The United States on Tuesday elected Donald Trump as its new president, giving him a second chance after he refused to accept defeat four years ago, was convicted on criminal charges and survived two assassination attempts.
Although the count continues, it is already beginning to emerge how Americans voted to return the Presidency to Trump, which he held from 2017 to 2021.
According to data from the Associated Press, which surveyed more than 110,000 voters nationwide, four in ten citizens consider the economy to be the country’s main problem.
This factor remained or even became more relevant in some key states for Trump’s victory: it was the greatest concern for 44% of voters in Georgia, 42% in North Carolina and Pennsylvania and 39% in Wisconsin, the state that assured him re-election.
Immigration was the second most important issue for 20% of voters, followed by abortion, which only 11% of Americans mentioned as their main concern, despite being the focus of the vice president’s campaign, Kamala Harris.
The data thus reflects that Trump’s priority issues, such as high inflation and immigration, were central to voters.
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Trump maintained an advantage over male, African American and Latino voters
These were expected to be the elections with the largest “gender gap” in recent US history, that is, with a record difference between the vote of men and women.
Although definitive data is lacking, preliminary results indicate that the split between pro-Harris women and pro-Trump men was less pronounced than expected.
Exit polls from ABC show that, nationally, Harris maintained a 10-point lead over Trump, obtaining 54% of female voters’ support compared to 44% for her rival.
Although the majority of women opted for her, her advantage did not reach that obtained in 2020 by the president, Joe Biden, who beat Trump by 15 points, nor that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, who obtained a difference of 13 points.
Trump, for his part, maintained his advantage among male voters, with 54% support compared to 44% for Harris, according to ABC.
Trump gained greater support among Hispanic and African American voters compared to 2020, which could have been key to his victory, according to the Associated Press.
Although its main base remains the white population (55%), it achieved 15% African American support and 41% among Latinos, a significant increase compared to the 8% and 32% it achieved in these groups in 2020.
Since 2016, Latino voters, especially men, have shown a warming toward Trump. A CNN poll indicates that, for the first time, the majority of Latino men supported Trump with 54%, compared to 45% who supported Harris. In 2020, Biden won in this group with 59% compared to Trump’s 36%.
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A key factor in Trump’s victory was the continued support of voters without college degrees. According to the AP, more than half of those voters backed Trump, while about half of those with a college education voted for Harris.
However, preliminary data from CNN suggests a significant shift among white voters with college degrees, who narrowly supported Trump in 2016. In these elections, Harris obtained 54% of her support, beating Trump by 10 points.
This advantage can be explained by the support that Harris achieved among white women with a college degree (59% compared to 39% for Trump), improving the performance of Biden and Clinton in this group. However, he lost support among voters of color, regardless of their educational level.
A final factor explaining Trump’s victory was his ability to regain some of the support lost in 2020 in rural areas, traditionally favorable to Republicans, compared to urban areas, which tend to support Democrats.
The CNN poll indicates that 63% of voters in rural areas voted for Trump and only 36% voted for Harris. In urban areas, however, Harris obtained 60% compared to Trump’s 37%.
The suburbs, those residential areas on the outskirts of cities and often electoral battlefields, remained divided: Trump got 50% of support, compared to 48% for Harris.
With information from EFE
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