Nov. 7, 2024

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

Trump on track to surpass 76 million votes in first GOP popular vote win since 2004, biggest GOP Electoral College win since 1988. Is it realignment?

By Robert Romano

President-elect Donald Trump appears on track to surpass 76 million votes in the 2024 election’s national popular vote after California, Arizona, Nevada and other states are done counting, assuming similar margins for Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in each of the states. Harris for her part could come in around 72.6 million votes.

Factoring for third party candidates — they cumulatively haver garnered about 2.1 million votes, or about 1.5 percent — the final result might show something like Trump at 50.4 percent nationally and Harris 48.1 percent. That’s a mandate to govern for Trump. 

And once again, it was a huge miss for national polls. The RealClearPolling.com average prior to the election was 48.7 percent for Harris and 48.6 percent for Trump, and so that would mean Harris was overstated by about 0.6 percent and Trump was understated by about 1.8 percent.

Therefore, the national polls were off by about 2.4 percent — again. This follows similar patterns in 2016 and 2020, when the polls were biased against Trump by about 2 points on average.

Not every poll was wrong. Atlas Intel was the most accurate, and Fox News, Wall Street Journal and CNBC appeared to get the popular vote winner and margins about right. But other outlets, like NPR-PBS-Marist, Reuters-Ipsos, Morning Consult and Yahoo News both had the wrong candidate and therefore the wrong margins, and skewed the polling averages.

In swing states, the polling was better, but still missed two states and was biased against Trump, who has overperformed on the net margin of victory in every state called so far. 

In Pennsylvania, the polling average favored Trump over Harris 48.5 percent to 48.1 percent, but Trump won 50.5 percent to 48.5 percent, a net difference of 1.6 percent in Trump's favor. 

In Michigan, polls wrongly favored Harris 48.3 percent to 47.8 percent, but Trump won 49.8 percent to 49.3 percent, a net difference of 1.0 percent in Trump's favor. 

In Wisconsin, polls wrongly favored Harris 48.6 percent to 48.2 percent, but Trump won 49.7 percent to 48.8 percent, a net difference of 1.3 percent in Trump's favor. 

In Georgia, polls favored Trump 49.1 percent to 47.8 percent, but Trump won 50.7 percent to 48.5 percent, a net difference of 0.9 percent in Trump's favor. 

And in North Carolina, polls favored Trump 48.7 percent to 47.5 percent, but Trump won 51.1 percent to 47.7 percent, a net difference of 2.2 percent in Trump's favor. 

Nevada and Arizona are still counting, but I believe a similar analysis will show the same thing.

When it comes to swing states, that's where a lot of the money was spent, and so were more closely contested. 

Where Trump overperformed the most was everywhere else, in both red states and blue states. The implication is that Republicans and independents in red and blue states, but also some Democrats, polled for Trump on Election Day more than polls showed, giving Trump a majority in the popular vote. 

Democrats lost major ground in very blue states that would normally constitute their majority in the national popular vote. In 2020, President Joe Biden won New York by 23.5 points, but on Nov. 5, Harris only won it by 11.6 points. In New Jersey, Biden won it by 16 points, but Harris only won it by 5 points. In Illinois, Biden won by 17 points, but Harris only won it by 8.4 points. In California, Biden won it by 29 points, but Harris is only leading it by 17 points.

And in red states, Trump built on his showings in 2016 and 2020. In 2020, Trump won Florida by 3.5 points, but in 2024, he won it by 13 points. In Texas, in 2020, Trump won it by 5.5 points, but in 2024, he won it by 14.6 points. In Ohio, Trump won it by 8 points, but in 2024, Trump won it by 11.5 points.

But the country really has not shifted too much since 2016 in the Electoral College, with the one state potentially picked up being Nevada, otherwise it was the same combination of states that elected Trump in 2016. For Republicans by modern standards, still, it's an electoral landslide and the biggest win for the GOP since 1988. 

What's different are Trump's margins of victory and performance nationally. Unlike his win in 2016, has a true majority. He has built his movement and restored a competitive two-party system, and showed Republicans a new way to win by creating inroads across all demographics and showing the value of competing in blue states with a focus on the working and middle class, with appeal on issues of international trade, stopping illegal immigration and improving nation state relations abroad to reduce wars. 

Republicans are not the war party anymore, not the party of globalism and not the party of the rich. And it was enough to win a national majority — something that might give Democratic state legislatures pause in attempting to abolish the Electoral College. 

Is it realignment? An implication is that Republicans could be poised to make further inroads to traditional Democratic constituencies including Blacks, Hispanics, young people and women in 2028 — provided they deliver on their promises and do a good job. Governing is the hard part. But winning the trifecta of the White House, House (which is trending GOP as votes are still being counted) and Senate could certainly make that easier.

And it was all because the so-called shy Trump voter showed up. Whether they show up again will be largely decided by what Trump and the GOP Congress can accomplish with the opportunity they are being given. 

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.