In the wake of Tuesday’s elections, many Americans are grieving about the fate of our country and the world. We need to take time to deal with those feelings, surround ourselves with people we love, and do things that bring us joy—music, cooking, sports, hiking, travel, whatever. We can accept the reality that Trump and the Republicans won the election, and try to understand why, but we need to eventually translate our anger into action—what organizer Ernie Cortes calls "cold anger" that is strategic.
There will be lots of post-election diagnoses and many reports about what went wrong (and, in a few cases, right) around polling, framing issues, media coverage, voter outreach, registration and turnout, voter suppression, voter preferences and turnout of specific groups (women, youth, African Americans, Latinos, union members, suburbanites) that weakened the Democratic coalition.
Journalism is often called the first draft of history. We don’t yet have all the facts about the election—for president, Senate, House, governor races, state legislatures, mayors and city councils, and ballot measures. But we have enough information to examine some of the most important aspects of what happened and why, and to use that information to develop strategies for moving forward, including ways to resist Trump’s efforts to undermine democracy, divide the country, increase human suffering, and build a white supremacist movement with him at the top.
There is a lot to take in.
1. The country is almost evenly divided when it comes to party preference. Trump did not win a landslide like FDR in 1936, Johnson in 1964, Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1980, or Obama in 2008. As of Friday morning, Trump has 50.7% of the popular vote compared to 47.7% for Harris. Because millions of California votes haven’t been counted yet, we don’t know if he won the popular vote, because Harris is winning over 57% of California votes. But either way, it will be close, similar to Kennedy’s win over Nixon in 1960 and Gore narrowly winning the popular vote over Bush in 2000 (but losing the Electoral College thanks to the Supreme Court halting the ballot count in Florida). Even so, public opinion polls show that Americans are NOT divided on most key issues. For example, a vast majority think there's too much wealth and income inequality, that rich people and big corporations should pay more in taxes, that the government should do more to protect the environment and consumers, that labor unions are a good thing, that undocumented immigrants deserve a path toward citizenship, that the government should help limit drug prices, that all Americans are entitled to health insurance, that the federal minimum wage should be at least $15 an hour, that same-sex marriage should be legal, that police should not engage in racial profiling, and so on. But public opinion doesn't get translated into policy without politics, and elections are about politics—mobilizing people to vote around issues they care about.
2. Overall voter turnout was significantly lower in this election compared with four years ago. In 2020, 66.4% of eligible voters actually voted. This year, 62.2% of eligible voters cast ballots. Both, however, are considerably higher than the turnout rates in 2008 (61.6%), 2012 (58.6%), and 2016 (60.1%). This is according to the University of Florida Election Lab, which keeps tabs on this.
3. Based on the most recent reports (as of November 7), it appears that the Democrats' turnout efforts were particularly inadequate. In 2020, Trump got 74.2 million votes. This year he is likely to get slightly fewer votes. In 2020, Biden got 81.2 million votes. This year, Harris is likely to get roughly 72 million votes, which is about 9 million fewer votes. That means that lots of people who voted for Biden in 2020 didn't even bother to vote this year. This year’s vote totals may change as more states report the results, but the trend is clear. Both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates got fewer votes this year than four years ago, but the Democratic candidate (Harris) got FAR fewer votes. Some version of this occurred in almost every state.
4. There are many hard truths we have to face if we're to move our country in a better direction. Trump is a fascist, but most Americans are not fascists. Even so, more than half of those who voted, voted for a fascist, mostly over their concerns over the economy, and next most important over immigration. There's no doubt that Trump has an emotional hold on a large number of Americans, who either forgive him for his personal flaws (liar, rapist, felon, grifter, corrupt businessman, etc) or don't think they are actually flaws. Many Americans who are angry about the state of the country or their own circumstances revel in a candidate who focuses on his grievances and promises to solve their problems, even if his often vague policy ideas will make their lives worse. Trump is a unique figure in the history of American politics—a demagogue, the leader of a personality cult, and pathological liar. So it is hard to evaluate this election and compare it with other elections, because doing so tends to normalize what should be causes for outrage. Even so, we can analyze this election to understand how Trump won the White House, and how the Republicans took back the Senate. We don't yet know whether the Republicans will hold onto their House majority.
