Looking at National Results

Third of Three Election Reviews

By Tom McMahan (follow me on Bluesky! https://bsky.app/profile/tomindadega.bsky.social)

This will be my final election review (first one here, second one here). Given that there’s lots of media sources with maps, graphics and other info on the election. (NY Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and others) I’m not going to focus on that here. Those sites all have more resources to bring to bear than I ever could, so I’ll just repeat the current top line results, then look at implications for the party, then a quick update on a map from last week.

Electoral Map courtesy of 270 To Win (https://www.270towin.com/2024-election-results-live/president/)

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PRESIDENT

ELECTORAL COLLEGE - Harris 226, Trump 312. This is simply an inversion of 2020 results, with swing states going to Trump instead of Biden, and with electoral changes based upon the 2020 Census slightly altering the final totals.

POPULAR VOTE - Not done counting, and the percentages vary slightly from day to day, but Trump wins a plurality of something like 49.6-49.8% of the popular vote, a 1.5% victory. This is about a point to a point and a half less than Biden’s result in 2020.

CONGRESS

Not done counting, but a 214-221 GOP House advantage seems what we’re heading for. And yes, that’s exactly what it was going into the election. In the Senate, it will be 47-53, a drop of 4 seats in an election heavily slanted against Democrats due to whose terms were up this time around.

IMPLICATIONS MOVING FORWARD

1. The election results seem more catastrophic than the numbers indicate because we all know the potential damage that 4 years of Trump can bring. Just as we should not obey in advance, we should not fret our way into despair in advance either. This was NOT a huge win for Trump. Think about ways to communicate and organize against changes and challenges as they arise, because they will arise, and so will public opposition. Pick our battles carefully, and don’t get distracted in the daily torrent of bullshit coming from Trump’s social media posts. Focus on the things that are most unpopular, and hammer away at them.

2. Most Democrats have thought for years that when more people vote, we win. This election, I hope, will dispel that illusion. We should not get discouraged and change how we think about people voting and democracy in general, but we now have to reconcile that desire with the fact that bringing more people out to vote also means bringing more people who are poorly informed out to vote. Again, we have to adjust our ways of communicating, organizing, and consuming media to better reach these voters.

3. High prices was the primary reason why Harris/Walz lost. Yes, there are other factors at play (sexism, the torrent of lies in media, etc), but the chief reason a lot of voters switched this time was frustration with higher prices. This phenomenon has been occurring in other democracies as well. Incumbents have not been faring well globally, and high prices seem to be at the heart of a lot of the discontent. For those of you, like me, old enough to remember the last large inflationary surge we had, you should recall it sunk President Carter’s re-election as well. Carter wasn’t responsible for the inflation of the 70s any more than Biden/Harris has been responsible for it in the 20s, they just happen to have been the ones in the White House.

4. Kamala Harris ran a good campaign, especially given the compressed time she had in which to run it. So her loss isn’t due to a poor campaign approach, as it partially was for Clinton in 2016. But the almost total emphasis Harris and the party put on swing states, with Clinton’s 2016 campaign in their rearview mirror, probably cost us a small majority in the House, because Democratic vote in non-swing states tended to be depressed more than it should have been. I await further analysis to prove or disprove this point. The Democratic Party must, once and for all, take a we run everywhere stance on elections.

5. The more de-centralized approach of the Trump campaign paid off for them. We need to examine this approach for our side. In fact, our local 4-county campaign here was largely de-centralized from the statewide campaign and it seemed to work for us too.

I will focus on many of these same topics in the weeks ahead, along with how we can donate and volunteer more effectively.

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Finally, one of the maps I put up last week needed a little more finesse added to it. The data is good and remains the same, but Map 4 from last week, which shows Democratic vote change by county, had some issues. One, a bad color scheme. Two, not indicating what type of vote growth was occurring. So I did a quick, down and dirty, hand-drawn map to update it.

Map by Tom McMahan, November 2024

(Congressional Districts are drawn out in black)

GREEN counties, like Dade, had their Democratic vote totals increase mostly or entirely by established resident voters choosing more Democratic candidates. In Dade’s case, it was entirely due to this, because Dade’s registered voter population shrank from 4 years ago.

PURPLE counties had some or all of their Democratic vote increase occur from population change. A vote is a vote, and if population change is driving an increase in our totals, three cheers! But it could also be driving Republican vote totals up too, so this kind of growth has to be looked at a bit more carefully.

BROWN (COPPER) counties had “negative growth.” That is, their Democratic vote totals went down, but not as much as their registered voter population did. So, while still something, this obviously isn’t as desirable as the GREEN and PURPLE varieties.

BLANK counties had their Democratic numbers shrink. You’ll notice most of these are in southern and eastern areas. I’m currently conducting interviews and discussions with folks on the ground there to find out more of why they think that happened, and will write those findings up in a few weeks.