend for US democracy.
Was there a gender gap?
Second, the gender gap was quite different to the predictions. In the pre-election conversation, this was often framed in terms of Harris’s lead among women. This was understandable given the focus on reproductive rights as an election issue and the Trump-Vance ticket’s at times open chauvinism (see, for example, Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies”), but Trump’s advantage among men was equally noteworthy.
According to the NBC exit poll men and women divided to a similar degree. This ended up with 55% of men voting for Trump and 53% of women for Harris. These initial numbers, however, were disappointing for Harris. Clinton had won 54% of the women’s vote on her way to defeat and Harris’s number was a decline from Biden’s 57% in 2020.
The gender gap becomes even starker when it crossed with vote by race and ethnicity. The numbers also reveal that white women, often the biggest identifiable demographic group of voters, vote for Republican candidates for president. The Harris camp put a huge effort into reversing this trend, but came up short, despite some encouraging pre-election polls.
Harris won fewer young voters than Biden
One stereotype is that younger voters tend to be more leftwing. But that is historically simplistic.
In 1984, voters aged 18-24 were more or just as likely to vote for Republican Ronald Reagan over Democrat Walter Mondale than other voters under 65. Around 61% of this younger age group voted for Reagan, and only 39% for Mondale.
However, both Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden had beaten Trump handily among younger voters. Clinton won 56% of voters aged 18-24 and Biden had improved that number to 60%. Harris, however, slipped back to Clinton’s 56%. On the other hand, belying another age-based stereotype Harris was level with Trump among voters 65 and over (49% Harris, 49% Trump), improving on the performance of her two Democratic predecessors.
These shifts may reflect a reinforcement of previous trajectories rather than surprising new twists. An added caveat is that conclusions are still speculative and based on exit polls, which include large, but not extensive, samples of the population. The CNN poll, for instance, sampled 22,900 voters. Nonetheless, they do offer a tantalising glimpse of where the nation is headed for future elections. Whether the 2024 outcome is an aberration or part of a long-term pattern is not yet clear.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
