Looking back at the election, I am looking forward to what is to come

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Former President Donald Trump has become the 47th President of the United States, with all major news outlets calling the race in his favor on Wednesday morning. Trump is poised to sweep all seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, leading the popular vote with a 51% to 47.5% margin and gaining a lead in most of the votes in the West, with coastal states yet to report.

Trump, who won 306 electoral votes in the 2016 election but lost the popular vote by about 2%, seems likely to outperform his previous performance. He is also on track to flip all the swing state presidencies that President Joe Biden won in 2020. In a victory speech at 2:30 AM on Wednesday morning, Trump declared that his return to the White House would usher in an "American golden age."

Vice President Kamala Harris was set to address her supporters from her alma mater, Howard University, late Tuesday night, but postponed her speech as results continued to come in throughout the night. Harris acknowledged the race at 4 PM on the following Wednesday.

22 Thoughts

1. In 2016, Trump lost Star County in South Texas (96% Latino) by 60 points. In 2024, he won it by 16 points. That’s a 76-point swing. His numbers have dramatically improved in Hispanic-majority towns in Pennsylvania. He came closer to winning New York than Florida. According to exit polls, Harris won only 8 points of the Latino vote after Biden won that demographic by 32. Harris won just 13 points of the 18 to 29 age group after Biden won them by 24. In Wisconsin, Trump was +7 among voters concerned about the state of democracy. These results completely obliterated many of the lenses that liberals are using to view this election.
2. The Democrats have no scapegoat this time. There are no Comey letters, no Russian disinformation, no Jill Stein, and perhaps not even the Electoral College (Trump also seems to be winning the popular vote). They lost by a wider margin than expected in every battleground state and barely won in blue ones. They will have to consider this going into the next election cycle - and the party needs to have some very realistic and very tough conversations.
3. The Democrats don’t know who to blame for their losses. Yes, the committed voters kept their word, and Harris lost all the predominantly Muslim towns in Michigan. However, the margins far exceeded what could be explained by any protest vote movement. Yes, Harris did worse with non-college-educated white voters, but she also lost support among Black voters, Hispanic voters, and even women. The party blames the left. The left blames the center. It becomes a complete mess with no clear resolution or answers.
4. Trump made many promises: mass deportations, historic wage growth, an end to the war in Gaza, an end to the war in Ukraine, no taxes on tips, no taxes on Social Security income, a replacement for Obamacare, expanded child tax credits, and cuts to federal funding for schools with critical race theory or trans-friendly curricula - he literally promised to "fix everything". One of his mottos is "Promises made, promises kept." Like the border wall, these can largely be measured in fairly definitive terms. He has thrown so much out there to try to win over voters, and now he has to deliver on many promises he made to many different people.
5. Trump also promised to do many things he won't do. A ban on abortion, federal restrictions on IVF and contraception, new wars, the Project 2025 agenda, cuts to Social Security, cuts to Medicare, expanded taxes, and no inflation. These promises can also undoubtedly be evaluated.
6. My biggest concern about a second Trump presidency is as follows. He is vindictive, aging, and unbound by the necessity of reelection. He is easily consumed by grievances, and his campaign is populated by charlatans. And if he is surrounded by yes-men who affirm his worst instincts, we could be in for some very scary times. Some of his stated economic policies (like comprehensive tariffs) I think would be devastating for the economy. If he attempts mass deportations, I think we would see civil disobedience and violence unlike what we saw during his first term. His political brand invites people to revel in the misery of others. For trans people and immigrants, he has become the focal point of his campaign's anger. This all creates a particularly dangerous social environment.
7. I am more concerned about the radicalism among state-level Republicans where radical policies are easier to advance than at the federal level. Some Republican-led states across the country have passed dangerous restrictions on abortion, making it more difficult for doctors to provide adequate care to women, while others have pushed for censorship of books until very recently. These kinds of infringements on the freedom of women and families to make difficult personal decisions, and on the content individuals can access in libraries - are far more concerning to me than most of Trump's policy proposals.
8. What I am not worried about in a second Trump presidency is the following. I am not worried about democracy collapsing, Trump trying to extend his term, or creating some sort of fascist state. We will have elections in 2026 and 2028. They will likely be exactly the same as what we have always had - free and fair competitive races where voters come out and demand change from incumbents. Democrats are expected to take back the House in 2026 (if they can’t win this year). Trump has shaped the political integrity of the country, but he is not eternal, and I do not think other politicians can replicate his political movement. I am not worried about entering into a massive global war with powers like China or Iran. I am not worried about some sort of civil war here. I think we will be unstable for a few months before the Democrats start strategizing about how to work with the Trump administration.
9. What I expect is the following. Trump will inherit a strong and growing economy, just as he did in 2016 with a similarly stable economy. Before COVID, he managed that economy well, recording historic wage growth and low unemployment. It improved the lives of Americans from all walks of life. We are also positioned for (and need) cuts to wasteful government spending. During his first term, his unpredictability brought relative stability to the Middle East. This is desperately needed in 2025 as well. He should embrace the feedback loop coming from the country while he is in office. This all gives me hope for a successful second term.
