Five reasons Trump is on the verge of winning
The Irish Independent’s Adrian Weckler writes from Pennsylvania about the count as it stands…
It’s Wednesday morning and Donald Trump is inching all but guaranteed a presidential election win.
It was as clear an hour ago when I left the glum Democratic election party for the (re-elected) Irish American Congresswoman Mary Scanlon in Philadelphia’s wealthy Delaware county.
A sort of pre-post-mortem is already underway on the television networks as to why Trump scored so well among certain demographics, particularly Latino voters and white women.
Here is what seems relevant at this half-way stage.
1. The Hispanic vote moved toward Trump
Exit polls suggest that 45pc of Hispanics voted for Trump this time, a full 10pc more than 2020. The reasons why will be teased out in the days to come, but one of Harris’s strong points — abortion — may not have been as persuasive to a strong Catholic ethos.
2. Not enough white women voted for Harris
The single biggest demographic, white women, appear to have voted for Trump in a slight majority (52pc). This compared to just 7pc of black women voting for the Republican and 37pc of Latino women. While much had been made of a ‘men v women’ presidential race, it appears that white women, in particular, voted for him in a majority.
3. It was the economy, stupid
The three biggest issues, according to all polls and exit polls, were ‘democracy’, the economy and abortion. While pundits have hailed the US economy as being more robust than other developed nations, this may not have translated to enough ordinary voters, who pay record prices for groceries.
4. Working class still feel ignored
When Bernie Sanders visited Trinity College earlier this year, he sounded a word of caution about how to fight Trump. Trump, he said, was very good at connecting emotionally with unfashionable white working class voters. Some Democrats, he implied, are not. As an example, President Biden’s forgiveness of college student debt, while popular among many families, may also have highlighted to families with no college kids how much they’re being left behind. While white working class voters are not the only demographic that matter, they are a key one in the ‘rust belt’ states of the Blue Wall — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
5. Harris had a big task in winning election in three months
It’s easy to forget how high a hill Kamala Harris had to climb. Before August, she was a moderately famous vice president. She had to raise $1bn and try to project the image of an outright leader in 90 days. Her campaign ended up, mostly, being about the anti-Trump: civilised and humane on a number of issues. That’s powerful, but didn’t speak enough to positive policy choices on the economy, in particular.
