A final, comprehensive look at how Trump won in 2024 and how Democrats lost core parts of their coalition [View all]

https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/a-final-comprehensive-look-at-how



Shortly before the July 4 holiday, Pew Research released their long-awaited analysis of the 2024 presidential contest, the final major report that political analysts look to to understand what happened in an election. Pew examined how different populations voted, how their votes shifted, and to what extent they turned out to vote. This report complements Catalist’s “What Happened” analysis and the AP VoteCast survey, and all three tell similar stories about Donald Trump’s victory.

Using an average of all three datasets, we get our clearest picture yet of how the electorate shifted from 2020 to 2024. Trump earned a second term primarily due to gains with groups that have been drifting away from Democrats for several years, most of whom have historically supported the party: young people, racial minorities (especially blacks and Hispanics), men, and lower-income voters. With the publication of Pew’s report, we can now take a deeper dive—using the most comprehensive data available—into the story of the 2024 election and identify some overarching takeaways.



The rightward shift nationally was propelled almost entirely by non-white voters.

Though racial minorities overall supported Kamala Harris, there was a clear move to the right among three populations: blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Black Americans were still one of the most pro-Democratic groups, backing Harris by 68 points (83 percent to 15 percent), but this represented a 14-point rightward swing from just four years earlier, with Trump nearly doubling his vote share from eight percent to 15. The movement was especially pronounced among black men, who shifted toward Trump by more than any other demographic cohort—22 points. And even black women moved right by nine points.

The group that swung by the most along racial or ethnic lines, though, was Hispanics. Longtime TLP readers will know that Democrats have been losing support from Hispanic Americans for some time now, so this development in last year’s election wasn’t exactly surprising. What was more remarkable is that Trump won a greater share of the Hispanic vote than any Republican presidential nominee on record: 45 percent. The result—a mere seven-point advantage for Harris—made Hispanics a true swing group in this last election.

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