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Published: Nov. 27, 2024 at 1:59 PM CST
Published: Nov. 27, 2024 at 1:59 PM CST
Its a daunting reality for Democrats: Republican Donald Trump’s support has grown broadly since he last sought the presidency.In his defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, Trump won a bigger percentage of the vote in each one of the 50 states, and Washington, D.C., than he did four years ago. He won more actual votes than in 2020 in 40 states, according to an Associated Press analysis.Certainly, Harris more than 7 million vote decline from President Joe Bidens 2020 total was a factor in her loss, especially in swing-state metropolitan areas that have been the partys winning electoral strongholds.But, despite national turnout that was lower than in the high-enthusiasm 2020 election, Trump received 2.5 million more votes than he did four years ago. He swept the seven most competitive states to win a convincing Electoral College victory, becoming the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win a majority of the popular vote.Trump cut into places where Harris needed to overperform to win a close election. Now Democrats are weighing how to regain traction ahead of the midterm elections in two years, when control of Congress will again be up for grabs and dozens of governors elected.There were some notable pieces to how Trump’s victory came together:Trump took a bite in Northern metrosThough Trump improved across the map, his gains were particularly noteworthy in urban counties home to the cities of Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, electoral engines that stalled for Harris in industrial swing states Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.Video below: Trump is threatening new tariffs on products from Mexico, Canada and ChinaHarris fell more than 50,000 votes and 5 percentage points short of Biden’s total in Wayne County, Michigan, which makes up the lion’s share of the Detroit metro area. She was almost 36,000 votes off Biden’s mark in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and about 1,000 short in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.It wasn’t only Harris’ shortfall that helped Trump carry the states, a trio that Democrats had collectively carried in six of the seven previous elections before Nov. 5.Trump added to his 2020 totals in all three metro counties, netting more than 24,000 votes in Wayne County, more than 11,000 in Philadelphia County and almost 4,000 in Milwaukee County.Its not yet possible to determine whether Harris fell short of Bidens performance because Biden voters stayed home or switched their vote to Trump or how some combination of the two produced the rightward drift evident in each of these states.Harris advertised heavily and campaigned regularly in each, and made Milwaukee County her first stop as a candidate with a rally in July. These swings alone were not the difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but her weaker performance than Biden across the three metros helped Trump, who held on to big 2020 margins in the three states’ broad rural areas and improved or held steady in populous suburbs.Trump’s team and outside groups supporting him knew from their data that he was making inroads with Black voters, particularly Black men younger than 50, more concentrated in these urban areas that have been key to Democratic victories.When James Blair, Trump’s political director, saw results coming in from Philadelphia on election night, he knew Trump had cut into the more predominantly Black precincts, a gain that would echo in Wayne and Milwaukee counties.The data made clear there was an opportunity there, Blair said.AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45.Democrats won Senate races in Michigan and Wisconsin but lost in Pennsylvania. In 2026, they will be defending governorships in all three states and a Senate seat in Michigan.Video below: Can Trump eliminate the Department of Education?Trump gained more than Harris in battlegroundsDespite the burst of enthusiasm Harris’ candidacy created among the Democratic base when she entered the race in July, she ended up receiving fewer votes than Biden in three of the seven states where she campaigned almost exclusively.In Arizona, she received about 90,000 fewer votes than Biden. She received about 67,000 fewer in Michigan and 39,000 fewer in Pennsylvania.In four others Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin Harris won more votes than Biden did. But Trump’s support grew by more in some states, significantly more.That dynamic is glaring in Georgia, where Harris received almost 73,000 more votes than Biden did when he very narrowly carried the state. But Trump added more than 200,000 to his 2020 total, en route to winning Georgia by roughly 2 percentage points.In Wisconsin, Trump’s team reacted to slippage it saw in GOP-leaning counties in suburban Milwaukee by targeting once-Democratic-leaning, working-class areas, where Trump made notable gains.In the three largest suburban Milwaukee counties Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha which have formed the backbone of GOP victories for decades, Harris performed better than Biden did in 2020. She also gained more votes than Trump gained over 2020, though he still won the counties.That made Trump’s focus on Rock County, a blue-collar area in south central Wisconsin, critical. Trump received 3,084 more votes in Rock County, home of the former automotive manufacturing city of Janesville, than he did in 2020, while Harris underperformed Biden’s 2020 total by seven votes. That helped Trump offset Harris’ improvement in Milwaukee’s suburbs.The focus speaks to the strength Trump has had and continued to grow with middle-income, non-college educated voters, the Trump campaign’s senior data analyst Tim Saler said.If you’re going to have to lean into working-class voters, they are particularly strong in Wisconsin, Saler said. We saw huge shifts from 2020 to 2024 in our favor.Trump boosted 2020 totals as Arizona turnout dippedOf the seven most competitive states, Arizona saw the smallest increase in the number of votes cast in the presidential contest slightly more than 4,000 votes, in a state with more than 3.3 million ballots cast.That was despite nearly 30 campaign visits to Arizona by Trump, Harris and their running mates and more than $432 million spent on advertising by the campaigns and allied outside groups, according to the ad-monitoring firm AdImpact.Arizona, alone of the seven swing states, saw Harris fall short of Biden across small, midsize and large counties. In the other six states, she was able to hold on in at least one of these categories.Even more telling, it is also the only swing state where Trump improved his margin in every single county.While turnout in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous as the home to Phoenix, dipped slightly from 2020 by 14,199 votes, a tiny change in a county where more than 2 million people voted Trump gained almost 56,000 more votes than four years ago.Meanwhile, Harris fell more than 60,000 votes short of Biden’s total, contributing to a shift significant enough to swing the county and state to Trump, who lost Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020.Rightward shift even in heavily Democratic areasThe biggest leaps to the right weren’t taking place exclusively among Republican-leaning counties, but also among the most Democratic-leaning counties in the states. Michigan’s Wayne County swung 9 points toward Trump, tying the more Republican-leaning Antrim County for the largest movement in the state.AP VoteCast found that voters were most likely to say the economy was the most important issue facing the country in 2024, followed by immigration. Trump supporters were more motivated by economic issues and immigration than Harris’, the survey showed.Its still all about the economy,” said North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to Democrat Josh Stein, who won North Carolinas governorship on Nov. 5 as Trump also carried the state.Democrats have to embrace an economic message that actually works for real people and talk about it in the kind of terms that people get, rather than giving them a dissertation of economic policy, he said.Governors elections in 2026 give Democrats a chance to test their understanding and messaging on the issue, said Democratic pollster Margie Omero, whose firm has advised Wisconsins Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the past and winning Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego this year.So theres an opportunity to really make sure people, who governors have a connection to, are feeling some specificity and clarity with the Democratic economic message, Omero said.
