Dr. Shaher Zakaria
As I had predicted in my last column, Donald Trump won the 2024 U.S. presidential elections in a landslide. The writing was on the wall, marking a historical comeback for the former president. President elect Trump will return to the White House four years after losing the 2020 elections, facing two presidential impeachments, a criminal conviction, several assassination attempts, and other criminal charges. He will become only the second president to win two nonconsecutive presidential terms after Grover Cleveland. At 78, Trump is projected to also be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency. Moreover, Trump ran the table and won all seven battleground swing states in a clean sweep. Trump has also become the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years.
President Trump managed to win the elections by addressing the issues that are spoken about around kitchen tables across America. Many factors divide voter demographics, however one of the major factors that divided how the elections went, hence how voters voted, were college educated versus non college educated voters. Many feel that the Democratic party has become filled with elitists focused on woke and identity politics stemming from an academic bubble of liberals. Many believe that instead of focusing on the average American voter, turning to more populist ideas, and the issues that truly matter for those voters, Democrats have increasingly become more focused on pronouns and cancel culture. One of the most effective political campaign ads during this election cycle of Trump was that Harris is more focused on they them while he is more focused on you.
Trump gained the support of 1 in 3 voters of color, possibly the best performance of a Republican presidential candidate since George W. Bush in his 2004 re-election effort. The man who started his political career by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists won 45 percent of the Latino vote, which marked a striking shift of Latino voters into the Republican side compared with 2020. According to exit polls, Democrats’ vote margin with Latinos fell by 26 points to just a 53 percent-to-45-percent margin.
Another factor which favored Trump was his final appeal amongst Americans who are less attached to politics and elections. First-time voters went for Trump, 54%-45%. That is a significant change from four years ago, when new voters strongly favored Biden, 64%-32%. However, the two most substantial factors that were behind Trump’s landslide victory were inflation and immigration respectively. Trump’s message on inflation resonated with voters. Inflation was one of the top concerns for voters, and no doubt it is one of the most pressing, relevant, and visible problems in their lives as they are constantly being reminded of it on a weekly basis at the gas stations and grocery stores. Among voters who considered inflation to be the number one issue facing the country, Trump led 79 percent to 20 percent according to the exit polls. Americans have continued to be bothered by higher than pre-pandemic prices and lack of affordable housing. The Federal Reserve did not do the American people any favors by raising interest rates on borrowing, which directly meant more expensive borrowing for things like mortgages and car loans.
Men favored Trump in these elections 54%-44% including young men. Trump expanded his coalition to include white voters, blue collar workers, some unions such as the steel worker union in Pennsylvania and the Border Patrol Union, Arab and Muslim Americans, Jewish Americans, and Latino voters that was driven by men. In fact, Trump won men in every age group, and Harris was unable to win a large enough share of women to offset Trump’s gains. Women were 53% of the electorate, which was up a point from 2020, However Harris won a majority of women, and nevertheless she only won 53% of women down from Biden’s 57%.
As revealed, the writing of Trump’s victory was on the wall. Here’s some numbers. The voter turnout slightly was in favor of Republicans as registered Republicans were more than registered Democrats 34%-33% while the remaining 32% were unaffiliated. Furthermore, from April to September Trump branded merchandise on amazon sold $140 million compared to $26 million of Harris. Additionally, Trump chose to go on many podcasts to get his message out, his appearance for three hours with Joe Rogan garnered close to 50 million views, more than Harris interviews combined, while Harris chose to bring in celebrities to rally the crowds even though they did not preform any songs for her crowds that were left disappointed. Other factors were Harris’s running mate as vice president, Tim Walz, who was not the best choice for her, Biden calling Trump supporters garbage and nazis while calling Trump himself a fascist and linking him to Hitler, the enthusiasm gap that was felt at rallies favoring Trump over Harris, Bobby Kennedy who is a lifelong Democrat switching to campaign for Trump along with Tulsi Gabbard, and lastly the way Harris was picked to run for president. The Democratic convention chose Harris without any primaries in an undemocratic method while asserting that they are the ones who protect democracy against Trump in the United States. I believe if there the primaries were held during the Democratic convention some candidates would have beaten Harris and would’ve had a better chance in beating Trump head-to-head. On the other hand, for the past six months European stocks have dipped following fears of a Trump victory that they detected was very possible. Trump had vowed to impose a 10% tariff on imports from all countries and said the EU would have to pay a lot for not buying enough American exports. The EU has also feared that Trump could possibly halt approvals for offshore wind projects.
On the other hand, there has been a major shift in party identification in the past couple of years. Here’s some more numbers. The year 2022 saw a shift in party identification, followed by 2023, with 43 percent of the voters leaning towards the Democratic Party, while 45% percent for the Republican party. This goes along with the public’s confidence in which political party they trusted for protecting them from external threats from 2005 – 2023.
According to these numbers, it is evident that Democrats have some soul searching to do and have to abandon an identify politics, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) organizational frameworks, elitists mentality, and cancel culture. Instead, they need to get back to populist ideas that will have a true impact on the average American voter if they were to have any hopes of competing and winning any future presidential elections.
Dr. Shaher Zakaria is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Lusail University.
Dr. Shaher Zakaria is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Lusail University – Doha, Qatar.
