The Republican Party won all three branches of the federal government, but it was not a red wavebut just a splashasserts political analyst
▲ Despite his racist rhetoric, Donald Trump obtained greater support among the African-American male sector. The image is archival.Photo Ap
Jim Cason and David Brooks
Correspondents
La Jornada Newspaper
Wednesday, November 13, 2024, p. 24
Washington and New York. Although Donald Trump and his party won control of all three branches of the federal government, the near-final vote count suggests that, far from obtaining an overwhelming mandate, the billionaire triumphed in the election with the support of only a third of the American electorate, while 107 million people with the right to vote (40 percent of the electorate) chose to abstain from voting for any of the presidential or legislative candidates.
Preliminary figures reveal that neither Trump nor his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, came close to the 81 million votes that President Joe Biden achieved in 2020. Projections now are that the Republican will end up with approximately 79 million votes, against about 76 million for Harris, a relatively close victory, but decisive within the US system. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population eligible to vote in the United States is 262 million, which implies that more than 100 million people decided not to vote in the presidential race; Or put another way, there were more people who decided not to vote than those who did so for one candidate or another.
Based on this electoral arithmetic, although Trump claims that he enjoys a massive mandate, the reality is that only 30 percent of those who have the right to vote – the electorate – in the United States voted for the real estate magnate. By the way, in the country that proclaims itself a beacon of democracy, the number of people who participated in the elections this year was lower than the total number of those who voted four years ago.
This election was a Trump splash, but not a red wave (color of the Republican Party)wrote columnist Perry Bacon Jr in the Washington Post. “Although Trump’s victory has enormous implications, it is important not to overstate what happened… The United States has not turned decisively to the right; At least, not yet.” He noted that in the seven key states where Trump won, the majority also voted in favor of initiatives to amend state constitutions to guarantee the right to abortion. Three states voted in favor of requiring employers to offer paid time off for skilled employees and two states voted to increase their minimum wages.
Not all initiatives subject to referendum in the states were progressive. In California, voters overwhelmingly approved local initiatives that increase penalties for repeat nonviolent crimes such as shoplifting and require drug treatment for those who commit other crimes. In another area, two entities approved measures to legalize marijuana, but three rejected these types of initiatives.
A large part of Trump’s victory was convincing citizens to participate in an election for the first time. The MAGA campaign (Make America Great Again) convinced at least 1.2 million who did not participate in the 2020 election to vote in this one.
On the other hand, almost 2 million Democrats who participated in the previous presidential election decided not to go to the polls this year. Part of the explanation for this, some Democratic analysts point out, is anger with the current government over economic issues. But Democratic turnout numbers compared to four years ago also suggest that Harris failed to convince a significant portion of the Democratic base that she was worth voting for.
It cannot be denied that, despite his racist rhetoric, Trump significantly increased his support among young people, African-American men, Latinos and new voters. In 2020, Trump obtained the support of 32 percent of Latinos nationwide, while this year he achieved 45 percent support among that sector, and within that, 54 percent of the vote of Latino men, according to oral polls. of CNN boxes.
That Harris, the first African-American woman as a presidential candidate for one of the two major national parties, has lost support among African-American men to an older, white candidate reveals some of those problems with her campaign.
The reasons for these changes in electoral trends and their implications for the parties will be debated in the coming years, but it is worth emphasizing that here there was no landslide victory or great mandate for Trump, as he and some seem to claim. But among the things that this election revealed is that the Democratic Party has lost an important part of the previously full support of the working class of this country, as Senator Bernie Sanders has commented in this newspaper, among others. (https://www.jornada.com.mx/2024/11/09/opinion/013a2pol).