5. Post-election polls show that the most important issue, by far, was the economy and prices. In the AP post-election survey, 37% of voters thought the economy was "excellent" (7%) or "good" (30%), while 64% of voters thought that the economy was "not so well" (40%) or "poor" (24%). By a margin of 50% to 41%, more Americans think Trump—who inherited his father’s real estate empire and lost billions in bad investments and bankrupt businesses—would be better than Harris at handling the economy. This despite the fact the American economy is currently the best in the world and is improving, that wages are going up faster than prices, and that unemployment is at a record low. Many polls show that most Americans don't give Biden credit for the improving economy. In fact, many blame him for what they perceive as a "bad" economy. Trump kept repeating that the economy is terrible and media let him get away with his lies, as Steve Greenhouse reported for The Guardian. Thirty-nine percent of voters ranked the economy as the most important issue. Among those who said that this was their biggest concern, a large margin (60%) voted for Trump, according to an AP survey. This anomaly showed up in Missouri, where about 58.5% of voters voted for Trump while, at the same time, 58% voted for Proposition A, which will hike the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and guarantee paid sick leave. Trump is against raising the federal minimum wage and against paid sick leave, while Harris is for both of them. But obviously many Missourians voted for Trump AND Proposition A.
6. Immigration ranked #2 as a top concern. One-fifth (20%) of voters said that immigration was the most important issue in the election. 88% of those voters voted for Trump. Trump's racist stereotyping and scapegoating of immigrants was effective. This was his most fascist demagogic issue and it worked. It appears that Trump paid no political price for his lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio, his lies about immigrants involved in higher crime rates than other Americans, or other lies he used to demonize immigrants. Nor did he pay a price for his failure, in his first term, to build a border wall and get Mexico to pay for it.
7. Abortion ranked #3. Eleven percent of voters said it was the most important issue. Eight-five percent of them voted for Harris. Many people (including me) predicted that abortion would play a major role in getting women to vote and to vote for Harris and other Democrats in light of the Dobbs decision, made possible by Trump's appointments to the Supreme Court and his opposition to abortion. We still don't have all the facts, but it appears that this didn't happen. CNN exit polls found that Harris won female voters’ support by eight points — 53% to 45%. But in 2020, Biden won their women’s support by 15 percentage points, 57% to 42%. A majority (53%) of white women, who accounted for 37% of all voters, voted for Trump. According to the CNN polls, Harris won 92% percent of Black women’s votes, up from Biden’s 90.5%. Although Harris won 61% of Latina women’s votes, this margin was much lower than Biden’s 69% in 2020. Together, Black and Latina women accounted for only 13% of all voters. Quite a few Americans voted for Trump AND voted for state ballot measures in favor of abortion.
8. Why did most of the polls underestimate Trump's support? It has to do to with the so-called "Bradley effect," named for Tom Bradley, Los Angeles’ first African American mayor. In 1982 he lost his campaign for California governor despite having a lead in the polls going into the election. Some voters clearly told pollsters that they were going to vote for Bradley because they didn't want to sound racist. This year, some people who intended to vote for Trump lied to pollsters. They know he's a despicable person and didn't want to say out loud that they were going to vote for him. So they lied. That at least partly explains why most polls underestimated Trump's margins.
9. Harris had three major disadvantages. First, Biden waited too long to drop out and it handicapped Harris. She had 100 days to introduce herself (and her running mate) to the voters. She raised more money than Trump, and there was a groundswell of enthusiasm at the start, but she had too little time to campaign. Second, she was tethered to Biden, who, despite huge successes (especially on the economy) against impossible odds, was extremely unpopular. She didn’t have a good answer to how she would be different from Biden. Third, she’s a Black woman. Since the 1960s, more and more white voters have voted for Black and Hispanic candidates and more male voters have voted for female candidates. As a result, the number of Black, brown, and female elected officials has increased dramatically. That's all good. But we can't discount the reality that Harris' race and gender may have hurt her with quite a few voters. Black and women voters didn't support her at the levels that her campaign expected, and there are still many Americans who won't vote for a Black candidate, or a female candidate, much less at Black female candidate.
