Election Night 2024 felt like a sequel to Election 2016: much of the mayhem was the same, but the details were different. Early returns were inauspicious, and prospects did not improve from there. I was not so surprised, and yet it affected me as deeply if not more.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been trying to wrap your head around a lot of different ideas these past few days – and you still have a lot of questions. I won’t pretend to have all the answers, because nobody does. But we collected your questions from the Vox Instagram page, our Explain It To Me Inbox, and the Explain It To Me Podcast phone line.
Here are four common questions from Vox readers and listeners, along with my best take on them (with help from one of Vox’s sharpest young political minds) as we cut through the election week fog.
Has Trump overperformed or Harris underperformed?
We all want to share the blame or the credit. Was Kamala Harris destroyed by the political climate? Or did his campaign make a mistake? Both can be true. Which one determines the outcome more?
True, it is difficult to say what was decisive. Nate Silver can run 80,000 simulations of the election, but the rest of us can only live through one reality. We cannot know the counterfactual and it will take time Data that tell the story of this election come into focus
With that caveat in mind, I’m skeptical that Harris ever had a chance – and I’m more inclined to pin his loss on the conditions he was running in than the choices he made while running.
Something stuck with me on election night: Whenever MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki pulled up some bellwether county in a swing state, he would compare the 2024 margin to 2020 and 2016. He often cited Donald Trump returning to his 2016 levels, while Harris is close to (and still generally above) President Joe Biden’s 2020 performance and Clinton in 2016.
Check out this map from the Washington Post This shifts the presidential term from 2020 to 2024 by county. Red arrows all over. You should read exit polls with caution, however displayed Trump made gains with voters across the board. This suggests to me that there was as much a structural problem as any strategic problem for Harris.
Fortunately, we don’t have to look far for a structural explanation. Vox’s Jack Beauchamp writes about the global anti-incumbency wave that seems to have carried Trump and drowned Harris. This has affected both the Conservatives (in the UK) and the Liberals (in 1999 South Korea)
The constant is that those in power are getting fed up with the post-Covid-19 and subsequent global inflation. Macroeconomic indicators may still be tight, but wage growth has only squeezed inflation. Consumers aren’t feeling flush with cash, and that doesn’t mean inflation is slowing no Inflationary interest rates also remain high, adding to the sense that things are expensive.
Maybe America A little more conservative That’s why Trump wanted to portray Harris as an out-of-touch liberal, more than Democrats thought. Maybe a Biden-Harris administration could have managed inflation better. But it annoyed the government everywhere.
More than anything, people were just disappointed: In an October Gallup poll72 percent of US adults say they are dissatisfied with how the country is doing. It will be difficult for any current national leader to win in that environment.
Let us consider the situation of the 2024 campaign After the Biden-Trump debate And Clear evidence Democrats’ prospects improved after Harris took office. He tried to assuage Americans’ anger with the status quo by running as a challenger while still the incumbent vice president.
But it didn’t work, and maybe it never could. People were sick of the Biden-Harris administration. They wanted change. That’s what Trump was selling.
What is Trump going to do?
There are big moves beyond any specifics subject to change: Trump is more loyal to the office than other Republicans, personally more loyal to the office, and less likely to be stymied by advisers by Democratic norms than he was in his first term. .
Now for the specifics. Trump’s campaign the day after the victory commitment Launching the “largest mass deportation campaign” in US history on his first day back in office is a signal that he may be more aggressive on his signature issue. Unless Congress stops him within the next two months, he can implement those tariffs as he pleases. He has a team to telegraph Immediate expansion of oil and gas exploration. There is Robert F. Kennedy Jr said shamelessly A preview of the public health agenda is likely to follow as the Trump administration proposes removing fluoride from American water supplies on Day One. We can expect something too A shakeup within the federal bureaucracy.
It’s worth heeding the note of caution, however. Trump signed the so-called “Muslim ban” on January 27, 2017, but It was blocked by the courtincluding the Supreme Court. It took him a year and a half to get a modified version approved by the Justice Department. Similarly, Trump’s attempt to approve Medicaid work requirements was later blocked by a federal judge. The biggest question of a second Trump term is: How much will the Justice Department restrain him, if not his own people?
In Congress, Trump and Republicans are already eager to cut more taxes and cut the social safety net. But actually passing those plans is still going to be difficult. Control of the House is still uncertain and even if the GOP wins it, their margin will be extremely slim. The failure to repeal Obamacare in 2017 is a recent example of a top priority of a new Republican majority failing due to public backlash.
What does Trump’s election mean for the world?
Before the election even took place, a Vox reader asked us: Why are US elections so important to the rest of the world?
The US has The most powerful military in the worldIt is one of the two most important diplomatic players in global affairs (China has caught up though) and its foreign aid program An important lifeline for humanitarian endeavours Trump has enough discretion to do whatever he wants around the world, especially on foreign policy, with little or no input from Congress.
We know the consequences of abuse of this enormous power. The US military is apparently used to this Terrible endingU.S. diplomacy may invalidAnd US-funded humanitarianism has a mixed track record.
That’s why Trump’s election changed the fate of not only 330 million Americans, but millions of other people around the world.
Israel’s war in Gaza, efforts to control pox in Africa, famine in Sudan, war UkraineTaiwan’s future as an independent nation — these are some of the high-profile issues on which Donald Trump, rather than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, will have significant leverage and influence. PEPFAR, the AIDS relief program that became the signature achievement of the bipartisan global health consensus forged under George W. Bush, Must re-approve next yearAnd there are signs of wavering Republican support. Trump will wield the veto pen during that congressional debate.
What will actually happen? I don’t know but I do know that Trump’s election has defined what is possible.
What will the Democrats do now?
I’d like to briefly turn the newsletter over to Vox senior political reporter Christian Paz, who sat down with Explain It To Me podcast host Jonquilyn Hill to analyze this year’s election and get as good a read as anyone on the state of the Democratic Party:
There is still the notion that a diverse America will inevitably lead to progressive or liberal or Democratic hegemony, regardless of other factors, which is being proven wrong and wrong again and again.
Indeed, this election will be one in which racial polarization will diminish, particularly among Latino voters. They voted the same or in the same direction or with a similar swing as white voters. Democrats got the votes they wanted, but it turns out the voters who were voters didn’t want to vote Democrat.
Democrats are betting heavily on educated and suburban voters, hoping to maintain their previous margins with working-class voters of color and snag enough white working-class voters to push them over the top. That bet didn’t pay off.
Democrats will have months to decide how to move forward in the 2026 midterms and beyond. Looking at the 2024 fallout so far, Christian says, “There’s been a mixed bag [in terms] That’s exactly what the electorate wants.”
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