NBC election analyst Steve Kornacki provided a comprehensive breakdown of President-elect Trump’s significant electoral gains among key demographics and traditionally deep blue strongholds, both of which were crucial to securing the first popular vote victory for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004.
Kornacki started by highlighting the few data points that favored Democrats in 2024, which were limited. Since Trump emerged on the political scene, the party has managed to secure a four-point shift among white voters, an 11-point shift among those with a college degree, and a substantial 15-point swing among Americans earning more than $100,000 per year. Republicans previously led the wealthy demographic by 10 percentage points before 2016, but now Democrats hold a five-point advantage, reflecting the Trump GOP’s shift toward a multi-ethnic, working-class coalition.
In what was arguably the most surprising outcome of the 2024 campaign cycle, President-elect Trump made historic gains in several blue states. In New Jersey, the Democratic margin of victory dropped dramatically from 16 percentage points in 2020 to just around five in 2024, prompting some political analysts to consider the Garden State a potential battleground in future elections.
This trend was mirrored across the Northeast and New England, with the Democratic margin in New York nearly halved, falling from D+24 in 2020 to D+12 on Tuesday. Maryland also shifted nine points in Trump’s favor, as did Massachusetts, while Connecticut and Rhode Island each saw a shift of about seven percentage points. California shifted 11 points in favor of the President-elect, consistent with trends seen during the 2022 midterm elections, similar to those in New York and New Jersey.
“Trump swept the battlegrounds, but the other big story this week has to do with the popular vote and how Trump pulled that off. Here’s one answer. Big blue states with very diverse populations. This new coalition that Donald Trump’s assembled, it meant that he didn’t win any of these, but he made some giant strides,” Kornacki said of the Trump coalition’s demographic breakdown. “Go down this list and look inside those states and you’ll see it. Blue collar areas, cities, metro areas with large Hispanic populations, that’s where Trump made his big gains there.”
WATCH:
Kornacki also provided context for Trump’s significant gains in battleground states. In 2008, Barack Obama won Wisconsin with 56.2 percent of the vote, while Republican nominee John McCain garnered just 42.3 percent. Obama’s victory was largely driven by strong support in working-class, blue-collar counties across the state, all of which flipped to Trump’s side by 2024.
“It’s left the Democrats relying more than ever on areas like Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County, areas that have large populations of voters with college degrees, of higher income voters, of progressive voters. In this election, Kristen, it just wasn’t enough for the Democrats to lean on that when they’ve lost so much ground with blue-collar voters elsewhere,” Kornacki told Meet The Press host Kristen Welker, who responded: “Steve, it is just striking to look at that map of Wisconsin and frankly all the results that you laid out.”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.