Trump redraws the political map of America

In the end, it wasn’t even close. A presidential election long forecast to dance on a knife’s edge very quickly turned out to be a rout for Donald Trump.

Instead of the days-long wait for a result that many had predicted, Trump secured enough votes to declare victory at 2:30am local time on the morning after the election. There was no need to cry electoral foul this time, as he did in 2020. Broadcasters confirmed the result soon after.

Trump’s victory did not rest on small margins in a handful of swing states, as was the case when he won in 2016. Instead, the Republican gained support across the electoral map in states both red and blue, sweeping aside many of the conventional assumptions about both his and his party’s limitations. Even in his birthplace of New York state, one of the bluest strongholds in the country, Trump winnowed a 23-point gap down to 11.

With at least 80 per cent of precincts counted, he has well above 50 per cent of the popular vote — a level he was never close to reaching in his previous two bids for the White House — and seems all but certain to win more votes overall than Kamala Harris.

The results paint a picture of a changing American electorate. The coalition of ethnic minority voters that has for years underpinned Democratic support appears to have fractured, some of its members drifting into Trump’s orbit. The trend was most pronounced among Latino voters, less so yet still noticeable among African Americans.

The women voters upon whom Harris had balanced her hopes did not turn to her in great enough numbers to alter the result. The Democratic candidate outperformed Joe Biden’s totals with white women from four years ago, according to some exit polls, while Trump could boast a strong showing among men, especially those under 30.

In both the 2016 and 2020 elections, Trump surprised pollsters and much of the political elite with his ability to turn out new voters, often among people who had shown little interest in elections before. In 2024, again to the surprise of many close observers of politics, he appears to have pulled off the same feat.

One feature of the map showing how votes have changed since the previous election is the striking range of places where Trump managed to increase his vote, even in parts of red states where he was already winning by big margins.

The scale and nature of Trump’s victory points to a realignment of America’s electoral map that could dramatically transform politics in the US for years to come.

Latino pivot

Throughout the year, the Trump campaign insisted that it would be able to increase its support among Latino voters, who have leaned heavily towards the Democrats since the end of the George W Bush administration. Over the last week, that bet looked more questionable after the furore over the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at a Trump rally.

In the end, Latino voters helped get him over the line. Although it will take some time to get a definitive breakdown of how different groups voted, there are strong indications that Trump substantially increased his vote share among the group.

Osceola county, near Orlando in Florida, has a Latino majority, including a significant population of people with connections to Puerto Rico. In 2020, Biden won Osceola by 56 to 43; this time, Trump narrowly won the county.

In Starr County, Texas, which hugs the Rio Grande, all but 2 per cent of the electorate identify as Latino or Hispanic. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won it with 79 per cent; four years later, Biden’s share was down to 52 per cent. On Tuesday, Trump seized control of the county with 58 per cent of the vote, leaving Harris trailing. It is the first time a Republican has triumphed here for over 130 years.

Republicans believe that their pitch based on economic and cultural issues — from inflation to an emphasis on what they call “traditional” family values — appealed to Latino voters, especially from more working-class backgrounds. “Our Hispanic communities aren’t just leaving the Democrat party,” said the Cuban-American senator Ted Cruz, who was re-elected in Texas, “they’re coming home to conservative values they never left.”

Given that Latinos are one of the fastest-growing minority groups in the union, a permanent shift in voting behaviour would hamper the Democrats’ plans in elections to come.

African-American vote

The Democratic coalition in recent elections has been built on running up huge winning margins among African Americans — Biden won 92 per cent of their votes in 2020, according to Pew Research. The party fought hard to hang on to these voters, especially among the young males historically less likely to cast a ballot at all.

Barack Obama visited the swing state of Pennsylvania to urge “the brothers” to back Harris, “somebody who grew up like you . . . and understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences”. 

However exit polls suggest those efforts fell short — even if the initial evidence is less decisive than it is for Latinos. Data from the Associated Press found that Black voters were slightly less likely to vote for Harris than they did for Biden in 2020. An NBC exit poll reported that while 92 per cent of Black women backed Harris, this was true for only 78 per cent of Black men. 

In some areas with large Black populations, there were signs of small upticks in support for the Republicans, particularly in Georgia and North Carolina.

For example, Clayton County, Georgia, one of the most Democratic areas in the state in 2020, reported a swing of 0.85 points towards the Republicans. In DeKalb, which includes part of Atlanta, the swing was 1.3. In North Carolina, rural counties such as Wilson, Edgecombe and Pitt also voted for Trump in slightly larger numbers.

Gender gap

For Democrats, one of the biggest bets was that anger over the Supreme Court ruling striking down the constitutional right to an abortion would drive large numbers of women to vote against Trump. The three Supreme Court justices he appointed were part of the new majority that made the decision.

With the gender gap emerging as one of the key dividing lines in the election, some political analysts speculated that women motivated by the abortion issue would be more reliable voters than men attracted by Trump’s persona.

According to exit polls, however, there was only a modest shift of women voters in the Democratic direction. Indeed, the CBS exit poll showed the party’s vote share among women falling from 57 per cent in 2020 to 54 per cent.

That was more than countered by an apparent shift of male voters supporting Trump in this election. In the same CBS poll, men under 30 backed the Republican candidate by a margin of 56 per cent to 38 per cent.

The CNN exit poll showed Harris winning among women voters by 10 percentage points — while Trump won men by the exact same margin.

Redrawing the map

Trump’s success is apparent in a number of important states where the result was never in doubt but the winning margin has shifted dramatically.

Eight years ago, when Trump defeated Clinton, Florida was considered one of the pivotal swing states. With almost all the votes counted this year, Trump is leading in his adopted state with 56 per cent of the vote, compared with 43 per cent for Harris.

But the American electorate’s overall shift to the right can be best illustrated by zooming in on the north-eastern corridor, incorporating New York and the region of New England.

The Republicans made inroads in a number of the populous states in the north-east — not just in New York, but also in New Jersey, where the Democrats’ winning margin fell from 16 to 5 percentage points, and in Connecticut from 20 percentage points to 11.

In the borough of Queens, New York, where Trump grew up, the party enjoyed a 10 per cent increase in support (albeit falling far short of victory).

If enthusiasm for Republicans translates into victories for congressional candidates in the north-east, it could help settle the as yet unresolved question of which party controls the House of Representatives — and whether Trump’s party will have full control of both elected branches of government.

Data visualisation by Jonathan Vincent, Clara Murray, John Burn-Murdoch, Eva Xiao and Alan Smith