10. Let’s not start rewriting history. Harris did far better than Biden did (or could). Her performance reflects what we are seeing around the world, where incumbent leaders are struggling mightily in a post-pandemic world. It’s not that complicated. Inflation is soaring, large numbers of people are migrating, and we are living through major global upheaval in the Middle East and Europe. At its most basic level, it is a very difficult environment for the party in power to hold onto power.
11. If you are looking for an illustration of how difficult it is to be the incumbent party right now, consider this: compared to Biden in 2020, Harris lost support from both male and female voters from both Republicans and Jews. She lost support from both white and non-white voters, and from both college-educated and non-college-educated Democratic voters.
12. One reason Trump won in such a dominant way is that Republicans are more liberal on issues like abortion and working-class appeals than he is. I don’t think Trump is a "pro-life" president, I don’t even think he is particularly conservative. That’s what makes him so interesting about what he has done to the Republican Party. He is a former Democrat from New York City, ultra-wealthy, a moderate on abortion, a hardliner on immigration, and a populist against globalization. If you charted all of Trump’s true views in a Venn diagram with traditional Republican and Democratic views, I think he would overlap almost equally with both Republicans and Democrats. So, while the Democrats are now forced to rebuild, are they going to choose some sort of Trumpist position? Will Republicans leave some behind? It’s a strange dynamic.
13. Speaking of strange dynamics, what will happen in the coming months? The sitting president shares the White House with the vice president, who he replaced on the ticket against his wishes and then lost. The presidential election (Trump) returns to the White House, taking it back from the same person (Biden) he lost it to, serving a second term. And of course, Biden must oversee the peaceful transfer of power to Trump after he refused to do the same after the 2020 election. Oh, and Vice President Kamala Harris must preside over a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2025, to certify Trump’s election victory.
14. In December 2021, I predicted that Kamala Harris would not hold a political office in 2025. I can now bank that prediction. Certainly, I have no idea where she actually goes from here. It’s really hard to imagine her running for any office - and her political career may have literally ended. I made that prediction in 2021 because Harris has always been a fairly overwhelming politician on the national stage. I think last night’s voters sent a very clear signal that our country is not interested in seeing her as president.
15. Free advice to Democrats: If prices are soaring, it may be great to communicate about the economy to people. It’s probably not a good idea to signal to white men (the majority of the voting population) that their very existence is inherently racist, sexist, or in need of correction. It may be a disastrous idea to have Liz Cheney, daughter of the architect of America’s long-standing presence in the Middle East, and Bill Clinton, the architect of NAFTA, as your party’s representatives. It may be a bad strategy not to hold legitimate, open, and fair primaries to choose presidential candidates. It may be that a decent chunk of this country is completely fine with accepting high levels of immigration, but refuses to accept a chaotic and broken system that allows millions of people to enter the country illegally or through a broken asylum process.
16. Some free advice to Republicans: Political capital is rapidly changing in our country, and the biggest changes often happen without a confident confidence.
17. Think about Bernie Sanders today. He did his best to warn the party that this wave of populist sentiment was coming. In my opinion, he had the absolute best counter-message to the rise of conservative populism in 2016, but he was ridiculed and boxed in by the establishment. Trumpism is here to stay, and the Democrats have no good alternative vision. He was right about the right things, and while the Democrats are struggling in races nationwide, he won by 31 points last night. A simple reading of last night is that it’s not about specific Democratic failures, but rather that their voters think much of what Trump is selling is appealing. The Democrats should pursue a Bernie-like brand for the upcoming party.
18. It’s interesting that the massive election fraud and "irregularities in Philadelphia" magically disappeared around 10 PM last night. I think the Democrats forgot to "rig" this.
19. For all the talk about how strong the Democratic ground game is, Trump sent shockwaves through the communication system again. The Democrats spent more money and focused on TV ads and well-organized voting campaigns. Trump hit every podcast and media opportunity he could while employing many political novices in his voting campaign. Trump cleaned Harris’s clock. New media is here, and the new dynamics of these campaigns are live.
20. 2028 is intriguing. Trump’s party will be the incumbent with voters who are always looking for change, but they won’t have Trump. The Democrats will have a new bench of leaders vying for the White House spot, and Trump may not be able to run (could it be JD Vance instead?). It’s really hard to imagine what will happen.
21. The three final newsletters about the election have become essentially meaningless footnotes. The Iowa polls were a massive miss. The story of "Puerto Rico is garbage" was completely noble-garbage. There was Arab American protest voting in Michigan, but it is now clear that Harris lost Michigan. There are several other stories that are now dead: JD Vance is a bad running mate, and Tim Walz is a good one (Trump ate into the Democratic lead in Minnesota), Republicans were "overflowing the zone with garbage polls," and pollsters corrected past mistakes.
22. Today, many Americans are scared and furious. Many are elated and relieved. This election will affect some people more than others (emotionally and practically). If we act with humility and grace towards each other, we will all be better off.

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