Combined companies are estimated to facilitate nearly $9 billion in wholesale gross merchandise value (GMV) yearly
After seeing the first flat track races in downtown Sturgis, multiple former detractors say they’re now fans. Updated: Nov. 26, 2024 at 3:29 AM CST Each year, people steal or destroy Christmas lights in a Rapid City park. Updated: Nov. 25, 2024 at 7:54 PM CST While he loves playing fetch and racing around outside, […]
The petition has even grabbed the attention of Tesla and X owner Elon Musk
It’s time to start your holiday shopping, and what better way to support loved ones and local communities than supporting small businesses?
The Front Market has grown from a small meetup in 2016 to its first-ever event in Downtown Austin with nearly 200 vendors.
The Blackout Market is back just in time for the holiday-shopping madness. Co-founder of The Blackout Market joins us live to talk about how you can support small, black-owned businesses this holiday season.
Two new Christmas TV movies have a Taylor Swift connection that her fans would have no problem decoding.”Christmas in the Spotlight” debuts Saturday on Lifetime. It stars Jessica Lord as the world’s biggest pop star and Laith Wallschleger as a pro football player, who meet and fall in love not unlike Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.”It’s clearly inspired by Taylor and Travis, but I don’t know them and I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. I only know what’s been put out there,” said Eirene Tran Donohue, a longtime, devoted fan who jumped at the opportunity to write a script even loosely based on her favorite musician.She was inspired by the couple’s support of each other’s accomplishments, particularly Kelce’s ease with dating the star despite the glare of the spotlight, adding, “I love the way that he celebrates her.”Tran Donohue wants fellow Swift fans to know she wrote the script with them in mind.”There are so many Easter eggs,” she said of little details added that a Swift fan would pick up on. “I put in as many as I could.”Then, on Nov. 30, Hallmark will air “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story.” Instead of a nod to Swift, it’s an ode to family traditions and bonding, like rooting for a sports team. Hallmark’s headquarters is also in Kansas City, so it makes sense why the company chose the Chiefs to be highlighted.In this story, written by Julie Sherman Wolfe, sparks fly when a new employee for the Chiefs organization (Tyler Hynes) meets a woman played by Hunter King whose family’s dedication to the team goes back generations.Sherman Wolfe, a San Francisco 49ers fan, said she got the call a week after Super Bowl LVIII, when the Chiefs beat the 49ers 25-22.”I was still nursing my wounds,” she said adding that Hallmark asked, ‘Can you can you separate yourself from the loss and do this movie? I said, ‘Absolutely. I mean, I’m a professional,'” Sherman Wolfe said, laughing.While “Holiday Touchdown” has no mention of Swift or Kelce, it does feature a few Chiefs player cameos and Donna Kelce also has a small role.”I kept botching my line,” Hynes said of working with Mama Kelce. “I was just like, Donna Kelce’s about to speak and I’m beside myself. It was so fun.”The actors also got to film at Arrowhead Stadium and on the field.”Those were just some of the coolest moments I’ve ever gotten to have working on a movie,” King said.
President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former White House aide Brooke Rollins to lead the Department of Agriculture, filling out his proposed slate of cabinet picks to lead a number of executive government agencies.All of Trump’s picks appear to share one common trait: loyalty to the President-elect.But the process of appointing them isn’t over yet. All must receive Senate approval before being officially appointed to their respective jobs.Rollins’ role as agriculture chief would include oversight of policies, regulations, and aid programs for farming, forestry, food quality and nutrition.”Her commitment to support the American Farmer, defense of American Food Self-Sufficiency, and the restoration of Agriculture-dependent American Small Towns…is second to none,” Trump said in a statement. “Brooke has a practitioners experience, along with deep Policy credentials in both Nonprofit and Government leadership at the State and National levels.”Trump must also fill several other cabinet-level positions, including a U.S. trade representative and head of the Small Business Administration.The Senate confirmation process will start when the newly-elected Senate convenes in the new year. The nominees are typically vetted by a committee, where lawmakers vote on whether to send that person to a full Senate vote. Trump’s picks need a simple majority in the Republican-controlled chamber to be confirmed. But it isn’t necessarily easy. Controversy surrounding some of Trump’s nominees, including former attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, may spell trouble ahead. Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration over sexual assault and drug use allegations. Following his withdrawal, Trump nominated Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department.