10. The Democrats approach to voter outreach and turnout didn’t work. Democrats can’t just helicopter paid organizers and unpaid volunteers into battleground areas a few months before each election. My wife and I canvassed for Democrat George Whitesides in a key battleground House race in northern LA County (Palmdale/Lancaster/Santa Carita), against a Republican incumbent, Mike Garcia. The Whiteside campaign recruited hundreds of volunteers like us. But most of the Whitesides canvassers over those last few weekends were NOT from that district, because there was very little Democratic infrastructure there. We door-knocked homes and apartments of registered Democrats who were low-propensity voters—who had only voted in one or two of the least five election cycles. Most weren't at home or refused to come to the door. We were not their friends, neighbors, or coworkers. We were strangers. Others told me of their similar experiences around the country. For certain we increased turnout to some extent, but that organizing model is inadequate and not a recipe for Democratic success. The result of this strategy results in very uneven outcomes. Turnout in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) was 74%, but only 60% in Philadelphia, according to Mike Elk's Payday Report. If turnout in Philadelphia had been closer to the level in Pittsburgh, Harris would have won Pennsylvania. Democrats and their allies have to build permanent, ongoing social and political organizations in-between elections, that garner trust, mobilize people around issues, and build local leadership. Groups like the Movement Voter Project do this, but they are woefully underfunded, as Jodi Jacobson noted in her article in The Nation, “Grassroots Groups Know How to Win This Campaign – Do They Have What They Need to Pull It Off?”
11. The turnout problem has much to do with the decline of the labor movement over the past 40 years—from 30% of all workers in the early 1970s, to 20% in the 1990s, to 10% today. Biden was the most pro-union president in history. Not a single union endorsed Trump. Union members voted for Harris-Walz by a margin of 57%-39%, according to the AP. That's not bad, but not good enough. Typically, turnout by union members is higher than average turnout. If union membership today was 20% of all workers - 28.8 million members instead of 14.4 million members—and 57% of them voted for Harris—she would have won the White House. Unions used to be the key turnout machine for Democrats. A stronger labor movement would have recruited more members to volunteer, had more money to invest in Democratic campaigns, put more resources into educating their members about why to vote for the pro-worker candidate, even those members who might be gun owners or evangelical Christians. Historian Michael Kazin discusses this in his article “The Decline of Union Hall Politics” in the current issue of Dissent magazine.
12. America's corporate ruling class and its Republican allies spent the past half-century trying to weaken and even destroy the labor movement, and almost succeeded. They did this in part by weakening labor laws and enforcement, in part by engaging in expensive union-busting. It turns out that unions have made a modest comeback in the past few years, but they can't win many workplace victories under current labor laws, which are biased toward corporations, allowing them to engage in illegal union-busting without paying serious penalties. Public opinion is solidly in support of unions. At least 70% of Americans support unions, the highest figure since the mid-1960s, when the Gallup Poll began asking that question. But public opinion doesn't win union elections. Fair labor laws and good organizing do. The Democrats should have enacted labor law reform (then called the Employee Free Choice Act, now called the Protect the Right to Organize Act) when they had the chance under Obama, but they didn't. They are paying for that now. That should be a priority if Democrats ever get a trifecta – the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
13. Other key organizations within the Democratic coalition—Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups groups, civil rights groups, immigrant rights groups, community organizing groups, LGBTQ groups—don't have the resources or infrastructure that the labor movement does. If they all worked together to invest in year-round organizing and voter mobilization, that would be better, but the liberal/progressive coalition is still organizationally fragmented.
