For the third election cycle in a row, Donald Trump has once again defied expectations, delivering a decisive victory that disrupted pollster predictions and campaign finance norms. Pollsters, including Nate Silver, had attempted to adjust for past underestimations of Trump, yet he surged ahead despite facing financial disadvantages and political headwinds. This surprising outcome raises a crucial question: How did Trump secure his most decisive win to date with a significantly smaller campaign war chest? The answer lies within exit polling data collected across ten of the most competitive states.

Abortion Wasn’t an Effective Voter Rallying Cry

The Harris campaign and much of the media believed that reproductive rights would motivate a surge of support for Harris. Indeed, women’s share of the total vote increased by a small margin, from 52% in 2020 to 53% in 2024. However, Harris actually lost ground among female voters, dropping 4% from Biden’s 57% to 53%. While she managed to close the Democrats’ white-female vote deficit slightly (from -11% in 2020 to -9%), she faced a devastating loss among Latina women, with support slipping from 69% in 2020 to 60% in 2024.

Exit poll data highlights that only 1 in 7 voters ranked abortion as their primary issue. In contrast, more than twice as many voters saw the economy and democracy as more pressing. Another discouraging statistic for Harris is that only 68% of those who support legal abortion cast their vote for her, while Trump secured 91% of voters who oppose legal abortion. This shows the pro-life stance was, ironically, a stronger motivator than the pro-choice platform, despite the fact that pro-life advocates have largely achieved their goals post-Roe v. Wade. Theoretically, pro-choice advocates have more to gain, but the numbers tell a different story.

This outcome contrasts with the success of abortion-rights ballot measures in Nevada and Arizona, states where Harris trails Trump by 5%. She also underperformed in down-ballot races, losing North Carolina by 3.4%, while fellow Democrat Josh Stein won the gubernatorial race by 14.6%. In Arizona, Harris trails the Democratic Senate candidate by 3.1%. Only in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania did Harris perform on par with the Democratic Senate candidates, which is worth noting for fairness.

Wife & Kids=Trump Household

These exit polls reveal one of the most significant drivers of Harris’s defeat: Trump’s favorability among parents. Married voters supported Trump by 56%, including a slim majority of women with children at 51%. These demographics overlap significantly, as most married people are parents and vice versa. It’s clear that voters with dependents showed dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration, a factor that heavily contributed to Trump’s win.

Too Cool for School

Trump held a strong advantage among voters without a bachelor’s degree, with double-digit leads among those who never attended college and voters with an associate degree. Harris’s only notable educational support came from voters with advanced degrees, where she had a 21% lead over Trump. This group, however, comprises just 14% of the total population. Since they represented 19% of voter turnout, it’s apparent that the advanced-degree voter base is nearly fully mobilized. For Democrats to remain competitive, they must engage more effectively with voters without a bachelor’s degree.

Trump: The Billionaire Working-Class Hero

Trump won the working-class vote decisively. The median U.S. household income last year was $81,000, meaning that households earning below $100,000 could be classified as working-class. This demographic, representing 60% of voters, favored Trump by a four-point margin—a dramatic shift from 2020, when Trump lost this group by 13 points.

The Democratic Party’s Enthusiasm Gap

If a political analyst had been told pre-election that Harris would win Independent voters by 3%, they likely would have bet on her victory. Yet, low turnout among Democratic voters proved to be a critical weak point. Only 31% of voters identified as Democrats this year, down from 37% in 2020. This shift made Democrats the smallest partisan group among voters. Harris is on track to lose 13 million of Biden’s 2020 votes, while Trump’s voter numbers remain on par with his previous total.

2024’s Key Voting Issue

Economic anxiety likely served as the primary motivator for Trump’s success among key voter demographics. One in three voters ranked the economy as their top concern, and those with a negative view of the U.S. economic situation favored Trump by a substantial 42% margin. This economic divide helps explain why voters earning less than $100,000 a year leaned toward Trump, while more affluent voters favored Harris. Similarly, it underscores Trump’s dominance among those without a bachelor’s degree—a demographic strongly linked to lower economic prosperity, given the near-direct correlation between higher education and greater financial stability.

For Harris, the perception of a struggling economy likely contributed to her losses among married voters and parents, for whom daily cost-of-living concerns are especially pressing. Inflation, surging housing costs, childcare expenses that can swallow a parent’s entire income, rising college tuition fees, and burdensome student debt create a bleak picture of economic life, even as the U.S. outpaces other OECD countries in post-pandemic recovery. Although Biden and Harris highlighted low unemployment, a robust stock market, and slowing inflation, many Americans continued to feel economically insecure.

This economic dissatisfaction aligns closely with another issue on which Trump held a strong lead: immigration. Among voters who identified immigration as their top concern, Trump garnered an overwhelming 81% of the vote. Immigration worries often intersect with economic fears, as the Trump campaign repeatedly underscored the “border crisis,” framing it as a drain on American jobs, a strain on social services, and a factor in rising crime rates—all of which are seen as threats to local economies.

Lastly, the exit polling data revealed a few other intriguing demographic trends worth noting.

Latinos: The New Republican Stronghold?

As noted earlier, Harris lost a significant portion of the Latino vote, with a 9% drop in support among Latina women and an even steeper 16% decline among Latino men compared to Biden’s 2020 numbers. This groundswell of support from Latino men has turned this demographic into Trump’s second-largest racial base, just behind white men—a remarkable shift from 2020, when only 36% of Latino men cast their votes for Trump. This trend suggests that Trump’s hardline stance on immigration may resonate with Latino male voters, who, as citizens, may feel less directly connected to the struggles faced by recent immigrants.

At the very least, these numbers indicate that immigration crackdowns are not a “political red line” for many Latino male voters.

Another factor may be economic stagnation. Latinos saw only 0.4% income growth between 2022 and 2023—a negligible increase in a year marked by 4% inflation. By contrast, all other surveyed ethnic groups, except Asians, experienced income growth rates at least seven times that of Latinos. This economic stagnation could be a key factor that drove Latino men toward Trump in 2024.

Thank God?

A possible counterweight for enthusiasm about abortion rights this election cycle is Americans’ Christian religiosity. Trump won 58% of Catholics and 63% of Protestants. The pro-life movement is one of the most animating political causes of American Christianity. Christians made up about 2/3 of the total voter share. There simply aren’t enough atheists and non-Christians for Democrats to turn to, in lieu of Christian support. The Democrats must chip away at Christians’ support for Republicans, or they will not win another presidential election for a long time.

Gen-X Files

When it comes to age demographics, Kamala Harris’s most significant loss was with Generation X—the largest voting group. This deficit proved insurmountable, especially considering Harris had managed an impressive feat by nearly tying with the traditionally conservative Baby Boomers. Meanwhile, younger voters—Zoomers and Millennials—continue to vote at consistently low rates. Gen X alone roughly matched the combined turnout of these younger generations, making their support critical. Notably, Gen X women were the only female age group to favor Trump, by a narrow margin of 50% to 49%.

In previous election cycles, Boomers have held the position of electoral kingmakers. As they age and gradually pass from the scene, their significance is transferring to their children, Gen X. Now reaching peak earning years, Gen X is stepping into senior roles vacated by retiring Boomers, while their Millennial children grow old enough to offer financial support. This shift positions Gen X not only to dominate voter turnout but also to wield significant influence in campaign financing. Given these dynamics, Democrats cannot afford to lose Gen X by double-digit margins in future elections.