Despite being hailed as the victor of the recent Presidential election, Donald Trump barely managed to scrape a majority vote. His claim of an overwhelming mandate that night of victory stands on shaky grounds. The slim margin indicating his victory was the second-tightest since 1968, hinting at the intense political divide that splits the nation right down the middle.
Any small surge to the right seemed unsubstantial, barely moving the political needle. The GOP may have to contend with an equal or perhaps a slightly smaller majority in the House than before. Interestingly, despite the newfound control of Senate by the GOP, many Republicans in battleground states apparently voted for Trump, but drew the line at electing Republican Senate candidates.
Based on reports from the Associated Press with 96% votes accounted for, Trump received 49.97% of the votes pushing him slightly ahead of Vice President Harris’ 48.36%. This translated into 76.9 million votes for Trump against Harris’ 74.4 million. Comparatively, the U.S. Election Atlas hints at a slightly closer race, with Trump clinching 49.78% of the votes to Harris’ 48.23%.
This recorded the highest number of votes Trump had ever received in his three bids for presidency, barely surpassing his past electoral performances of 46% in 2016 and less than 47% in 2020. Despite this revelation, the counting process is still ongoing, extending to both provisional and overseas ballots from all over the country.
In the 2000 election, for instance, the election was resolved by a mere margin of 0.51 percentage points. Vice President Al Gore stood victorious with a greater share of the popular vote, only to lose in the Electoral College to George W. Bush. In light of such historical cases, one cannot fully rule out the possibility that the voting margin of 2024 might narrow further.
It seems that Harris might still swing some expected blue states her way upon the counting of outstanding provisional ballots. However, it goes without saying that U.S. presidential elections are not dictated by the popular vote. It is the Electoral College that has the final verdict.
In that regard, one must concede that Trump’s defeat of Harris in the Electoral College was noticeable. Trump secured a considerable victory of 312 to 226 in the Electoral College, the broadest margin recorded since 2012. This is reminiscent of his 2016 race when he garnered an Electoral College victory but fell short in the popular vote by 3 million against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Harris’ lackluster performance is largely underwhelming in blue states, falling significantly short of President Biden’s 2020 vote tally. The discrepancy totaled to nearly 3 million votes in states like New York and California. But before celebrating a great swing, it’s worth noticing that this difference was not marked by notable vote-switching.
Studying the statistics more closely, Harris was approximately 900,000 votes behind in New York, whereas Trump only garnered an additional 200,000 votes from his 2020 tally. Similarly, in California, Trump managed to gain only 60,000 more votes even as Harris captured about 1.9 million votes fewer than Biden.
Often, the turnout is noted to be lower in states that aren’t constantly swarmed with political attention. This election witnessed a flood of political advertising dollars funneled into a limited number of battleground states.
Despite this politically frenzied atmosphere, the 2024 elections drew in just slightly less participants than the 2020 elections, the total turnout hovering at around 63.8%. This places it as the second highest turnout in nearly a century.
More intriguingly, three of the top turnout states in this round of elections were previous Blue Wall territories: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The traditionally competitive states like Minnesota, Virginia and New Hampshire also fluctuated within this 5-point margin.
On the flip side, the lowest turnout rates were noted in noncompetitive states, whether deeply blue or vastly red, including Hawaii, Oklahoma, Arkansas, West Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, New York, Indiana and Alabama. This trend speculates a lack of inclination to be actively involved in the election processes among populations inhabiting these politically definitive regions.