Compared to 2016, the mood among Democrats was much more subdued in the days following the 2024 election. Whatever complaints we might have about polling, this is in no small part due to the relative success of public opinion polls this year relative to eight years ago.
In 2016, the forecasting site 538, which generates its predictions by aggregating many polls, predicted Trump would lose with 45% of the vote to Clinton’s 49%, and set the probability of Trump’s Electoral College win at 29%. In 2024, the same site (now under new management) predicted razor thin popular vote margins – Trump 49% to Harris’s 51% – and Electoral College outcomes – a 49% chance of a Trump win.
It’s not currently clear why the polls were more successful this year, and there are many reasons to suspect they were right for the “wrong” reasons, such as herding (pollsters not releasing results that go against trends) and the questionable use of weighting and other techniques to avoid repeating the embarrassment of 2016. It’s also worth acknowledging that this is the third election that polls understated Trump’s support. (The miss in 2020 was even bigger, but didn’t get as much attention given Biden won, just not by as much as predicted). The lack of shock in 2024 compared to 2016 no doubt reflects the pre-election expectations conveyed by polling this year.
Another important contrast to 2016 is that in 2024, Trump not only won the popular vote, but the shift toward Trump was strikingly “uniform” in the sense that nearly all geographic and demographic subgroups increased their votes for the Republican presidential candidate and decreased their votes for the Democratic candidate. This does not mean that traditionally Democratic groups, such as Black Americans, suddenly turned into Republicans, but rather that they became slightly less favorable to Democrats as a group. It also does not mean that the 2024 election was a “landslide” – the average pro-Trump shift was overall small.
But what is remarkable is how common the shift was. A great illustration of this point is The New York Times post-election map, which puts a red or blue arrow on each US county, where the color of the arrow indicates the direction of the shift (more D or more R relative to 2020) and the size of the arrow indicates the magnitude. Looking at this map reveals a sea of red arrows, with the exception of one or two states. Another illustration of this point is to look at the increase in Trump’s support in places like Illinois (41 to 44), New Jersey (41 to 46), or New York City (23 to 30). Survey and electoral data also show Trump making gains among demographic groups, including nonwhite and especially Hispanic voters.
Unlike Republicans in recent years, Democrats typically react to election losses by seeking to learn any lessons behind their defeat. Because most professional Democrats are steeped in campaign strategy and policymaking, it is no wonder these explanations almost always point to particular campaign tactics or policy decisions made over the past four years. Less common, but also misguided, are those disgruntled Democrats who place the blame on supposedly ignorant or racist voters.
In contrast, many political scientists who study US elections have long been skeptical of the idea that campaigns make much of a difference, and have also become more hesitant to insult the competence of the average citizen. This skepticism of the conventional explanations is rooted in the empirical finding that presidential elections can be pretty well predicted by simply plotting historical election outcomes against macroeconomic indicators, like GDP or changes in real disposable income, or even just approval of the incumbent president.
As John Sides and Michael Tessler pointed out, such an election/approval scatter plot generated in March predicted Democrats would receive 48% of the two-party vote. While even now some votes are still being counted, this is actually the current result, even though the prediction was made before Biden dropped out and without millions of polling data points.
The point here is that when times are bad, incumbents suffer at the ballot box, just as they have in past American elections, and just as they have around the world post-pandemic. What may be surprising to Democrats is just how bad times were in the minds of the average American voter, or how little voters seemed to prioritize concerns about the health of democracy compared to their pocketbooks.
So what happens now? Eight years ago, after Trump’s surprise win, I shocked some of my colleagues when at a post-election forum (held at my prior institution) I made the bold claim that domestic policy probably wouldn’t change much under Trump given the nature of American political institutions. In other words, just as “when times are bad, the incumbents do worse” is a useful model of American elections, “not much will change” is a useful model for American policymaking, again based on historical examples of post-election periods of unified government (and also a good deal of theory).
I believe this prediction did pretty well in Trump’s first term, and that given the narrow Republican margins in Congress, it is again unlikely we will see major policy changes via legislation in Trump’s second. In fact, what is most likely is that Trump will have a brief window to enact change via Congress, and then Republicans will lose their House majority in 2026. The magnitude of this loss will depend on whether the economy gets better, and just how unpopular Trump becomes in the meantime.
Instead of Congress, the most lasting effects of Trump’s second term will likely depend on appointments to the Supreme Court. In his last term, Trump appointed three justices, shifting the balance of the Court to the right and effectively gutting the already meager federal protections for abortion access. In his second term, Trump may have the chance to shift the Court even further, as Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, both appointed by Democrat Barack Obama, are 69 and 63, respectively.
That’s what will probably happen on average, but what about specific policy changes, especially those that might affect us at Temple? What Trump actually is going to try to do, as with any president-elect, is still something of a black box. Candidates don’t tend to offer specific policy pledges during campaigns, for reasons that aren’t hard to see, and when Trump does take positions he tends to contradict himself or just lie. Still, two policies that have been attributed to Trump stand out as especially worrisome for Temple.
First is the proposed elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, which plays a major role in higher education by facilitating student aid. In Pennsylvania, where we are notoriously low on the list of states that support higher education, abolishing this department would be particularly disruptive. Personally, I don’t think this proposal has much of a chance of going anywhere. But to the extent that this proposal is popular – and it most likely isn’t very – it is likely because many Americans have only a fuzzy idea of what this department does. Should Trump actually move to cut or fully eliminate this agency, Temple community members could play a key role in educating the public about its importance.
Second is the proposed “mass deportation” scheme. In Trump’s first administration, he was roundly criticized for separating families at the border; this time, some of his advisers have promised to avoid this issue by deporting families together. Taken literally, this would mean that those living here with the proper status could be subject to deportation if they happen to live with family members without such status. This would be catastrophic. But even if not taken literally, it seems clear that Trump will try again to take a more aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.
In his first term, this meant seeking to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for “dreamers,” or young people who were brought to the country as children by immigrants without legal status, many of whom seek to attend college despite being ineligible for federal aid. It also meant threatening to cut off federal funds to so-called “sanctuary cities”, including Philadelphia, that refuse to act as the lackeys of federal immigration authority.
On one hand, Trump failed at both of these attempts. On the other hand, his failure was in no small part due to the efforts of immigrant advocates, including many in Philadelphia. Temple community members concerned about the well-being of their neighbors could again play a role in shaping the outcome of Trump’s immigration efforts.
