Voters who see the opposition as dangerous and dystopian, as a threat to democracy itself, will not see a loss as a national consensus. They will probably see it as the starting signal for the next campaign.
Voters head to the polls in a deadlocked, historic presidential race
Americans went to the polls on Election Day to cast votes that made history.
It’s not just about the winners and losers.
The amazing 2024 elections There are images of the sitting president withdrawing and the former president returning. The groundbreaking contender who seized the moment. The third candidate with the famous surname who rose and fell and then started to emerge as a player again. Two murder attempts. And the nearest polls in American history.
This year’s competition will have significant implications for the country’s political landscape.
To start, here are four of them.
The national debate? It’s not ready.
Winning the election will not settle the debate.
Over the past three elections, the divisions in American politics have been very close and deep – a combustible combination, complicating the winner’s efforts to claim a mandate.
How divided are we? In 2016, Republican Donald Trump won the Electoral College count but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. In 2020, the race in key states was so close that it took the remainder of election week to determine that Joe Biden had defeated Trump.
This time, latest polls Nationally and in the seven top swing states, neither Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris had a clear lead anywhere, a lead that was outside the margins of error that reflect the uncertainties in the surveys. (The states considered most critical are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.)
By a more than 3-1 margin, voters said they were dissatisfied or worse with the direction of the country. In Edison Research exit polls, seven in 10 said they were dissatisfied or angry with the state of the country, underscoring a deep desire for change.
At almost 2-1 they said they were worse off, not better, than four years ago.
One sign of that unrest: Except when presidents have died in office, the United States has not elected consecutive one-term presidents since the late 19th century — as we have now done with Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
Today’s voters, who see the opposition as dangerous and dystopian, as a threat to democracy itself, are unlikely to see a loss as a reflection of a new national consensus. They are more likely to see it as the starting signal for the next campaign.
The Latino earthquake is shaking up racial politics.
The coalitions that make up both major parties are changing, and none is as momentous as the shift of some Hispanic voters to the Republican Party.
Democrats’ core support has long relied on voters of color. But in this campaign Trump has made significant gains among Hispanic voters and more modestly among black voters, especially men.
What that means: Gender, education and class join race and ethnicity as major factors influencing which party and candidate Latino and black voters support.
In 2016, Trump had an estimated 28% of Hispanic voters, a gaping 40 percentage points behind Hillary Clinton. In pre-election surveys, he halved that deficit this time and now stands at around 37%.
If this trend continues, it would increase the diversity of the Republican coalition and force Democrats to appeal to more white voters to win nationally.
The number of Spanish voters, which is already significant, is growing rapidly.
An estimated 36.2 million Hispanics were eligible to vote this year, accounting for 50% of new eligible voters since the 2020 election, according to a report from the nonpartisan Latino Donor Collaborative. Those numbers are about to rise significantly. One in four American children is Latino.
In battleground states, Hispanics make up 27% of the electorate in Arizona and 21% in Nevada.
Their political influence was spotlighted by the furor that followed a comic mocked Puerto Rico as “a floating island of trash” when he addressed Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden last week. Harris trumpeted the slur on the tree stump and her campaign created an ad using the clip.
Trump and his campaign rejected the comments. “I love the Hispanics,” he assured at a rally in Albuquerque last week.
Speaking of swing states, nearly half a million Puerto Ricans live in Pennsylvania, the most crucial of them all.
It’s raining (invisibly) money.
The burgeoning way to finance elections is in limbo.
The 2024 presidential campaign has set fundraising records, including $1 billion raised by Harris in the first three months of her truncated campaign. Under federal law, contributions to campaigns and political parties are limited in amount and disclosed.
But the biggest boost in 2024 election spending will come from super PACS and other outside organizations that have no spending caps and are increasingly using ways to shield the names of those giving the money.
Independent spending groups spent at least $4.5 billion, according to OpenSecretsa nonpartisan group that tracks campaign finance. That’s more than $1.5 billion higher than the 2020 campaign.
While outside spending favored Democrats in 2020, this time it skews toward Republicans.
Super PACs are required to disclose their donors, but nonprofits called 501(c)(4)s are not. These groups can funnel money into super PACS and be listed as contributors, a way to avoid identifying the original donors.
The amounts involved can be overwhelming. Director from Chicago Barre Seid gave $1.6 billion to a 501(c)(4) group led by conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo in 2020, believed to be the largest political donation in history. This year, billionaire entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg reportedly donated not only $19 million to the main super PAC backing Harris, but also another $50 million to his 501(c)(4), Future Forward USA Action.
Efforts to clarify who spends what on campaigns were undermined by the 2010 Supreme Court decision entitled Citizens United. The court ruled 5-4 that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts on elections, regardless of campaigns, saying they were political speech protected by the First Amendment.
Since then, spending has risen sharply and disclosure has declined.
Win or lose, JD Vance wins.
Trump has has reshaped the GOP in his image. With his choice out Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate, he has also appointed a political heir to sooner or later lead the MAGA movement.
With that choice, Trump rejected the advice of those who urged him to broaden the appeal of the Republican ticket to voters who were not yet on his side — for example, by choosing former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who faces the biggest challenge ahead. had his nomination.
Instead, Trump chose a fellow populist and fellow boxer who was defiant of the old guard establishment and the news media. His best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” describes a childhood growing up in poverty in Kentucky and Ohio and made him a cultural hero to some.
There will likely be an ideological battle over the post-Trump Republican Party, waged between establishment Republicans who opposed Trump and populists who aligned with him. But the Republican Party’s activities nationally and in most states are now controlled by MAGA supporters — people who will presumably pay attention to Trump’s views on what should come next, and who.
As a reminder, Vance is 40 years old, about half Trump’s age (he’s 78) and a generation younger than Harris, who is 60. In the year 2060, nine presidential elections away, Vance would still be younger than Trump is now.