“The polls have failed again. They have not been able to value the weight of the rural vote or the behavior of the suburbs (suburbs), nor that of racial groups,” especially Latino citizens. In general terms, it is the simplest explanation that can be given for the fact that it has not been foreseen that donald trump was going to sweep the elections this Tuesday.
This is how he exposes it Alejandro Mansodirector of Public Affairs in Llorente and Cuenca (LLYC) and expert in political analysis and surveys. Although the so-called suburbs They were the ones who opted for the Democrats in 2020, this time they have placed their trust in Trump.
Added to this are the always capital hinge states, which four years ago they opted more for Joe Biden (he then won in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, and Trump only in North Carolina) and that in 2024 they have voted in unison for the Republicans.
“Where Democrats have suffered the most damage is in the rust belt (northeast of the country), especially in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the key has been,” Manso tells 20 minutes.
José Antonio Gupergui, director of the Benjamin Franklin University Research Institute in North American Studies, agrees with this analysis. “Personally, I thought Harris was going to win Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvaniaand that was enough for him to win. In fact, Trump’s complaints in recent weeks about possible fraud in Pennsylvania made me suspect that the Republicans had some type of survey or information that made them think they were going to lose there,” he told this newspaper.
There was little doubt, however, with the southern states (Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas…), which after these elections perpetuate their historic Republican support.
The reasons for Trump’s victory
There are several factors that can explain why Donald Trump ended up sweeping Kamala Harris in the elections. Both Gurpegui and Manso agree on them, although they delve into some more than others.
Thus, the director of the University Institute for Research in North American Studies Benjamin Franklin believes that the magnate has been able to identify very well the problems that most concern Americans and, in this way, focus your speech during the campaign on them.
“Trump’s speech was very simple and well directed. He focused on the aspects that interest the voter: economy, security, immigration… He has known how to use his weapons very well, such as inflation, saying: ‘Hey, are you living better or worse today than four years ago, when I was president? Of course, the response of a very important majority is: ‘I live worse’. He repeated that in almost all his rallies,” says Gurpegui.
With respect to Kamala Harris, the expert believes that “she was involved in other intellectual disquisitions that did not interest her voters” and that “She has not been able to overcome the bad reputation she had as vice president. and get away from Joe Biden, a very unpopular president.
For his part, Alejandro Manso points to a disenchantment with “what Trump calls the real America (rural areas and suburbs)” with the Democrats. “When we look at the map county by county, we will see that the Democratic vote is urban and the Republican vote is rural. This is one of the lessons that should be learned from what happened,” considers the director of Public Affairs in Llorente and Cuenca.
Likewise, Manso refers to the unpredictability of the behavior of racial minoritieskeys to Trump being able to achieve the presidency of the United States again. “It is very difficult to predict. It is true that there were dynamics and that there was talk that Harris was losing the support of black and Latino men. The polls have also failed to assess the support they have ended up giving to Trump.” In fact, according to CNN, Republicans have reduced the gap with Democrats by 25 points when it comes to the Latino vote.
The US “is not prepared” to have a female president
“It is devastating and it is crude to say it, but yes. The United States seems not to be prepared to have a woman as president of the country. In fact, among the black population, specifically among men over 40 years old, it has been identified that They didn’t want a black woman to rule them.“Laments Manso.
In this sense, the female vote (40% of the census) has not mobilized as the Democrats and the polls predicted. While it is true that Harris has brought together most of it, Trump has cut five points in this area, according to CNN. “Kamala sought to gain the vote of uneducated white women, but she has not been able to. And the abortion sentences seemed like they were going to mobilize many against Trump, but it seems that what Americans have prioritized are the economy and immigration,” he says.
José Antonio Gurpegui expresses himself in the same way, who also points out the reluctance of Americans for a woman to reach the White House. “There is a social impediment that could not be overcome [Hillary] Clinton and has failed to overcome Harris. It’s still a dream, but I am very afraid that this has ended any possible aspirations that Michelle Obama could have had.. The Democratic Party has presented two candidates twice and both have lost,” he says.
Low hours for the Democratic Party
Trump’s victory is overwhelming. It has won all the pivotal states, it has won the electoral vote and the popular vote, and it has a majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives. All this makes Gurpegui affirm that “The disaster of the Democrats has been monumental“I believe that since Carter they have not had such an important defeat,” he defends.
Manso is less catastrophic by analyzing only the results. “The American electoral college gives us a very caricatured picture. Three hundred or so delegates against two hundred or so offer a wider gap than it really is“. Without going any further, in the 2020 elections the Democrats won 306 delegates and the Republicans, 232. Four years later, the situation has completely reversed.
This is where the key lies for the director of Public Affairs at LLYC: not so much in today’s map, but in the unknown in the management of tomorrow. “The American voter is disconnected from the Democratic narrative and I think the party is not very clear about the next leadership. If they are not able to manage this, they will officially be in low hours,” he warns.
More power than ever for Trump
The Republican achievement of the electoral vote, the popular vote and the majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives join its predominance in the Supreme Courtwhere the majority of judges are conservative. With all this, Donald Trump accumulates much more power than in 2016… and what may be more important: he already knows what power is.
“When he came to the White House eight years ago, he did not know what it was like to be president of the United States, he had to learn and made mistakes. Now he knows what he has to do and, furthermore, with the popular vote, has been loaded with moral reasons for it“explains Gurpegui.
Thus, Manso hopes that at this juncture Trump undertake a “full MAGA (Make America great again)“its star motto along with “America first“. “The mid-term [elecciones intermedias] They are in a couple of years and a third of the Senate is going to be renewed. If the Democrats show agility these months, they could make the Republicans fear losing that power, so it would not be strange if Trump wants to accelerate all his policies in the first two years,” says Manso.
Finally, regarding the situation of the Supreme Court, the current panorama may mean that its composition ends up being the most conservative and reactionary in history. Currently, there are six judges who have been chosen by Republicans (three of them by Trump himself) and three by Democrats. Two of the conservatives, selected by George W. Bush, are close to retirement, so the new US president, using his unquestionable legislative power, could replace them with two more like-minded judges and gain absolute control of the institution.
“If Trump really carries out this policy of America first so aggressive that it would lead him to have all the powers in his hand, could cause a paradigm shift as we know it“, concludes Manso.
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