Republicans have won full control of both Congress and the White House. Donald Trump will return to Washington, D.C., as the first Republican president since 2004 to have won the national popular vote, ironically by almost the same margin that Hillary Clinton beat him by in 2016. These GOP victories relied on high pro-Trump voter turnout in all seven swing states, increased pro-Trump turnout even in blue states, and a dramatic increase in GOP support among Hispanic Americans and Latino men. Democrats, meanwhile, showed up to vote in levels more reminiscent of their 2016 campaigns, falling far short of their historic turnout for Joe Biden in the 2020 elections.
Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor John Fortier reviews the U.S. 2024 election results and concludes that America may be witnessing the birth of a new, broader and more nationally inclusive Republican coalition.
Be the first to know when The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) publishes a new opinion! Download the Straight Arrow News app and enable push notifications today!
The following is an excerpt from the above video:
The path for Kamala Harris lay in winning the three “Blue Wall” states, and thus a razor-thin majority in the Electoral College, while the path for Donald Trump was to win one of those Blue Wall states to clinch a victory.
In the end, Donald Trump performed a couple of points better than the public polling showed, winning the popular vote rather than losing it narrowly, and winning all seven swing states, most of them by a couple of percentage points more than the polls showed. Arizona and Nevada moved toward Trump even a bit more than that. So, in the areas that had the most focus and mattered the most for winning, Donald Trump performed a couple of points better than the public data showed.
But in another sense, Donald Trump and Republicans performed much better than anyone anticipated. In states that were less consequential for the presidential outcome, Trump had many impressive gains. Compared to 2020, Donald Trump improved his performance by above or near 10 percentage points in Republican states like Texas and Florida. He had similarly large performance improvements in democratic states like New York and New Jersey, where Democrats still won, but by much less than in 2020.
And some of the gains heralded what may be a new Republican coalition with working-class Hispanics and, to a lesser extent, African Americans moving towards Republicans. In Miami-Dade County, the share of the Republican vote in the Presidential election went from 34% in 2016 to 46% in 2020 to 55% in 2024, and along the Texas-Mexico border, Trump won all but two of the heavily Hispanic and traditionally Democratic counties.
These large gains did not have a significant effect on the swing states that were key to victory, but if Republicans are able to replicate these gains in future elections, this may sew a broader coalition that could contribute to future victories.