14. Some people are surprised at Trump's victory because the media kept saying that his campaign operation was in disarray and didn't have a real ground game. But Trump DID have a ground game. It's called the white evangelical Christian movement. Those churches and their social networks mobilized their members for Trump and other Republicans. In 2016 and 2020 they accounted for almost half (45%) of Trump's total vote. According to CNN exit polls, this year white evangelical Christians accounted for 22% of all voters and gave Trump 82% of their votes. That translates into roughly 45% of his total votes, the same as before. It is likely that a significant factor in Trump's increase among Latinos this year was among Hispanic evangelicals and Hispanic-traditional Catholics.
15. The spoilers don't explain the loss. Many of us feared that in an extremely tight presidential election that would be determined by a small number of votes in seven battleground states, the presence of Jill Stein and Cornel West on the ballot could take enough "protest" votes away from Harris to hand Trump a victory. Third party “spoilers” have changed the outcome of presidential elections in the past. In 2000, for example, Ralph Nader diverted enough votes away from Democrat Al Gore to swing the election to George W. Bush. But that didn't happen this year. Trump's margin of victory in each of the seven battleground states was larger than the combined votes for Stein and West.
16. The same is likely true about Arab American voters. In the Arab-majority suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, Harris lost the city to Trump by more than 2,600 votes. Biden beat Trump by more than 17,400 votes in Dearborn. That's more than a 20,000-vote swing that contributed to Trump's triumph in Michigan. Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib received over 9,600 more votes in Dearborn than Harris. Rep. Elissa Slotkin—a Jew and a supporter of Israel—not only won her race for the Michigan Senate seat but also won the most votes in in Dearborn. She won 41.1% of Dearborn votes compared to 39% for her Republican opponents, but lost some votes to the Green Party candidate, who received 14.8% of the Dearborn vote. Trump beat Harris in Michigan by a slim margin of 79,303 votes—49.87% (2,809,720 votes) to 48% (2,728,417). The Arab American vote wasn't enough, on its own, to swing the Michigan electoral votes his way, but it contributed to his victory. More important was the low turnout by Black voters and the shift of some Black voters toward Trump. The same is likely true in Pennsylvania, which has a relatively large Arab American population, but where other factors were more important in Trump's victory.
17. Overall, it appears that foreign policy—including US support for Ukraine and Israel—was not a major factor in this election. Only about four percent of voters ranked foreign policy as a top concern. Even most leftist/progressive voters who declared themselves to be "uncommitted" probably voted for Harris anyway, knowing that things would be much worse for Palestinians, or the prospects for peace in the Middle East, if Trump won the election. Similarly, it doesn't look like Harris lost many votes among young people and liberals upset with her stance on Israel and Palestine. But because Harris got fewer votes than Biden did in 2020, we don't yet know which Biden voters didn't bother to vote this year and whether the Israel/Palestine issue prompted a significant number of people not to cast ballots for Harris or not to vote at all.
18. In many ways, the legacy of the COVID pandemic was a factor in this election. It brought the economy to a standstill, first under Trump, then under Biden. Biden's policies helped bring the economy back, but that's not how most voters see it. Instead, they have short memories and somehow blame Biden for higher prices for gas, food, rent, and other necessities. They forget the devastation that Trump's mishandling of the pandemic caused, including many unnecessary deaths due to his lies about vaccines and his administration's failure to quickly address the public health crisis. In early March 2020, weekly claims for unemployment insurance was about 207,000. Two weeks later, it was ten times that figure. By April, claims reached a high of 6,137,000. Having lost their jobs or working few hours, many Americans could not pay their mortgage or the rent. Biden expanded resources for testing and vaccines, but Trump and his MAGA movement opposed masks and even vaccines, so that, ironically, COVID deaths were higher in Republican areas. Through August 2024, the U.S. had 103 million confirmed cases of COVID and 1.2 million deaths. COVID also had a profound impact on increasing social isolation, with people becoming less connected to family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. That certainly had an impact on voter turnout.
19. What can we expect from a Trump administration? Here are some parts of his agenda that will likely be top priorities:
(a) He will hire more loyalists to run the White House and the agencies, to avoid what happened in his first term, where top aides and cabinet heads, as well as military leaders and his own chief-of-staff, thwarted Trump proposals they knew were illegal or political unwise. Among the new Trump inner circle will be fellow fascist Elon Musk and anti-science whacko Robert F. Kennedy Jr. If the latter is put in charge of health care initiatives, including NIH and/or FDA, watch out!
