Opinion
By: Jordan Sarver-Bontrager
Staff-Writer
On Nov. 5, President-Elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris by an Electoral College score of 312 to 226, winning every swing state. Republicans also took the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Harris lost several demographics that Joe Biden won in 2020, particularly with Latino and Arab voters. The former saw a major Republican shift from 2020, with 65% of Latino voters opting Republican this year, where 53% voted Democrat in 2020. Some voters have suggested that Harris lost ground with Arab voters because of her support for Israel and her lukewarm stance on violence in Gaza, especially in Michigan, a key battleground state with the highest Arab population in the country.
The numbers tell the story of this election. With 73 million votes, Harris lost the popular vote by 3 million, a dramatic decrease from her Democratic predecessor. Joe Biden won in 2020 with 81 million votes, the most votes for a presidential candidate in U.S. history, spelling a Democratic loss of 8 million voters from last election.
The Democrats lost on issues like the economy and the border, which they compensated for by pushing a more center-right agenda on both of those issues, further fueling the mentality of disaffected Americans that both major parties are exactly the same. One of the only cosmetic differences between the Dems and Republicans this cycle was abortion, which the Democrats won over some voters with.
Young men turned out for Trump significantly more than in 2020 – 56% as opposed to 41%. The Democratic party also lost young women, with Republican voters in this category up to 41% from 33% in 2020. Of young voters aged 18-29, all categories voted majority Democrat except for white men (35%), white women (49%) and Latino men (47%). Young Black women and Asian American-Pacific Islander women had the highest turnouts for Harris, with 85% and 80%, respectively.
In my opinion, the Democrats lost not entirely because of a rightward shift in this country, but because of a poor campaign and a lack of faith from the electorate – especially after Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee with little to no input from the Democratic voter base, leaving Democrats feeling disempowered.
As someone who watched Harris’s campaign very closely, it seemed as though she never gave any solid promises on her top issues, which had a chilling effect on the electorate; for example, she provided no clear plan to codify abortion rights, a key issue for many Democratic voters.
This election has shown that the American electorate is losing faith in the Democratic Party. Many Americans feel as though the Democrats will not actually do anything to benefit the nation and that all they do is maintain the status quo, but many also have no faith in the Republican party. American people, especially young voters, are dissatisfied and want major party reform or an overhaul of the two-party system altogether, which this election has made clearer than ever.
