2024 U.S. Elections Results: How Did Trump Win?

The most asked question globally about the 2024 U.S. election is “How Did Trump Win?”

The answer is, the Trump campaign did exactly what they said they would do: they got low information, low engagement male voters to the polls. As a result, the vote shifted to the right.

If we compare the Trump vs. Biden election of 2020 to the Trump vs. Harris election of 2024, the shift is clear.

First, Trump received 55% of male voters, while Harris received 42%. In 2020, Biden received 45% of male voters, while Trump received 53%. Trump increased his margin by 2% and Harris received 3% fewer male votes than Biden. In all, there was a 5% shift.

Similarly, while Harris won women, she won it by less than Biden did in 2020. In fact, Harris won the women vote by 4% less than Biden, while Trump increased his share of the vote by 3%. The shift was 7%.

Harris did well with white voters, and although Democrats lost the white vote, the question is by “how much” will Democrats lose white voters? Harris’ gain over Biden’s vote was 2% and Trump decreased his vote share by 3%.

But the biggest shift was among Latino voters. Latinos make up 12% of the overall vote. Trump increased his support among Latino men by 19% and among Latino women by 8%.  Trump also increased his support among Black men from 19% in 2020 to 21% in 2024.

Finally, Trump made inroads with young people. In 2020, Biden won both ages 18-29 men and women by 52% — 41% men and 67% — 32% women. Harris did not fare as well. She lost men to Trump, 47% – 49% and did not win young women by as high a margin as Biden did in 2020. Harris’ margin was 61% – 37%.

These numbers tell the story of how Trump won. Why he won is also clear. The economy was on the ballot and 68% of all voters said the economy was either not good or poor. Twenty-two percent of all voters said inflation caused a severe hardship on their household and 51% said it caused a moderate hardship. Who voted for Trump also explains why he won. Over 50% of Trump’s voters came from those whose family income was less than $100,000. Contrast this with President Biden in 2020 who won those votes by 57%.

Finally, was the 2024 election a landslide? No. We have had landslides in U.S. history. For example, in 1984 President Reagan won 49 states, 58.8% of the popular vote, and the Electoral College result was 525 to 13. Similarly, in 1972 President Nixon won 60.7% of the popular vote, 48 states, and the Electoral College 520-17. Contrast these landslides with the results of the 2024 election. Trump won 76.4 million votes to Harris’ 73.8 million. The difference is 2.6 million votes, about 1.2% margin. The election was close. And even the Electoral College was not a Reagan-style landslide: The final tally was Trump’s 312 to Harris’ 226.

This close election is also reflected in the United States Congress. While the Republicans have control of the House of Representatives, it remains close with Republicans at 218 seats to Democrats’ 212 seats, with five seats left to call. In the Senate, it is 52 Republicans to 47 Democrats, with one seat, Pennsylvania, in a re-count. Two Senate seats will have to be filled, those of JD Vance in Ohio and Marco Rubio in Florida. The Governors of each state will fill the vacancy with an appointment and a special election will be held.

In the House, there will be three special elections: one to fill Representative Matt Gaetz’s seat, who resigned, while the other two seats will be filled once they are confirmed by the Senate for Trump administration appointments. Regardless of the outcome of the five House races, Republicans may only hold 218 seats in the House for the near future.