Examining the Reasons for Trump's Increased Votes Among Various Segments of American Society

Almost three weeks after the 2024 elections and with the relative counting of all ballots, it has become clear that Donald Trump has made his way back to the White House and will begin his second presidential term. He achieved this success by organizing a nationwide shift in voting patterns towards the right. This shift is observed in most of the 50 states of the U.S., regardless of whether their electoral votes went to Trump or his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris. The main force behind Trump's victory was, of course, the strong support of his followers; however, if the performance of the elected president had not improved among groups inclined to support Democratic candidates, his victory would not have been possible. Trump gained a larger share of votes in parts of the country with high populations of Hispanic and Asian Americans, many of whom seem to have responded to his criticisms of the management of the economy and immigration under Joe Biden's administration. Many areas of the United States with larger Black populations, historically Democratic supporters, saw lower participation compared to previous years, which resulted in greater losses for Kamala Harris. The shift in favor of Trump was evident in the vast majority of communities across the country. Data analysis updated by CNN on November 22 showed that in nearly 9 out of 10 counties across the United States, Trump's share of votes in 2024 improved compared to 2020. "He performed much better," Drew McCoy, head of an organization called Decision Desk HQ that collects election data in the U.S., told Voice of America, noting that Trump's progress among voters was widespread and occurred across several demographic groups. McCoy pointed out that the favorability of the elected president among white voters, Hispanic voters, and Asian American voters has improved, stating, "We definitely have a lot of data on how Trump performed, and overall, he did much better." Meanwhile, despite many predicting a sharp increase in the gender gap favoring Harris, this never materialized. While it seems that female voters firmly supported Harris, McCoy noted that this margin remained "essentially stable" compared to Trump's last two presidential nominations. According to McCoy, "As many people expected, women could not be a decisive factor in the defeat." He added that the change in Hispanic votes, in particular, was significant. For example, in Rio Grande, which is heavily Hispanic and located just north of the shared border with Mexico, Trump's share of the votes increased. In the Miami-Dade area of Florida, where Hillary Clinton won by 30 percent in 2016, Trump won this year by 13 points. Counting of the popular and electoral votes Donald Trump became the first Republican candidate in two decades to win the popular vote. As of November 25, according to Associated Press statistics, Trump received exactly 50 percent of the votes, Harris 48.4 percent, and the rest went to third-party candidates. In total, Americans cast over 151 million votes to determine the presidency, which is about 4 million votes less than in 2020 when Trump lost to Joe Biden. However, Trump received nearly 77 million votes, which is about 3 million more than in 2020. Each state has a specific number of electoral votes that officially elect the president. Each state allocates its votes to candidates based on the public results in that state, with most cases awarding all votes to the winner. Trump needed 270 electoral votes to win. He received 312 or 58 percent of the total available electoral votes. Historically, this is not a large percentage. Many presidents have garnered over 75 percent of the electoral votes. However, in the seven presidential elections held since 2000, only Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 received more than 58 percent of the electoral votes. The swing states In the months leading up to the election, American attention was focused on seven swing states known as "battlegrounds": Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In 2020, Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in all these states except North Carolina. This time, Trump won all of them, in some cases by a larger margin than Biden in 2020. In Arizona, which Biden won in 2020 by just over ten thousand votes, Trump won by nearly two hundred thousand votes. Much of this swing is attributed to the shift of Hispanic voters towards Trump. He significantly reduced Biden's margins, both in Maricopa County, which has greater racial diversity and includes Phoenix, and in heavily Hispanic counties along the southern border of this state with Mexico. In Georgia, Harris's chances of victory depended on increasing her margins in the city of Atlanta and its populous suburbs, which are centers of Democratic support in a reliably Republican state. Ultimately, she failed to do this and won by a smaller margin than Biden in the populous counties of Fulton, Gwinnett, and DeKalb. In Michigan, many similar interactions remained strong across the country, but Harris's performance faced obstacles from the turnout of large voting blocs of Arab Americans in several metropolitan areas. The Biden administration's support for Israel in the ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon angered many Arab Americans and contributed to the government's handover to Trump. In some precincts in the city of Dearborn, where Biden received 88 percent of the votes in 2020, Harris not only lost to Trump but also came in third after Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Betting in Las Vegas In Nevada, 7 out of 10 voters live in Clark County, within and around Las Vegas. Almost 1 in 3 voters in Clark is Hispanic, and this county also has the highest share of Black and Asian American voters in Nevada. Biden defeated Trump here four years ago by more than 9 percent, but Harris won by less than three percent, a difference that seems to be due to the shift of Hispanic and Asian American voters towards the Republican candidate. Democrats may have hoped that the presence of a popular Democratic candidate for governor in North Carolina would give Harris a better chance there. However, Trump improved his score in this state by receiving 51 percent of the votes. One factor that hurt Harris in North Carolina was receiving fewer votes than Biden in majority-Black areas. For instance, in areas like Bertie and Hertford counties, her margin of victory decreased by six and seven percent, respectively. She also performed worse among educated white voters. In Pennsylvania, where Biden topped the list in 2020, Harris had a poor performance. In Philadelphia, she received fifty thousand votes less than Biden did four years prior. Trump gained a much larger share of votes in several communities with a high concentration of Hispanic voters compared to 2020 and remained dominant in the more rural areas of the state. Ultimately, in Wisconsin, Trump won by increasing his total votes in counties across the state. Safe and sound In the days and weeks leading up to the election, there were significant concerns about whether voting would be disrupted in any way. Trump consistently claimed that fraud was likely, and there was also substantial evidence that foreign actors were using social media to create doubts about the safety and health of the electoral process. Additionally, after 2020, when counting votes took several days, there were questions about how long it would take to name a clear winner in several key states. A few weeks after the voting ended, election monitoring groups in the United States told Voice of America that, in terms of management, this election was a complete success. David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, called this election a "victory for public service." He stated, "The election was ultimately safe and secure, even with a vast amount of misinformation, even with fake broadcasts from foreign adversaries like Russia, even with bomb threats and incendiary devices in several boxes in the Pacific Northwest. Everything was controlled, and largely everything went very well." Becker added, "We had clear results, and the media announced the winner less than 12 hours after the polls closed... There were no challenges regarding the certification of the results, and this was a remarkable success by professional people conducting elections across the country." Mark Lindeman, director of policy and strategy at Verified Voting, an organization that works to ensure responsible use of technology in elections, agreed with this assessment. Lindeman stated, "The 2024 elections were conducted very smoothly and efficiently, thanks to the high preparedness and hard work of election officials." He noted, "Over the past eight years since 2016, the entire country has worked to understand the cybersecurity issues related to elections, and both the level of training and the level of resources have significantly improved." 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