Early Thoughts on the Outcome of the 2024 Election and the Path Forward

While full data will not be known for months, some preliminary theories can be drawn from the information that is available

The power under the Constitution will always be with the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes and for a certain limited period to representatives of their own chusing; and whenever it is exercised contrary to their interests, or not according to their wishes, their Servants can, and undoubtedly will be, recalled.

George Washington, 9 November 1787

Over the decades, there has been much debate over whether presidential mandates really exist. Many respected political scientists argue that they do not; as evidenced by presidents who pursue an agenda laid out during the campaign only to be punished at the ballot box in the next election. I have come to half-agree (or half-disagree, depending on how one views it) in that there is often a handful of specific issues that can explain why the American people elected a president. In 2020, it can be argued that Joe Biden was elected mainly because Donald Trump was perceived as mishandling the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and everything else that Biden talked about on the campaign was not decisive, regardless of whether the policies were popular or not.

Although more data about what happened this cycle has yet to come out, the image that stood out to me the most coming out of the election was this map from the New York Times election results page showing the county-level shift of results compared to the 2020 election results:

Donald Trump improved his margins nearly everywhere except a handful of enclaves. Statistically speaking, the shift was not due to a single demographic; this was something that the whole country had experienced in the last four years. While not perfect, exit polls can provide a clue to this phenomenon. According to AP VoteCast, a plurality of 39 percent of voters rated the economy as the most important issue deciding their vote, a mirror of 2020 when about the same amount rated COVID-19 as the top issue. CNN’s exit poll found that 68 percent of voters rated the economy as “Not so good” or “Poor.” In my eyes, this appears to have been a frustration with inflation, despite other economic indicators showing a relatively good economy. In other words, voters did not want to hear that the economy was good when they were not feeling that it was. A handful of other issues such as immigration likely played some role in the outcome, though I do not want to speculate how much it did until more data comes out from respected firms such as Pew and Catalist.

To sum up what I believe happened, voters were frustrated with high costs, which they blamed on the incumbent administration, regardless of whether the Biden administration was truly responsible for it. It did not matter that Kamala Harris put forward policies aimed at combating inflation, nor did it did matter that Donald Trump’s stated agenda of imposing tariffs and mass deporting undocumented immigrants are likely to instead make inflation worse; Trump presented himself as the change that voters sought and came off as more credible than Harris in bringing that change.

Were I advising Donald Trump, I would constantly remind him that the voters elected him to bring the cost of goods down, and that his other proposals such as deploying the national guard against protestors or a massive countrywide effort to deport the some 12 million undocumented immigrants will validate the misgivings that even a substantial amount of his own voters had, and spell trouble for him and his party in the 2026 midterms and beyond.

For the Democrats, I would say that Trump’s win does not necessarily mean that they have to abandon values such as a federal government that stands up for the working class, treating immigrants humanely, and empowering unions. Before the election, YouGov did a survey in which respondents were asked how they rated various policies that were proposed by both Harris and Trump, without stating which candidate had proposed them. Nearly all of Harris’ proposals received over half support, while only half of Trump’s proposals did. Whether voters simply did not hear Harris’ pitch or did not believe what she was saying is a question that remains to be answered.

If past is any prologue, Donald Trump will overreach whatever voters actually wanted, to which the Democrats will benefit by being the opposition party. As George Washington predicted in 1787, the people will recall their servants should they act contrary to their interests.