(b) He will try to persuade Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas (76 years old) and Samuel Alito (75) to retire so he can appoint younger reactionaries to the Supreme Court.
(c) He will fill other federal judgeships with similar reactionaries drawn from a list put together by the right-wing Federalist Society. This only requires Senate approval.
(d) He will begin to deport immigrants, although it is unlikely he can deport all 12 million undocumented immigrants. If he tries, he'll get pushback from major employers who depend on them. Trump's deportation efforts will sow enormous chaos and racism, and could result in violence and certainly violations of basic civil liberties.
(e) If the Republicans retain control of the House, which appears likely, he will weaken federal labor laws and eviscerate the NLRB to stall or reverse the modest but impressive victories by organized labor made during the Biden years.
(f) He will cut Medicaid, food stamps, and housing vouchers.
(g) He will weaken Obamacare to return to allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.
(h) He will weaken regulations that protect workers, consumers, and community residents from dangerous health, safety, and environmental practices by business. This means cutting budgets and regulations for EPA, FDA, OSHA, NLRB, FTC, CFPB, HUD, and other regulatory agencies.
(i) He will enact even more regressive tax policies by reducing taxes for the super-rich and big business.
(j) He will impose tariffs on imports that will be, in effect, a tax that will cost the typical consumer at least several thousand dollars a year.
(k) He will cut Pell grants and other financial aid for college and cancel all policies to reduce student debt, most of which is born by working class Americans who attended four year public colleges and universities.
(l) He will reduce funds for public transit and investments in green jobs and green industries, cancelling key provisions of one of Biden’s key legislative accomplishments.
(m) He will allow drug companies to dramatically raise prices for prescription medicine, including for drugs like insulin, reversing another Biden achievement.
(n) He will weaken federal laws that ban employment, housing and other forms of discrimination on the basis of race and gender
(o) He will encourage the Supreme Court to allow states to outlaw same-sex marriage
(p) He will preempt states and cities from raising the minimum wage above the federal level ($7.25 since 2009), and may try to preempt them from adopting rent control laws.
(q) He will support a bill to outlaw abortion, even though during the campaign he said it should be left to the states
(r) He will pardon all those who were convicted for the January 6 insurrection.
(s) He will end U.S. aid to Ukraine, guaranteeing Putin a victory.
(t) He will visit Israel to show support for Netanyahu, cut off U.S. funds for the UN relief agency providing aid in Gaza, and encourage the Israeli prime minister to expand Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
(u) He will continue to use the White House as a subsidiary of the Trump family business empire, making profits from people who want favors and who will stay in Trump hotels and resorts and invest in business projects sponsored by his children.
(v) He will continue to rant and rave like a deranged lunatic, encouraging hate groups like the Proud Boys to engage in violence against immigrants, transgender folks, Blacks, Jews, and others.
(w) He will engage in all kinds of acts to diminish our democracy and basic rights regarding free speech, assembly, dissent, unions, surveillance, academic freedom, immigration and deportation, separation of church and state, and others. Rick Perlstein painted a scary scenario about this subject in an article for American Prospect, entitled "What Will You Do?"
20. If the Republicans control the House (as it appears they will as of Friday), Trump will have no guardrails. His policies will cause a great deal of harm and suffering in the first two years of his administration. If so, that will give the Democrats a chance to win a majority of the House in the 2026 mid-terms, checkmating Trump's ability to carry out much his agenda in the third and fourth years of his term.
21. But even without a Republican House, Trump can do a great deal of damage through executive fiat and with a friendly Senate, who will approve his appointments to the Cabinet, regulatory agencies, and the courts. It will be extremely hard for the Democrats to take back the Senate in 2026. The Senate map seems to give Republicans the advantage. The “out” party usually picks up seats in the midterm elections, but the Democrats have a long climb to get to 51 Senate seats in 2026. If am correct, then Trump will have four years of a Republican Senate.
