With a race that was expected to be historically tight behind us, the question is: How did Trump win so decisively?
In the days leading up to election night, news outlets across the country, including NPR, were predicting a historically close race — one that could take days to call.
But as Tuesday night progressed, it became clear former President Donald Trump was on a path to victory. And by early Wednesday morning, the result was called.
With a race that was expected to be historically tight behind us, the question is: How did Trump win so decisively?
All Things Considered hosts Juana Summers and Mary Louise Kelly unpack this with two veteran political strategists, Democrat Anna Greenberg and Republican Sarah Longwell, hitting four big themes.1. The big gender gap didn’t really materialize
Mary Louise Kelly: I want to walk through who turned out for Trump and what issues drove them. Let’s start with women. Anna, early indication showed women were going to turn out in high numbers. The thinking was that would help Harris. It didn’t. What happened?
Anna Greenberg: First of all, I think that, like many people, myself included, we got a little bit ahead of our skis in the early vote, where you saw actually a pretty significant gap in turnout between men and women, suggesting that there would be an even bigger gender gap than there normally is in turnout. And it turned out that it was not the case — 53% of the electorate was female, which is fairly standard, and there was a gender gap, but it wasn’t as big as many were predicting. And so Harris won 53% of women, while Trump won 55% of men, and clearly that wasn’t enough.
Kelly: So Sarah, jump in on this, and your take on the so-called gender gap, which didn’t really materialize. Does that tell us female voters were not as fired up over reproductive rights, over the issue of abortion, as everybody thought they were?
Sarah Longwell: Yeah. I also think that it was just, look — it was the economy. I do focus groups all the time, and I always start them by asking people, “How do you think things are going in the country?” And for years now, people have been saying they do not think things are going good. Inflation has been killing them. You know, they’re frustrated with immigration. And so the Dobbs effect was just minimized. And I think that women, they did obviously break for Harris somewhat, but it wasn’t nearly at the scale she needed to make up for the fact that Democrats were doing poorly with men of all races, and the bottom was falling out with Hispanics. They really needed white women to make up for those numbers, and they didn’t.2. Latino voters shifted toward Trump
Juana Summers: I want to talk about Latino voters, because an NBC News exit poll found that Trump won Latino voters by 25%. Particularly interesting was Latino men. So Sarah, do we have a sense of what it is about Trump’s message that is driving such seemingly decisive support with this group in particular?
Longwell: Yeah. When I do focus groups with Hispanic voters they sound just like white voters who vote for Trump.
