There has been much discussion about how the election results represent a major realignment or “mandate” for President Trump’s policies. Available evidence does not support such a notion.
Once all votes are fully counted, it looks like Trump will win the popular vote. 1.5 points each Seven battleground states have margins of 1 to 4 points. This is not the kind of landslide victory often seen in redistricting elections (e.g., 1932 or 1980) in which large blocks of voters shift from one party to another. In fact, this is a narrower victory than President Bush in 2004 or President Obama in 2012. Few would argue that either of these victories were due to restructuring or devolution. In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by a larger margin (about 4.5 percentage points), and the electoral college margin was about the same (306 for Biden in 2020, 312 for Trump this year). For those keeping score, I wrote at the time that Biden didn’t even have a mandate. Trump’s popular vote margin may actually be a little smaller than Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 (yes, obviously, she lost in the Electoral College).
The House and Senate results are consistent with the above. Republicans would only have a slim House majority, likely about 220-215. Despite a highly favorable map, Republicans only gained four seats in the Senate, and even though Trump won all five of the top vote-getting states, they won four of the five battleground Senate races. He actually lost the seat.
all over the world, big backlash Against incumbents due to inflation/rise in prices. As I mentioned in my pre-election post, this was standard “retroactive voting” (punishing an incumbent in a perceived bad situation), and it weighed heavily on Democrats. All others who faced elections have lost or are on the verge of losing. In fact, the Democratic Party far outperformed these background conditions by only losing by a narrow margin.
It is true that there has been a larger shift in voting among Hispanics than in other regions. According to exit polls, Trump appears to have lost by Just about 53-45 (some voting data show weak performance for Trump). But that means he got about the same share of the Hispanic vote… George W. Bush, 2004–The last time the Republican Party ran a presidential campaign against such extremely favorable background conditions.
It has also long been clear that Hispanic identity is highly fluid and diverse, and that this group is therefore less politically monolithic than, say, blacks. Many second and third generation Hispanics Survey doesn’t even identify as “Hispanic” or Latino. There is a possibility that the competition for Republicans to win over Hispanic votes will intensify in the future. But even that will be something of a continuation of an existing trend. This fluidity of the Hispanic vote undermines the legitimacy of the hopes of both left and right to build a dominant coalition based on “woke” identity politics. Delusions about “great alternatives”.
The election results are a blow to those (including myself!) who were hoping that Kamala Harris would be able to overcome the odds and win thanks to President Trump’s awfulness and the MAGA movement in general. I know it’s unfortunate. These factors did But it will likely help keep the election close. Democrats only lost by a narrow margin, not a disaster like most other incumbent parties hit by post-pandemic inflation and price increases.
The narrow margin of victory and the key role of anti-incumbent economic “retroactive” voting also suggests that President Trump has a “mandate” for his policies, in the sense that the election shows strong support from a majority of the public. It undermines the claim that it has. Pre-election Policy survey data In fact, it shows that most of his policies were actually less popular than those of the Democratic Party.
Some political scientists reject the whole concept of delegationclaim that this idea is incoherent and unsupported by evidence. I myself have long argued that the popularity of a policy says little about whether it is right or just. Many good policies are deeply unpopular, and sometimes terrible policies win majority support. Consider, for example, the nation’s widespread support for slavery and racism throughout most of its history. Therefore, I would oppose many of Trump’s policies, whether he has a “mission” or not. But for those who believe that obligations exist, and who place more normative weight on them than I do, it is noteworthy that there was no such obligation in this election.
None of this proves that Democrats have the best issues or that Kamala Harris is a good candidate. Neither is true. they are do Some hold unpopular positions (e.g. on various “woke” issues). And Harris certainly had his share of flaws. But the same is true for the Republican Party and Trump (unusually for a winning presidential candidate, Trump has a very negative approval rating) There are about 8 points in the water). Without the inflation and price increases mentioned above, Democrats would have won relatively easily, despite their very real weaknesses on some issues.
In post-election analysis, it is common for commentators to say that losing parties would do better if they adopted more of the commentators’ own positions. It’s not me! I am very aware that there are many unpopular opinions. I wrote it book This explains why political ignorance and prejudice lead the majority of voters to take terribly wrong positions on many issues. There and elsewhere, I emphasized the kind of flawed “retroactive voting” that played a large role in the Democratic defeats mentioned above (blaming incumbents even if they did not cause the poor conditions; bad, such as voting for policies that might make the situation worse; Due to President Trump’s tariff and immigration policies, (with price).
I freely admit that a political party running on a platform that incorporates all my opinions will be destroyed. But that fact does not prove that 2024 was a mandate or a realignment.
