President-elect Donald Trump surprised Democrats this week by winning at least five battleground states and the popular vote, securing a decisive victory in the Electoral College.
Here’s a closer look at some of the numbers behind Trump’s improved performance across racial and gender lines and how changing voter turnout played a role in Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss.
With some votes still being counted in Arizona and Nevada, approximately 17 million fewer people voted in 2024 than in the 2020 election. The decline appears largely due to lower Democratic turnout. Federal Election Commission data shows that 158,429,631 people voted in 2020—a historic high spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, with mail-in and early voting strongly promoted by Democrats. In that election, Trump received roughly 74.2 million votes, while Biden secured 81.2 million. Four years later, over 140 million ballots were cast, with Trump receiving more than 72.7 million votes to Harris’s 68.1 million, as Republicans pushed early voting.
Low enthusiasm among Democrats hit Harris hard in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which were critical in determining the election’s outcome, and Trump flipped them all. Meanwhile, self-identified independent voter turnout reached a record high, surpassing Democrats and matching Republicans. Trump’s share among independents rose by 4 percentage points from 2020, according to Edison Research exit polls.
In Pennsylvania, Harris was warned she needed to excel in Philadelphia to secure the state but received about 50,000 fewer votes than Biden did in 2020, while Trump gained more support in the Democratic stronghold than any recent Republican candidate. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Harris also fell short of Biden’s 2020 numbers, while Trump’s support among black voters in Wisconsin nearly tripled, rising from 8% in 2020 to 22%.
In Michigan, a sharp increase in Arab American support for Trump, particularly in Muslim-majority areas, contributed to his success. In Hamtramck, a city with a Muslim mayor who endorsed Trump, his support jumped from 13.4% in 2020 to 42.7%.
Trump also made gains with Hispanic voters, seeing a 14-point rise nationwide over 2020, per exit polls. Nowhere was this shift more evident than in Starr County, Texas, a predominantly Hispanic area. Trump, who lost the county by 60 points in 2016, won it by 16 points this time. Similarly, he improved with black voters nationwide by 5 percentage points from 2020, according to CNN exit polls. This shift in black and Hispanic support in Democratic-leaning cities like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit likely tipped the scales in these key states.
Harris’s support among women also declined, with her advantage shrinking from Biden’s 15-point margin in 2020 to just 10 points, as reported by CNN exit polls.
In his victory speech early Wednesday, Trump credited his win to “the biggest, the broadest, the most unified coalition” in U.S. history. “They came from all quarters—union, non-union, African American, Hispanic American,” he told supporters. “We had everybody, and it was beautiful.”
A significant factor in Trump’s victory was his focus on working-class concerns, resonating with voters across racial and gender lines who were frustrated by inflation and border policies. In October, Trump’s campaign released an ad suggesting Harris prioritized niche, progressive issues over working-class concerns. The ad targeted her stance on transgender rights for inmates and allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports, concluding with, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
The Trump campaign and allies spent at least $17 million on this and similar ads, airing them over 30,000 times by October 19, according to NPR. Between October 7 and October 20, GOP groups invested approximately $95 million in these messages, surpassing ad spending on housing, immigration, and the economy combined, as reported by PBS. This high-stakes strategy paid off, resonating with female, Latino, and black voters, ultimately shifting the race 2.7 percentage points in Trump’s favor, per a New York Times report.
Adding to Harris’s struggles, reports indicate her campaign is facing $20 million in debt, despite having $118 million on hand as of October 16. Politico and Breitbart News reported the financial issues, but the Harris campaign has yet to deny them. The Washington Examiner reached out for comment but received no response at the time of publication.
