The Kamala Mirage: How She Lost

We won’t know for a while how Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election.

We can speculate about it Why she lost, but for a while we won’t know exactly among which groups she lost support compared to Biden in 2020.

While we wait for better numbers, we rely on exit polls, which are gradually updated in waves after the polls close.

The data below estimates 2020 figures from four data sources, of which the 2020 exit poll is just one. The other sources include later validated voter surveys.

There is no one truth about how different subgroups are involved in any election. We always deal with estimates.

Trump made gains among women

In 2020, Biden won women by a margin of 12.5 points over Trump. This time Harris will win them by just 10 points.

That was not allowed to happen again after that Dobbsthe Supreme Court’s landmark decision on abortion, which alienated voters ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Women, the argument went, would also go to the polls this year and give Harris victory, despite her lack of support among men.

In reality, women leaned toward Trump — and men moved toward him by six points. He won them by 10.

Trump made gains among white, college-educated voters

White, college-educated voters were the other visible foundation of Harris’ coalition. But according to the exits, Trump also made gains, improving his margins by 3 points compared to 2020.

He still lost them (by 10 points), but he improved from 2020, which is all he had to do given his strength elsewhere.

He also won among white, non-college-educated voters, improving his extraordinary margins among them by 2 points and winning them by 31 points over Harris – exit polls suggest.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigns in Nevada Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Trump won Hispanic men

In 2020, Trump lost Hispanic men to Biden by 23 points. He just beat Harris by 10 points – a move of 33 points.

Hispanic men made up just 6 percent of the national electorate, but in the swing states of Arizona and Nevada they made up closer to 10 percent of the vote, heralding a more general swing among nonwhite male voters.

Trump did 16 points better among Hispanic voters than in 2020, his biggest improvement among any voting bloc.

According to the first exit polls, one in five black men voted for Trump, while Trump reduced the Democratic lead among black voters by 9 points.

Trump won late deciders

Trump narrowly won among voters who decided on exits in recent days (by 2 points) and last week (by 8 points) – a finding that is most counter-narrative.

Harris won narrowly among voters who decided earlier in the campaign.

Trump has barely lost among mildly pro-choice voters

Abortion would be one of Harris’ strongest issues. She had strong leadership among openly pro-choice voters.

But Trump, crucially, was able to reassure voters who were mildly pro-choice, believing that it should be legal “in most cases.”

He lost this group – which makes up a third of the electorate – by just four points, neutralizing a key line of attack for the Harris campaign.

Trump won among voters who think democracy is “very threatened.”

Harris won among voters who said they were most concerned about democracy. But Trump, in a finding that will surprise many liberal voters, narrowly won among voters who see democracy as “highly endangered.”

Republicans have made their own claims about the threats Democrats pose to democracy, threats that have not made much inroads into the mainstream media environment but do have a major impact on his base.

Trump won one in ten voters who didn’t like him

According to the exits, only 44 percent of the 2024 electorate had a positive view of Trump. 54 percent did not. There was a clear majority in the country to reject him.

Yet Trump won 9 percent of this 54 percent bloc. They didn’t like him, but they chose him over Harris.

This, perhaps more than any other, is the number that should haunt Democrats after Trump wins reelection to the White House.

Trump won over lower-income voters

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party that has failed the working class finds that the working class has failed them,” Bernie Sanders wrote after the election.

He was referring to one of the most notable shifts in the election: In a reversal from 2020, Trump defeated the Democratic candidate among those making less than $50,000.

It’s less clear how Biden and Trump fared among those who earned more than $100,000 in 2020: estimates vary.

But Harris won them this year according to the exit poll, emphasizing the Democratic Party’s transition from a party of the working and middle classes to a distinctive party of the so-called Brahmin left.