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Many were surprised by the Minnesota and national election results. Here is a short accounting of outcomes and their implications resulting from the Nov. 5 balloting, starting with national surprises.
1) The shrinking gender gap. Contrary to expectations, the gender gap in national voting was narrower in 2024 than in 2020. According to the reliable Associated Press VoteCast survey, Donald Trump won 46% of women’s votes, up from 43% in 2020. Will this shrinkage of the gender gap continue in future elections once Trump exits politics? The GOP had better hope so.
2) The big class gap. National exit polls show that Trump carried voters reporting incomes less than $100,000 by 50% to 46%, while Kamala Harris won those with incomes over $100,000 by 51% to 46%. There are far more voters in the low-income category, but their political allegiances are often volatile and buffeted by events affecting their pocketbooks. That augurs more unpredictability in national elections.
3) Mainstream media decline. The audience shrank by 25% from 2020 on election night, and no one can credibly call the coverage of the two candidates unbiased. The rising influence of podcasts and social media signals a new media environment for campaigns. Walter Cronkite has left the building, never to return.
4) Trump’s new troubles. He escaped several prosecutions, but governing as a lame duck will not be easy. His popular coalition is remarkably diverse and thus unstable. He will have trouble controlling the extremists in his likely narrow House GOP majority. His campaign promises are fiscally impractical. Good luck with all that.
5) Money does not matter. Spending more than a billion dollars on her brief presidential run did not secure Harris a victory. Never having proven herself as a vote-getter outside of the distinctive environment of California, her deficient candidate skills gained prominent display. As GOP consultant Alex Castellanos noted: “There is nothing worse for a bad product than good advertising.”
