In the days leading up to election night, news outlets across the country, including NPR, predicted a historically close race — one that could take days to call.
But as Tuesday night progressed, it was clear that former President Donald Trump was headed for victory. And early on Wednesday morning the results were called.
With a race that was expected to be historically tight behind us, the question is: How did Trump win so decisively?
All things considered hosts Juana Summers and Mary Louise Kelly unpack this with two seasoned political strategists, Democrat Anna Greenberg and Republican Sarah Longwell, who hit on four big themes.
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1. The big gender gap didn’t really materialize
Mary Louise Kelly: I want to go over who elected Trump and what issues drove them. Let’s start with women. Anna, early indication was that women would show up in high numbers. The idea was that it would help Harris. It didn’t. What happened?
Anna Greenberg: First of all, I think we, like a lot of people, myself included, got a little bit ahead of our skis in the early voting, where you actually saw a pretty significant gap in voter turnout between men and women, suggesting that there would be an even greater gender differences than is normal in turnout. And it turned out that wasn’t the case – 53% of voters were women, which is pretty standard, and there was a gender gap, but it wasn’t as big as many predicted. And so Harris won 53% of women, while Trump won 55% of men, and that clearly wasn’t enough.
Kelly: So Sarah, jump in on this, and your take on the so-called gender gap, which didn’t quite materialize. Does that tell us that women voters weren’t as excited about reproductive rights, about the issue of abortion, as everyone thought they were?
Sarah Longwell: Yes. I also think it was just, look — it was the economy. I do focus groups all the time, and I always start them by asking people, “How do you think things are going in the country?” And for years now, people have been saying they don’t think it’s going well. Inflation has killed them. You know, they’re frustrated about immigration. And so Dobbs the effect was only minimized. And I think women, they obviously did some damage to Harris, but it was nowhere near the scale she needed to make up for the fact that the Democrats did poorly with men of all races, and the bottom fell on Hispanics. . They really needed white women to make up for those numbers, and they didn’t.
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2. Latino voters moved toward Trump
Juana Summers: I want to talk about Latino voters, because an NBC News poll showed that Trump won Latino voters by 25%. Particularly interesting were Latino men. So Sarah, do we have a sense of what it is about Trump’s message that is driving such seemingly overwhelming support for this particular group?
Longwell: Yes. When I do focus groups with Hispanic voters, they sound just like white voters who vote for Trump. There has been very little difference. And they tend to be very hawkish on immigration. They too cite the economy as the main issue, hit hard by inflation. And then there are also certain cultural elements. A lot of it is just that they don’t like the more identitarian politics of the Democratic Party. They tend to reject it. And they’ve been breaking culturally more and more for the Republicans for a while now. And then the bottom really fell out this election cycle.
Summers: Anna, let me take you in here. I mean, this is a group that has traditionally supported Democrats. I’ll just note that Vice President Harris followed President Biden’s 2020 numbers with this group. Explain to us what you see here. Why is the party losing support?
Greenberg: Well, I think there’s been a shift in the Hispanic electorate that’s been going on for some time. Because as the population grows and more and more Hispanic voters are born in the United States, are native English speakers, consume more English – almost exclusively English-language media – they begin to operate politically just like everyone else, right? And as the population grows in that segment in particular, the expectation, just like historically, is that Irish immigrants, Italian immigrants, Polish, would assimilate and be like everybody else. So in some ways, from a demographic standpoint, it’s not that much of a surprise. And Hillary Clinton also underperformed among Hispanic voters. And I think Democrats need to think of this, in a way, as the new normal, and start thinking differently about how you reach Hispanic voters. In particular, understanding the differences in population, in communities, from state to state, from region to region, generationally, language, even country of origin.
3. The economy was *the topic of conversation
Kelly: Let me just park us for a moment on the economy. I want you both to listen to what we heard from a Michigan voter earlier this week. This is Michael Gee, he talked about how he sees the difference between the economy now and the economy under President Trump:
Sarah Longwell, Did Trump’s victory really boil down to something like the price of eggs?
Longwell: I actually think yes, that’s one of the biggest factors, and we heard it all the time in the groups. And actually I think it’s sometimes hard for people in big cities to understand how price sensitive these voters are. When I do focus groups with voters, and this is one of the reasons I think the Democrats underperformed with young people, people know exactly how much milk costs. They know exactly how much eggs cost. They are very sensitive to the gas price. In the inflationary environment that we had after COVID-19, this has brought down incumbents worldwide. Incumbents are losing at a rapid rate in this post-COVID environment because inflation is something that really ends presidential elections.
Kelly: Although we know, Anna, that inflation has mostly returned to something like normal levels. So why didn’t it resonate?
Greenberg: Right. And incomes are up, and the stock market is doing well, all these things. First, I agree with Sarah, but I think it also more broadly suggested that this was a failed administration. And if you look at Joe Biden’s job approval numbers and his favorability, (it was) obviously incredibly low and remained incredibly low even after we saw the shift in the ticket. His numbers didn’t improve. And in many ways this was a change choice. And so I think the inflationary pressure and the sense that it came from the Biden administration was part of a vote for change.
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4. A national “shift to the right” is open to interpretation
Summers: Sarah, I just have one big picture question for you. We saw Trump win big on Tuesday night. He made gains in nearly every demographic. You look at a map, it looks pretty red. One could guess that the whole country is turning right. Is that so?
Longwell: It is, and it’s not just the swing states. Places like Illinois, New Jersey – they all saw swings to the right. But I don’t know that that necessarily means that the country is becoming more conservative, per se. I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that people were really frustrated with the economy. It was a widespread situation. You know, the fact that there was so much movement in states where they didn’t have advertising, they didn’t get out the vote operations that the swing states were, indicates that there was a massive macro frustration with the Biden administration and the economy and immigration that led the country to one way dismissed Kamala Harris as someone who was seen as the incumbent.
Kelly: Anna Greenberg, the Democrats have lost the White House. They have lost the Senate. We don’t yet know where the house will land. Are Democrats ready to change their message, to do the work to change who feels they belong in the Democratic Party?
Greenberg: Well, I think that’s a huge question that’s hard to answer, especially the day after the election. I think there’s definitely going to be soul-searching, and there’s going to be, you know, an autopsy, just like there was for the Republicans in 2012. But I think when you’re a party that represents a diverse coalition — racially and regionally, in terms of education level — the notion that you can turn a dime and say, “well, I’m just going to talk about things that men care about, and hopefully I’ll win an election.” is not really how it works. And I don’t mean that Democrats have a wonderful message for men. I’m not even suggesting that all men are actually a good target for the Democratic Party. The Republican advantage in terms of message is its homogeneity, and the Democratic advantage in its diversity is both that it’s largely representative, but also much more challenging for this, what I think is a minority, homogenous set of voters, even though Trump obviously won the referendum.
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