The great realignment: What Trump’s victory means for the GOP coalition
By
Haisten Willis
November 10, 2024 7:00 am
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President-elect Donald Trump pulled off a stunning political realignment in his successful 2024 campaign, one that the Republican Party will hope to maintain in future elections.
Trump outperformed his 2020 numbers in 49 of the 50 states, did better with Hispanics than any Republican since at least 1972, won the popular vote for the GOP for the first time in 20 years, and even improved with women voters despite the Kamala Harris campaign’s heavy focus on that demographic.
“There will be multiple books written about this going forward, about what he was able to achieve,” Trump campaign senior adviser Corey Lewandowski told the Washington Examiner. “These [results] are all real. They’re not anecdotal, they’re empirical. So when you look at what was achieved because of Donald Trump’s success, you have to say, ‘boy, that was pretty amazing.”
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, was revealed at least for this election to be the party of the college educated and of high-income voters earning more than $100,000. She performed best among those groups, and one of the only places where she improved on President Joe Biden’s 2020 performance was in Washington D.C. Biden got 92.2% of the vote in the nation’s capital four years ago, and Harris is on pace to get 92.5% this time around.
Of course, much of Trump’s campaign has centered on anti-DC rhetoric. He’s promised to “drain the swamp” of government insiders and purge the “deep state” of Washington bureaucrats in a second term. Democrats will have to do some soul-searching ahead of the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 presidential contest.
“Democrats need a full engine overhaul not just a tune-up,” Rutgers University political science professor emeritus Ross Baker said. “The tires are shot, the body is rusty, and it won’t pass inspection. Above all, it needs a new driver.”
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3224128/trump-great-realignment-political-reality/
