Trump won big because the Democrats are out of touch

In the end none of what Donald Trump’s critics focused on mattered. Not his 34 felony convictions. Not his erratic behaviour, vulgar remarks, or dangerous promise to deploy the U.S. military on American soil to combat the “enemy from within”.

He trounced Kamala Harris this week and will once again be president of the United States. He didn’t just eke out a victory. He won surprising support for any Republican candidate from Americans who used to be dependable Democratic voters: Latinos, Blacks, young people, and those who live in urban centres.

He came out on top in at least 31 of the 50 states, winning a clear Electoral College victory and more votes than he did in 2020 in the overwhelming majority of America’s 3,000 local counties. Trump is the first Republican to win the overall popular vote since 2004, beating Harris by almost 5 million votes and gaining ground in former Democratic strongholds.

Republicans traditionally attract the vote of the rich as they advocate for lower taxes and leaner government spending, but Trump was able to get exceptional support from not just the top of the economic ladder but the bottom, too.

A unicorn election

Critically, with Trump at the helm, the Republican Party won back the Senate. Votes in some close state races were still being counted this week, but Trump may have also kept the House of Representatives.

Whether he does or not, the candidate accused of inciting deadly violence at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 when he refused to accept that he lost the last election, will be in a stronger position when he takes office this time. By the time he basked in his victory in the early hours of Wednesday he had already promised radical changes to domestic and foreign policy.

He attributed his win to the “the biggest, the broadest, the most unified” coalition in U.S. history. “They came from all quarters,” he said. “Union, non-union, African-American, Hispanic American….we had everybody and it was beautiful.”

The political forensic pathologists will be studying the unicorn election of 2024 for decades. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, didn’t even know she was running for president until this summer when Joe Biden reluctantly dropped out. The 81-year-old president was seen as too frail to beat Trump, who had started running right after his 2020 loss.

But it is increasingly clear that the Democratic Party lost this race. Trump was a flawed candidate. He was beatable. But the Democratic party has veered off course and is out of touch with most Americans.

A blurred brand

The party that in modern times has focused on social justice and inequality, that spoke to minorities and disenfranchised, has lost working class voters and is now seen as too elite and academic. It’s haemorrhaging Latino and Black voters. Its prescriptions for addressing inflation, making housing more affordable and cities safer are not getting through.

“Everybody knows what Trump economics is – China; tariffs; tax cuts,” says Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster explaining what she heard from voters in her focus groups.  “Then you go to them and ask, ‘What are Democratic economics?’ and someone will make a joke about welfare and half the people can’t name anything. It’s nothing like the Republican brand.”

Exit polls show that many of the Latinos, Blacks and other voters who supported Trump found the Democrats “too woke,” too obsessed with social inequities, including racial injustice, sexism and denial of LGBT rights.

People felt Democrats pandered to the far left of the party, spending more time talking about transgender rights than the rising price of groceries and rent, crime, and a US southern border that was not policed well enough to stop huge numbers of illegal immigrants from crossing every day.

Trump promised to “seal” the border and hire thousands more border patrol agents. He also vowed mass deportations of millions of immigrants.

He won the votes of rich and poor. He said he would stop taxing tips earned by waiters at the same time as he was promising to cut taxes for the richest Americans.

Harris had just 107 days to explain what she stood for on the economy and law order. Exit polls showed that many voters seemed unclear about her policy positions.

She failed to get the blowout support from women that many had predicted. Exit polls on Wednesday said she won 54 percent of the female vote; slightly less than Biden’s 55 percent in 2020.

The importance of listening

Yes, for sure, Donald Trump has severe character flaws. He lies. He is an egomaniac. Polls show voters liked Kamala Harris more as a person – but that a candidate’s character was not their top priority. Those who voted for Trump said he projected strength, didn’t ignore them, and gave them more specifics on how to fix what mattered most to them.  

The New York Times columnist David Brooks said Trump overwhelmingly won male support by understanding that men, especially those who had not gone to college, “were rendered invisible”.  The Democrats spoke to college elites. "By high school two-thirds of the students in the top 10 percent of the class are girls, while about two-thirds of the students in the bottom decile are boys. Schools are not set up for male success; that has lifelong personal, and now, national consequences.”

Since Trump’s big win, Democratic leaders are again focusing on him. They warn about how crazy, narcissistic Trump will use the power of the presidency to settle scores, evade prosecution for his crimes, and enrich himself.

But common sense suggests that if they want to win the next presidential election what they really need to do is focus on why they lost to Trump and to listen more carefully to most Americans.  

We have seen our Democratic friends and neighbours in D.C. go from shock and anger initially to self-reflection now.  

Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky said on CNN that Trump’s win was squarely on the shoulders of the Democratic Party. “It failed to communicate effectively to voters. We are not the party of common sense, which is the message that voters sent to us.”  

“We don’t know how to speak to voters. When we address Latino voters as Latinx, because that is the politically correct thing to do, it makes them think that we don’t even live on the same planet they do… We need to get back to being the party of common sense.”

If Democrats want to win back the White House in 2028, the time to start is now.