It was a brutal campaign. A campaign which saw two assassination attempts, two Democratic presidential candidates, and two years of campaigning for the President-elect. But, despite what was the polls said would be a neck-and-neck election in the seven swing states which would ultimately decide it, Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election in a landslide.
A common theme emerged among Trump’s loyalists and his fiercest critics: sheer shock at the scale of his victory. An election which some thought would not be decided for weeks to come was all-but confirmed by the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The margin of victory across the country made it pretty clear who was going to win – something which became clear in Georgia – the first swing state to begin counting its votes. While Kamala Harris performed better than Joe Biden in Georgia’s urban areas, her margin of improvement (+0.5%) was far smaller than Trump’s in suburban (2.9%) and rural (3.9%) areas.
This trend replicated across the country, with Trump leading Harris by 3.5 percentage points at the time of writing in the popular vote (something which the President-elect lost in 2016 and 2020). Despite near enough every poll claiming the two adversaries were tied in the battlegrounds, Trump, once again, enjoyed a 3-4 point boost on what pollsters predicted pre-election. Given that most swing states were decided by a much smaller margin in 2020, it’s perhaps no surprise that Trump swept them on polling day.
There are several thousand counties in the U.S., and Trump flipped just under 90 of them. Harris, meanwhile, flipped just one. In those which remained the same, Trump’s support increased, while enthusiasm for the Democrats dwindled.
The best summary, albeit referring to states rather counties as social media believed, was CNN’s realization of Harris’ poor performance. It’s done the rounds online, but for one more time, it’s worth a watch. Jake Tapper was so shocked that he was actually honest.
