Where Trump gained support in the 2024 presidential race

It’s a daunting reality for Democrats (Republican) that of Donald Trump support has greatly increased since his last bid for the presidency.

In his defeat of democrat Kamala HarrisTrump won a greater percentage of the vote in all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., than he did four years ago. He won more actual votes than in 2020 in 40 states, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Certainly, Harris lost more than 7 million votes to the president That of Joe Biden The 2020 total was a factor in its defeat, particularly in swing state metropolitan areas that have been the party’s winning electoral strongholds.

But, despite national participation That’s fewer than in the 2020 election, which was met with great enthusiasm, Trump received 2.5 million more votes than four years ago. He swept the seven most competitive states to win a convincing victory in the Electoral College, becoming the first Republican candidate in 20 years to win a majority of the popular vote.

Trump cut in areas where Harris needed to outperform to win a close election. Democrats are now considering how to regain ground before the midterm elections in two years, when control of Congress will again be at stake and dozens of governors will be elected.

There were a few notable elements in the way Trump’s victory unfolded:

Trump bit into the northern metros

Although Trump improved across the board, his gains were particularly notable in the urban counties home to the cities of Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, electoral engines that stalled for Harris in the industrially developing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Harris fell more than 50,000 votes — and 5 percentage points — from Biden’s total in Wayne County, Michigan, which makes up the lion’s share of metro Detroit. He was nearly 36,000 votes short of Biden in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and about 1,000 in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

It wasn’t just Harris’ deficit that helped Trump win the states, a trio that Democrats had collectively won in six of the previous seven elections before November 5.

Trump added to his 2020 total in all three metro counties, garnering more than 24,000 votes in Wayne County, more than 11,000 in Philadelphia County and nearly 4,000 in Milwaukee County.

It is not yet possible to determine whether Harris fell short of Biden’s performance because Biden voters stayed home or voted for Trump — or how a combination of the two produced the evident rightward shift in each of these states.

Harris advertised extensively and campaigned regularly in all of them, and made Milwaukee County her first stop as a candidate with a gathering in July. Those swings alone didn’t make a difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, but his weaker performance than Biden’s in all three metro areas helped Trump, who held on to large margins in 2020 in the vast rural areas of the three states and improved or remained stable in the populated suburbs. .

Trump’s team and the outside groups supporting him knew from their data that he was making inroads with black voters, particularly black men under 50, who are more concentrated in those urban areas that have been the key to Democratic victories.

When James Blair, Trump’s political director, saw the results coming in from Philadelphia on election night, he knew that Trump had hit predominantly black precincts, a gain that would ripple through Wayne and Milwaukee counties.

“The data clearly showed there was an opportunity there,” Blair said.

AP VoteCast, a national survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump gained a greater share more black and Latino voters than in 2020, and more particularly among men under 45.

Democrats won Senate elections in Michigan and Wisconsin, but lost in Pennsylvania. In 2026, they will defend governorships in all three states and a Senate seat in Michigan.

Trump won more than Harris on the battlefields

Despite the excitement Harris’ candidacy generated among the Democratic base when she entered the race in July, she ultimately received fewer votes than Biden in three of the seven states where she campaigned almost exclusively.

In Arizona, she received about 90,000 fewer votes than Biden. She received about 67,000 fewer in Michigan and 39,000 fewer in Pennsylvania.

In four other states – Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin – Harris won more votes than Biden. But support for Trump has grown again – in some states, much more.

This dynamic is evident in Georgia, where Harris received nearly 73,000 more votes than Biden when he narrowly won the state. But Trump added more than 200,000 to his 2020 total, en route to winning Georgia by about 2 percentage points.

In Wisconsin, Trump’s team responded to the slippage seen in Republican-leaning counties in suburban Milwaukee by targeting formerly Democratic-leaning working-class areas, where Trump has made notable gains.

In the three largest suburban Milwaukee counties — Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha — that have been the backbone of GOP victories for decades, Harris performed better than Biden in 2020. She also received more votes than Trump in 2020, even though he still won the election. counties.

That made Trump’s focus on Rock County, a working-class area in south-central Wisconsin, crucial. Trump received 3,084 more votes in Rock County, home of the former auto manufacturing town of Janesville, than in 2020, while Harris underperformed Biden’s 2020 total by seven votes. That helped Trump offset Harris’ improvement in suburban Milwaukee.

That focus speaks to the strength Trump has had and continued to grow among middle-income and non-college-educated voters, said Tim Saler, senior data analyst for the Trump campaign.

“If you have to rely on working-class voters, they are particularly strong in Wisconsin,” Saler said. “We saw huge changes in our favor between 2020 and 2024.”

Trump increased 2020 totals as Arizona turnout fell

Among the seven most competitive states, Arizona saw the smallest increase in votes cast in the presidential race – just over 4,000 votes, in a state with more than 3.3 million votes cast. expressed.

That’s despite nearly 30 campaign visits to Arizona by Trump, Harris and their running mates and more than $432 million spent on advertising by campaigns and allied outside groups, according to ad monitoring firm AdImpact.

Arizona, only of the seven swing states, saw Harris fall short of Biden in small, medium and large counties. In the other six states, it managed to hold its own in at least one of these categories.

Even more telling, it’s also the only swing state in which Trump improved his margin in every state.

While turnout in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous and home to Phoenix, was down slightly from 2020 — by 14,199 votes, a small change in a county where more than 2 million people voted – Trump received almost 56,000 more votes than four years ago.

Meanwhile, Harris fell more than 60,000 votes short of Biden’s total, contributing to a shift large enough to swing the county and state in favor of Trump, who lost Arizona by fewer than 11,000 voice in 2020.

Shift to the right, even in heavily Democratic areas

The greatest swings to the right have not occurred exclusively in Republican-leaning counties, but also among the states’ most Democratic-leaning counties. Wayne County, Michigan, swung 9 points toward Trump, tying more Republican Antrim County for the largest swing in the state.

AP voting found that voters were most likely to say the economy was the most important issue facing the country in 2024, followed by immigration. Trump supporters were more motivated by economic issues and immigration than Harris supporters, the survey found.

“It’s always about the economy,” said North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to Democrat Josh Stein, who won the North Carolina governorship on Nov. 5 while Trump also carried the state.

“Democrats need to take an economic message that actually works for real people and talk about it in the kind of terms people hear, rather than giving them a dissertation on economic policy,” he said.

The 2026 gubernatorial elections will give Democrats a chance to test their understanding and messaging on the issue, said Democratic pollster Margie Omero, whose firm advised Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the past and the winning candidate in the Arizona Senate Ruben Gallego this year.

“So there’s an opportunity to really make sure that people, who governors have a connection with, feel some specificity and clarity in the Democratic economic message,” Omero said.

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