More than 5 weeks after the 2024 election ended, the vote count is nearly final — with almost every state having certified its results.
The Cook Political Report is out with a terrific breakdown of the vote and what it can tell us.
Start here:
Donald Trump: 77.3 million votes (49.81%)
Kamala Harris 75 million votes (48.33%)
That’s a margin of 1.48%. Which is far smaller than the 4.4% margin that Joe Biden beat Trump by in 2020. And slightly smaller than the 2.1% popular vote margin that Hillary Clinton enjoyed over Trump in 2016 (even while losing the electoral college).
Like 2016, the election was decided in the three Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A total of 229,766 votes across those three states wound up being determinative for Trump in 2024. Which may not seem like much but is a vast improvement on the 77,744 margin that secured him victory in all three states — and delivered him the White House — in 2016.
In fact, Trump’s 229,766 vote margin is MUCH larger than the 42,918 votes across Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin that made Joe Biden president in 2020. (Fun fact: The 2020 election was MUCH closer than most people thought — and think — it was.)
What does it all mean?
There’s a little something for both parties in the final number, honestly.
For Democrats, the fact that Trump didn’t win a majority of the popular vote and that he wound up triumphing by just over a point is evidence that this was no landslide or mandate.
For Republicans, the fact Trump won the popular vote at all combined with the reality that his winning margin in the three key states was FIVE times that of Biden in 2020 is all the evidence they need that it was a convincing victory.
I tend to lean toward the Republican view of the election. It wasn’t a total wipeout for Democrats but not only did Trump win the White House — by sweeping all 7 swing states! — but Republicans also took over the Senate majority and kept their House majority.
That feels relatively decisive to me. What do you think?
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