Donald Trump received each the Electoral Faculty and the favored vote within the 2024 presidential election. In reality, Trump this yr turned solely the second Republican to win the favored vote since 1988.
The overwhelming majority of counties noticed their margins shift in Trump’s direction, each in locations the place Republicans traditionally do effectively and locations the place Democrats generally have an edge.
On the similar time, Trump’s margins – each in uncooked votes and percentages – had been small by historic requirements, even for the previous quarter century, when shut elections have been the rule, together with the 2000 Florida recount election and Trump’s earlier two races in 2016 and 2020.
Trump’s victory got here with out a huge enhance for down-ballot Republicans. The present slender margin within the Home of Representatives is poised to stay, and Democrats received 4 Senate races in key battleground states whilst Vice President Kamala Harris misplaced these states to Trump.
Throughout his election evening victory get together, Trump declared that “America has given us an unprecedented and highly effective mandate.”
However Wayne Steger, a DePaul College political scientist, mentioned the election delivered combined indicators.
“Inflation, immigration, some proof of backlash in opposition to Democrats on identification politics, crime, training, and a public temper shifting in a conservative path all urged a Republican win,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, “I’m inclined to view it as a detailed election through which there was sufficient anti-Democratic sentiment to hold the day.”
Right here’s how Trump’s victory sizes up in opposition to different current presidential elections:
Causes for Trump to name it an enormous victory
Trump received all seven of this yr’s battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris, in contrast, fared worse in these states than President Joe Biden did 4 years earlier.
Trump’s margins of victory in these seven states had been wider – simply – than the margins of the seven closest states within the 2020 Trump-Biden election, and each shut presidential contest this century.
Together with votes counted by means of November 19, Trump’s collective margin on this yr’s seven battleground states was about 760,000. By comparability, the 2000 election between George W Bush and Al Gore – which the Supreme Court docket determined after a weeklong Florida recount – produced collective margins of about 46,000 within the seven closest states, or about one-sixteenth as a lot as in 2024.
Trump additionally carried out effectively by historic requirements for somebody working in opposition to the White Home-occupying get together. Going again to 1932, solely six different candidates from the out-of-power get together have taken as giant a share of the vote as Trump’s close to 50 %. The others notching the next proportion had been Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980, Barack Obama in 2008 and Biden in 2020.
Trump’s margin of victory within the Electoral Faculty – 312 out of 538 – was nowhere close to the landslide wins of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Richard Nixon in 1972 or Reagan in 1984. However it was greater than 4 of the seven elections this century, together with Biden’s 4 years earlier.
The place Trump’s victory seems to be traditionally small
Different metrics, nevertheless, present Trump’s victory was slender.
Measured each by vote percentages and uncooked votes, Trump’s margin of victory is modest, even in contrast with this century’s different shut elections.
For votes counted by means of November 20, Trump’s margin over Harris was 1.62 %. That’s smaller than any winner since Bush in 2000, when the margin was 0.51 %. Going again additional, solely John F Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon in 1968 received the favored vote by smaller margins, 0.17 % and 0.7 %, respectively.
Utilizing uncooked votes, Trump’s margin was additionally smaller than in any election going again to 2000. At about 2.5 million, it was the fifth-smallest well-liked vote margin since 1960.
In each proportion and uncooked votes, Trump’s margin is on tempo to be lower than half of what Biden achieved 4 years earlier.
In the meantime, there’s ample proof that Trump’s robust efficiency on the prime of the ticket didn’t enhance down-ballot candidates a lot.
Of the seven battleground states, 5 additionally held Senate races and one had a gubernatorial contest. The Republican candidate received Pennsylvania’s Senate race, however the Democrat received the Senate races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, and the gubernatorial contest in North Carolina. In North Carolina, Democrats additionally received the races for lieutenant governor, lawyer normal, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction and had been narrowly main in a state Supreme Court docket race.
As the ultimate handful of races are known as, the US Home is poised to finish up at or close to its margin from the earlier two years, producing a Republican margin that’s slender by historic requirements. Within the state legislatures, Republicans gained solely modestly in chamber management, whereas Democrats made inroads in different legislatures.
“Trump’s victory was strong and convincing,” mentioned Barry Burden, a College of Wisconsin political scientist. Nonetheless, “the 2024 elections weren’t a normal endorsement of the Republican Get together. Many Republicans down poll didn’t carry out in addition to Trump.”
To this point this century, elections have been not solely shut, however have flipped backwards and forwards between the events. Since 2000, management of the presidency, the Senate or the Home has flipped 16 occasions in 13 election cycles.
If this sample holds, the Democrats might be well-positioned for the 2026 midterms and maybe the 2028 presidential race.
“Voters have been sad with the state of the nation,” mentioned Jack Pitney, a Claremont McKenna Faculty political scientist. “Until Trump creates an abrupt change within the nationwide temper, Democrats have a great probability at a profitable 2026 midterm.”