Current Senate
- 51 D (includes independents Sinema, Manchin, Sanders, King)
- 49 R
Republicans flipped at least four Senate seats
No Democrat flipped a Republican Senate seat. But Republicans flipped four Senate seats. GOP challengers defeated incumbents Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, and Jon Tester in Nevada. A Republican won the open Senate seat in West Virginia, where Joe Manchin—a Democrat who turned independent—didn’t run for re-election.
Republicans could still flip one more Senate seats, but it is too close to call
The Republicans were unable to flip Democratic-held Senate seats in Wisconsin and Michigan. Both Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) and Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) narrowly won their races for the Senate, outperforming Harris. That leaves one hotly-contested Senate race that is still too close to call. As of Friday, with 96% of the votes counted, incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen was ahead of her Republican opponent 47.8% to 46.5%.
The Next Senate
Assuming Rosen holds onto her Nevada Senate seat, the Republicans will have a 53-47 majority starting in January. Going into the 2026 mid-term elections, Democrats will have to hold onto all 47 current seats, and flip four Republican-held seats, to regain a Senate majority. This will be a difficult task, given the number of vulnerable Republicans and Democrats who are up for re-election in 2026.
2026 Senate Elections
Vulnerable Republicans (% of votes in previous race)
- Thom Tillis - NC (48.7%)
- Joni Ernst – Iowa (51.8%)
- Susan Collins – Maine (51%)
- John Cornyn - Texas (53.5%) [although Cruz’s win over Colin Allred with 53.2% of the vote makes a Cornyn win seem highly likely)
Vulnerable Democrats (% of votes in previous race)
- Jon Ossoff – GA (50.6%)
- Tina Smith – Minnesota (48.7%)
- John Hickenlooper – Colorado (53.5%)
- Gary Peters – Michigan (49.9%)
- Ben Ray Lujan – New Mexico (51.7%)
22. There’s lots to discuss about what Democrats, liberals and progressives, should be doing during Trump’s presidency. Massive civil disobedience and protest? General strikes in major cities? Investing in and strengthening an infrastructure of local/state issue-oriented groups to strengthen and expand the organizing base in-between elections? Focus on building movements and winning elections in cities and state legislatures? Lots of lawsuits to stop Trump from pursuing his agenda?
23. We won’t know for four years if this was a realignment election – the beginning of a dramatic change in America’s political direction. Was this a significant shift in Americans’ partisan loyalties or a tribute to Trump’s unique appeal? It is unlikely that any other Republican can pull off what Trump did. Certainly vice-president-elect JD Vance lacks Trump’s charisma. If the Democrats nominate good candidates for president and vice president in 2028, he or she can probably defeat Vance, who will be the presumptive GOP nominee. (It is also possible that Vance could become president earlier if Trump gets seriously ill, enfeebled, or dies before the end of his term). But there will be a lot of damage over the next four years that could make it harder to have a fair election.
24. There are many structural aspects of our political system that tilt the playing field toward big business, the wealthy, conservatives, and Republicans. These include the Electoral College; gerrymandering House seats (with SCOTUS approval); the small-state bias in the Senate; the federalist system (that allows each state to decide who can vote, how, when, and where people register and vote) that reduces turnout, especially among the poor; "balanced," "he said/she said" and "horse race" journalism that gave Trump a platform to spew lies (especially about the economy) and hate, normalized him, and didn't clearly inform Americans about what a Trump presidency would mean for their daily lives; Citizens United and our campaign finance rules that give corporations and the rich undue influence; and our judicial system, which let Trump off the hook with delays instead of convictions and prison. These are serious obstacles. Whether (and when) these can be reformed is a big question. But they should not get in the way of the more immediate need to build a stronger movement for economic and social justice.
25. In the midst of this awful election, there was some GOOD NEWS, including progressive candidates and ballot measures winning against the odds. Among them are Rep. Ruben Gallego’s Senate victory in Arizona and progressive tenant lawyer Ysabel Jurado’s election to the LA City Council. There's plenty of other silver linings from Tuesday's elections, but I'll leave that analysis for another time.
