By James Oliphant
(Reuters) – Republican Donald Trump was on the verge of a convincing win over Democrat Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election, avenging his own loss to President Joe Biden four years ago.
How did Trump pull it off? He had the fortune of running when Americans were frustrated by high prices and, to a lesser extent, illegal immigration across the U.S. southern border.
Those were Trump’s signature issues, ones that proved to be anvils that weighed down Vice President Harris’ candidacy. The result was a quicker-than-expected set of returns that placed Trump on the cusp of securing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.
Here are some takeaways from the exit polls and results:
TOUGH SLEDDING
The national exit poll of voters conducted by Edison Research underscored what public opinion surveys had long shown: Voters are in a bad mood and have been for some time.
Three-fourths of voters surveyed by Edison said the country was going in a negative direction. Of those voters, 61% went for Trump. Of the voters who called themselves “angry,” 71% backed the Republican.
Voters who said the economy was their top concern broke 79% to 20% for Trump, according the poll.
Voters who believe abortion should be a legal procedure in most instances surprisingly only backed Harris 51% to 47%, suggesting Trump’s efforts to blur his position may have partially negated one of her largest advantages.
Trump said he opposed a federal abortion ban but that states are free to pass laws as restricted or unrestricted as they choose. He also became a vocal advocate for having insurers cover the cost of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatments.
Perhaps most notably for Harris, the three-fourths of voters who said they felt U.S. democracy was “threatened” split their vote evenly between the two candidates.
While Democrats have pointed to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as proof of his authoritarian tendencies, Trump has argued he was a target for politically minded prosecutors in the Biden administration.
TREND LINESAs the evening progressed, Harris and Trump each prevailed in the early states they had been expected to win. Trump’s lead in electoral votes continued to build.
Edison Research projected Trump would win the battleground states of Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, while Fox News projected Trump to be the winner of the election. Other news organizations had not yet called the election.
As Trump drew near to an official victory, there were some emerging trends that helped illustrate how he did it.
Though many blocs of voters were supporting the Democratic or Republican candidate in similar numbers to 2020, according to the exit polls, Trump was showing greater strength with male voters of color and with voters under 45 compared to four years ago.
He also appeared to be holding onto enough women supporters in America’s suburbs to prevail despite Harris’ best attempts to pull them away. The national exit poll showed Trump with a 51% to 47% edge with suburban white women voters.
VOTERS OF COLOR
The Trump campaign put a great deal of effort into persuading Black and Latino voters to defect from the Democratic Party – and there were some indications those efforts paid off.
In North Carolina, exit polls showed Trump boosting his share of the Black vote to 12%, from 5% in 2020. He garnered the support of 20% of Black male voters, the poll said.
According to the Edison national poll, Trump’s support among Latino male voters jumped 18 percentage points from four years ago.
Trump was up 11 percentage points with Latino voters in Nevada, according to the poll, and up 4 points in Arizona from four years ago. He was on track to do as well or better than Republican President George W. Bush did 20 years ago, when Bush garnered 44% of Hispanic voters.
Trump was projected to win in North Carolina despite exit polls showing a 5-point slide in support among white voters compared with four years ago.
In Pennsylvania, Trump’s support among white voters dropped 3 percentage points compared with four years ago, Edison said – and his support was down 4 points among white male voters.
But he was able to make up for that drop in support by picking up voters of color.
A GENDER GAP?
Harris’ campaign was looking to exploit a large gender gap in the electorate, with the hope that legions of women voters would flock to the vice president because of issues such as abortion rights.
But Trump seemed to hold onto the support of at least white women voters, according to exit polls. Black women overwhelmingly supported Harris.
In Pennsylvania, Trump was maintaining close to the same level of support among white women voters that he enjoyed in 2020. That was also true in Georgia.
Trump’s campaign, conversely, paid significant attention to pulling in male voters, particularly young men, through social media, sports, podcasts and online gaming.
National exit polls showed Harris picking up less support among women – 54% – than Biden did in 2020 when he received 57%.
AN AGE GAP
The national exit poll showed Trump slightly edging Harris among men between the ages of 18 and 44 and beating her solidly with men 45 and up.
In Michigan and Wisconsin, Trump was up 5 percentage points with overall voters under 45 compared with four years ago. In Nevada, he jumped 6 points with those voters.
Trump won new voters, a relatively small share of the electorate, by 9 percentage points over Harris.
But at the same time, Trump appeared to be losing ground with older voters, according to the polls.
In Wisconsin, Trump’s share of voters 65 and older fell 11 points from 2020. In Michigan, he fell 6 points.
Trump won the 65-and-over vote over Biden in 2020 by 3 percentage points. In the Edison national poll for 2024, Harris and Trump were essentially tied.
