How Donald Trump won, according to the NBC News Exit Poll

Donald Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States, NBC News projects — overcoming polls, prosecutions and other pitfalls that appeared to be standing in his way over a two-year campaign.

His win comes after a campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris dominated by debates over hot-button issues like abortion and immigration, as well as a focus on race, gender and other demographic divides that have long simmered in U.S. politics. But the balance of the evidence from the NBC News Exit Poll suggests that Trump owes his victory to more common, less polarizing factors that drive many elections year in and year out.

They include voters’ frustration with their own finances, deep dissatisfaction with the nation’s economy and persistent gloom about the state of the country — all of which fueled a desire for change: 

• Nearly half — 45% — of all voters said they were worse off financially than they were four years ago. That was a higher level of dissatisfaction than what registered in exit polls in any recent election going back to 2008, when the election took place amid the financial crisis that propelled Barack Obama to victory. 
• Though the economy is growing, with a low jobless rate and a booming stock market, 2 in 3 voters rated the U.S. economy poorly, a level higher than in 2020, when the country struggled to get in gear during the Covid pandemic.
• All told, the mood of the country this election was very pessimistic: About three-quarters of voters nationwide said they felt negatively about the way things are going in the country, including 29% who said they were downright angry. 

The overall result: an electorate gone quite sour on the incumbent president, Democrat Joe Biden.

Voters’ assessment of his performance — 40% approved, while 58% disapproved — was far worse than Trump’s was when he ran for re-election in 2020.

When voters were asked what quality mattered most to them in a candidate, a majority said they wanted either someone with “the ability to lead” or who could “bring about needed change.” Trump dominated among those Americans, winning about 7 in 10 of their votes.

What was not appealing about Trump as voters made their choice? Some of the best-known positions he took on controversial policies: 

• Trump barnstormed the country calling for a mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants. Voters panned the idea: Just 39% supported it, while 56% preferred offering immigrants a chance to apply for legal status. 
• Trump, through his Supreme Court nominees, is associated with the court’s Dobbs ruling, which overturned a national right to abortion, and Democrats took every opportunity to tie him to post-Dobbs state abortion bans. He said he would not support a national ban, though he was coy during his September debate with Harris about whether he would veto a national ban. One big reason: It’s a very unpopular idea. Just 30% of voters this year said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, a number noticeably lower than four years ago, when it was 42%.

Identity politics and polarization by race, one of the defining features of Trump’s first campaign for president eight years ago, also faded somewhat as factors in his 2024 victory. Instead:

• Trump garnered the support of a remarkable 1 in 3 voters of color, most likely the best performance of any Republican presidential candidate since George W. Bush in his 2004 re-election effort. That included a striking shift of Latino voters into the GOP column compared with 2020 — they backed Trump by 13 points more.
• Despite the attention paid to Trump’s abortion policies, as well as claims against him by multiple women accusing him of sexual assault and harassment, the gender gap remained stable. Women broke for Harris, 54%-44%, while men favored Trump, 54%-44% — a gap in support amounting to 22 percentage points. But in 2020, Trump performed even worse among women, losing them to Biden 57%-42%. His 2020 margin among men, 53%-45%, yielded a gender gap of 23 points.

A final factor favoring Trump: his appeal among Americans who are less attached to politics and elections:

• First-time voters broke for Trump, 54%-45%. That was a huge reversal from four years ago, when new voters strongly favored Biden, 64%-32%. 
• So-called double haters — voters who said they had unfavorable views of both candidates — heavily supported Trump over Harris, 55%-32%. That was a repeat of Trump’s strength among those voters four years ago, when he beat Biden in the group by 52%-35%, as well as four years before that, when it helped power his first presidential win.