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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Nuray Bulbul

Demographic shift in US 2024 election – how Donald Trump got more votes

Donald Trump has emerged victorious in the US presidential election, securing a historic second term.

A picture of how various demographic groups have voted around the country is created by the US exit polls.

Here's a dive into those polls.

How did different demographics vote?

While Mr Trump kept a large portion of his coalition together, Kamala Harris lost some support from several typical Democratic coalition groups.

In his campaign, Mr Trump also specifically targeted marginal voters, and those who did not cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election chose him over Ms Harris.

Democrats lost women, Black and Latino supporters

According to the most recent data, Ms Harris received 54 per cent votes from women, compared to 44 per cent for Mr Trump, though perhaps not by the percentages her campaign had hoped for.

The exit polls from 2020 indicated that 57 per cent of women supported Joe Biden. That's three per cent more than Ms Harris received.

In terms of race, Ms Harris led among Black voters, while Mr Trump led with white voters.

Ms Harris still fell short of Mr Biden's performance, especially in states where Black men predominate. In North Carolina, more than one in five Black men supported Mr Trump, more than doubling his support from 2020.

Although she led among Hispanic voters as well, Mr Trump's support within this demographic has grown by more than 10 points since 2020.

Specifically, Mr Trump has gained 18 points more support from male Latino voters than he did in 2020.

Republicans gained more young supporters

Although Ms Harris was supported by the majority of younger voters in the US, the most recent exit poll results indicate that the Democrats lost a sizeable portion of support from 18- to 29-year-olds in Michigan, a battleground state.

Only 46 per cent of voters in this cohort said they voted for Ms Harris this time around, compared to 61 per cent who supported Mr Biden in 2020.

According to the data, nearly 60 per cent of voters with university degrees said they voted for Ms Harris, and a comparable percentage of voters without college degrees said they opted for Mr Trump.

Mr Trump gained support from young people in other states, especially young males under 30, who make up a portion of the Democratic coalition.

Ms Harris' victories were significantly smaller, especially in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Mr Biden won by double digits among voters aged 18 to 29.

Mr Trump performed well in Pennsylvania among younger men, a demographic that Mr Biden carried by nine points. The fact that Mr Trump did better with younger males than he did in 2020 was a major factor in Ms Harris's lacklustre showing among voters aged 18 to 29.

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