Former President Donald Trump recaptured the White House on Tuesday on the strength of a new and unexpected coalition, one that upended decades of conventional wisdom after perhaps the most unconventional campaign ever run.
With most votes counted by early Wednesday, Trump had carried 277 electoral votes — enough to guarantee his return to office — by winning the swing states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, along with North Carolina and Georgia. His margin of victory is likely to grow as final votes are counted in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Alaska, all states where he led Vice President Kamala Harris in initial returns.
Trump will become just the second Republican in 32 years to win both the Electoral College and the popular vote, after George W. Bush’s re-election effort in 2004. Harris, meanwhile, attracted about 15 million fewer votes than President Biden won in 2020.
Election results and exit polls showed the extent of Trump’s victory: He improved among virtually every age and racial demographic from his loss in 2020, building inroads to younger voters and minorities who have long been the pillars of the Democratic coalition that helped oust him four years ago.
Harris carried voters under the age of 30 by a 13-point margin, about half the advantage Biden achieved in 2020, underperforming polls that showed young voters breaking her way. Exit polls showed Trump winning 45% of the Hispanic vote, on par with Bush’s performance in 2004 and 13 points better than his own performance in 2020.
Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court, stocked with three justices Trump appointed, overturned Roe v. Wade, an election that was supposed to feature the widest gender gap in modern times did not. Trump won 44% of women voters, 2 points better than his performance in 2020.
Republicans have found success in recent years in rural parts of America, running up the score in small counties to offset their deficits in urban cores and their increasing disadvantage in suburban areas. Trump solidified those gains, winning 63% of rural voters, a 6-point improvement over four years ago.
But Trump achieved what other Republicans had not: A foothold in those more traditionally Democratic cities. Trump carried 39% of the vote in Wayne County, Mich., home of Detroit, a 9-point improvement over 2020. His vote share increased by 3 points each in Milwaukee and Philadelphia, two of the most Democratic cities in America.
The first inflation shock in about two generations helped catapult Trump beyond the myriad anchors that would ordinarily weigh him down: The felony convictions in New York, the scandals of his first term, the former officials from his own administration who warned against re-electing him — and even his favorable ratings, which, according to exit polls, were worse than Harris’s.
Among the one-third of voters who said the economy was the most important factor in their vote, 4 in 5 chose Trump.
Those results mirror a global backlash against incumbent governments as inflation shakes political foundations. Voters in the United Kingdom, the European Union, India, South Africa and — most recently — Japan have all dealt serious defeats to incumbents.
Though inflation was lower in the United States than in any other major world economy, prices rose substantially in the past several years for the first time in two generations, shocking Millennial and Generation Z voters who had never experienced such steep increases.
Trump will be ineligible to run for office again in 2028, but his victory ensures that the modern Republican Party will remain molded in his image for decades to come, an evolution away from a Grand Old Party once fashioned in the image of Ronald Reagan. Whether anyone — either Vice President-elect J.D. Vance or any future challengers — can hold together Trump’s unique coalition remains to be seen.