The exit polls for the 2024 US presidential election make it very clear why Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris. It was the economy. No amount of posturing around identity was going to tip the balance for Harris. The right-wing Democratic establishment was unwilling to offer ordinary people what they craved for – meaningful action to improve their material conditions. And that’s what tipped the election in Trump’s favour.
People suffering economic hardship went overwhelmingly to Trump
Looking at CNN’S exit poll data, we can see how much the economy mattered, and how much that impacted the Democratic Party candidate. 31% of exit poll respondents said the economy was the most important issue for them, and an overwhelming 79% of them voted for Trump.
There are more interesting statistics that back up the point, too. CNN asked about the “condition of the nation’s economy”, and a massive 67% said it was “not good” or “poor”. Of those, a whopping 69% voted for Trump. And it was the same situation when voters spoke of their “family’s financial situation today”. 45% said it was “worse than 4 years ago”, and 80% of these people sided with Trump. Of the 75% of people whose families had suffered ‘severe or moderate hardship’ in the last year due to inflation, Trump was the clear victor. We can see a reflection of this in the fact that 72% of respondents were feeling “dissatisfied” or “angry” with “the way things are going”, and most of them went with Trump.
Harris did well with the 24% of people who said the situation was “better than four years ago” or that they had experienced “no hardship”. But that small victory could never compete with the groundswell of people crying out for help and change.
The rich voted for Harris, the poor voted for Trump
The Republican Party is traditionally the party of the rich, of tax cuts, of corporate subsidies, and of deregulation. But the Democrats have long been competing for the support of the rich. And they’ve clearly got it. Because the numbers clearly show the Democrats were the party of the rich in this election.
Trump won with the 60% of voters earning less than $100,000 a year. And Harris won with the people earning over that.
In terms of the urban-rural divide, meanwhile, it was clear that city dwellers were firm Harris voters, but Trump won both in suburban areas and in rural areas, which represent 70% of voters. Harris was mostly in a wealthy urban bubble. Trump, on the other hand, managed to connect with people outside that bubble.
Democracy and the possible threat to it under Donald Trump did matter. Indeed, 35% of exit poll respondents said the key issue for them was democracy, and they opted mostly for Harris. Of the 24% of people who admitted they were voting to stop their opponent rather than to support their own candidate, meanwhile, 61% chose Harris. But that simply wasn’t enough. Because it was the economy that really spoke to people. Most people saw that their material conditions were bad under the Biden-Harris administration, and didn’t trust Harris to change that in any meaningful way.
Exit polls for Harris: worse than Biden and Clinton?
CNN also compared Harris’s performance with the other two candidates the Democratic establishment had put up against Trump. And in a number of areas, she performed worse than both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. That included with young voters, Latino men (who actually went for Trump this time), Latina women, and Black men. While she performed better than Clinton in some areas, she performed consistently worse than Biden in most.
In short, the 2024 US election was just as much about voters being sick of a Democratic establishment that doesn’t serve the interests of ordinary people as it was about people voting for Trump.
Trump definitely serves the rich and powerful over everyone else, but he at least managed to give the impression that he offered change in this election. And to defeat his movement, his opponents desperately need to put together a programme to bring meaningful, transformative economic change to the masses of voters whom political elites have left behind for far too long.
Featured image via the Canary
