How Donald Trump won the presidency

Former President Donald Trump is projected to be the next president of the United States, according to an ABC News projection issued at 5:31 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, Nov. 6. As of 6 a.m. Eastern, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had been projected for Trump, and the once-and-future president leads in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada as well. At this point, the most likely final outcome appears to be a 312-226 Trump victory. Plus, while it will take some time to count all the ballots, Trump looks likely to win the national popular vote for president, too.

Over the next few months, we at 538 will do a lot of analysis to figure out how exactly Trump won. He may be, after all, only the second Republican presidential candidate since 1992 to win the national popular vote. That warrants not only introspection among Democrats, but a lot of quality analysis, too. And Trump's sweep of the swing states — while not surprising — also represents a new high-water mark for his electoral success.

For now, though, here are three quick possible explanations for Trump's victory tonight. These insights draw primarily on the exit poll, which for various reasons is imperfect but for now remains the best source of available data on why and how different types of people voted. (We reserve the right to revisit these conclusions when more data is available.)

Inflation

For all the hubbub about various issues, statements, rallies and rhetoric during this election, the economy is unique as providing the most obvious gravitational pull toward Trump. Voters rank the cost of living in America as one of their top concerns — and no doubt it is one of the most pressing, salient and visible problems in their lives. It is not a stretch of the imagination to imagine they would punish the incumbent party for this regardless of how unfavorably they viewed Trump; in fact that is what voters have been doing all around the world over the past three years.

According to the exit poll, 35 percent of voters nationally rated the "state of democracy" as the most important factor to their vote. Eighty-one percent of these people voted for Harris and just 17 percent for Trump. But the economy was the next-most-influential issue. Among these voters, Trump led 79 percent to 20 percent. In the end, abortion did not rate as highly as Democrats might have hoped; only 14 percent rated it as their biggest concern.

It's possible that inflation contributed to the growing divide between high-income voters and low-income voters. According to the exit poll, Democrats increased their vote share by 9 points among voters living in households that make more than $100,000 dollars a year. Among households making less, which account for about 60 percent of voters, Republicans gained 12 points on margin.

Racial polarization

Initial exit poll estimates also suggest Democratic support declined among non-white voters and rose among white voters (especially college-educated ones). The exit poll indicates Trump won white voters by 12 percentage points, 55 percent to Harris's 43 percent. Compared to the 2020 exit poll, that is a 5-point improvement for Democrats.

Democrats performed best relative to 2020 among white college-educated voters. They moved 7 points to the left, voting 54 percent to 44 percent for Harris. Non-white non-college-educated voters, meanwhile, moved 13 points toward Trump.

The Republican's gains with nonwhites was particularly acute among Hispanic and Latino voters. Democrats' vote margin with the group fell by 26 points, according to the exit poll, to just a 53-percent-to-45-percent margin. Trump's vote share with Latinos looks like it could be the best since George W. Bush's 44 percent in 2004. Latino men moved 33 points toward Trump, one of his biggest swings.

Democratic turnout was poor

In addition to economic headwinds and deteriorating margins with their base, it looks like Democrats also simply had bad turnout. So far, around 137 million ballots have been counted for the 2024 presidential race. Predictions of final turnout are hovering somewhere in the neighborhood 152 million votes. That would be a decrease from the 158 million who voted in 2020 and would be equivalent to about 61 percent of eligible voters. That would be a decline from 66 percent in 2020.

It is also likely that the drop in turnout disproportionately affected Democrats. While we can't be sure until we can review records of who actually voted (states will release those over the next few months), the drop-off in turnout is currently greater in the most Democratic counties across the battleground states. That is something that would uniquely hurt Harris; if you're a Democrat, then lower turnout in the suburbs is bad, of course, but not so bad as missing the mark in Philadelphia or Milwaukee, where you're relying on a lot of votes to carry you to victory.

Over the next few months, we'll be able to pore over even more data about why Trump won (again). The basic explanation is that this was always going to be a hard election for Harris to win. She both failed to persuade swing voters and to get out her base where it mattered most. Democrats will have to do a lot of soul-searching to figure out how to recover.