Quora Writers Offer Insights About 2024 Presidential Election Results
The most shell-shocking thing happened on Tuesday, November 5. Americans elected former President Donald Trump back into the White House. This result will leave millions pulling their hair out for months and years to come. Many media commentators and analysts have already thrown out theories to explain what happened. Some have gone on the fence to call out Joe Biden. However, we are hardly beginning to make sense of what happened here.
What are some quality knowledge and discussion resources for times of confusion, distress, or disarray? Academic journals? Social media? Traditional news and media sources? How about the wonderful online writing and knowledge platforms like Quora? Quora is famous for allowing millions of users around the world to share knowledge, insights, and views from unique perspectives. Here are some interesting points Quora writers are making about why Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
Many, like the writer below, offer predictable, objective, and neutral reasons.
Immigration — Trump and the Republicans sold the issue of immigration to voters, especially to Latinos who hate illegal immigration as much as Trump and the Republicans do. Harris’s become Biden’s border czar was seen as a huge failure that Trump was able to sell on.
Biden being forced to step aside — Here’s the deal, Harris was not popular in the 2020 primary, nor was she popular as VP. The Dems threw Biden under the bus and threw Harris onto everyone. It was well known that Biden was going to be extremely old had he won a second term and what he could have done is said “For the good of the country, I will not seek a second term and pass the torch to the next generation”.
Biden was not popular — Biden was extremely lucky that he won back in 2020 since it was a very unusual year and was generally not a popular President due to inflation and his handling of the war in Gaza. Harris was seen as a second Biden term and voters said no.
Another offers five logical reasons that reveal hidden themes.
Turnout- It probably was the single biggest reason. Trump didn’t really outperform his 2020 numbers by a lot, it was Kamala Harris who lost almost 10 million votes compared to Biden’s 2020 election total. This is where my prediction went wrong.
Male voters- Trump’s in your face macho vulgarity attracted lot of low educated, lower class male voters that transcended racial lines. They saw him as authentic.
Immigration & Homelessness- The mess at the US-Mexico border and lawlessness was beyond what people could tolerate. Throw in homelessness into this disorder. People in the big cities were disgusted with it.
Economy & Inflation- Post-COVID there is a very high inflation, prices haven’t come down and there is a housing crisis too. People blamed Biden administration for this. People in general think both economy and inflation were good under Trump.
Resentment- Trump represents resentment politics and it has become effective. The democrats are perceived as elites and Trump is a warrior against these elites.
Some answers boil right down to “It’s the economy, stupid!”
From an economic perspective only, Trump is a person who directly faces the economic problems of the United States. He popularizes the economic problems, which resonates with most Americans.
Then, many answers become more critical or blunt. One writer makes a more observation about the Democrats’ campaign strategy:
The Democrats were extremely desperate, accusatory, and annoying to many of us. I had multiple texts per day from the Harris campaign, most of which were trying to guilt trip me into voting. This was clearly the mobilization campaign at work.
Another takes a similar line of attack on the Democratic players:
Barack and Michelle Obama took a break from their pampered post-presidency lives to wag their fingers and let voters know they were disappointed in them as if they were our national parents; and of course, Biden then called half the country garbage. Then, the establishment, because they were so awesome and virtuous, just sat back and expected that voters would return them to power
Some answers blamed the media and its bias towards Biden, covering up his wavering mental state:
The legacy media honestly tried to convince everyone that Biden was fine, until that debate made his decline obvious even to people who never leave a liberal media bubble. For those of us who do leave that bubble on a regular basis, we were like, “You’re shocked by this? Have you not been paying attention over the last year?” At least once per week some video of Biden showing his cognitive decline made the rounds on Twitter and in the right-wing media.
Many are pointing out an obvious fact about the elections, which is certainly a factor to some degree:
First, lower turnout. Trump got several million fewer votes than in 2020. But the Democrats got 16 million fewer votes.
The above writer answered before more votes were tabulated. Now, Trump is set to surpass his 2020 record, perhaps by a few million votes. If trends continue, Harris could see up to 75 million votes and Trump up to 78 million or more.
While Harris will likely land several million fewer votes than in 2020, it does not seem to be the case that this is because voters flocked to the GOP. While voter turnout was at record levels in some states, in many of the solid blue states it profoundly diminished. The percentage of eligible voters casting ballots dropped by multiple percentage points in states like New York and Illinois. 10% less of the voting-eligible population showed up to the polls in Washington. Nationwide, the turnout was estimated to be 65% of eligible voters. This is lower than the 66.5% turnout in 2020. Since the estimated population of eligible U.S. voters is 224 million, clearly an estimated 158.6 million votes is a slight increase from 2020 but several million behind what it could be.
In the swing states, votes for Harris were a mixed bag from 2020. The Democrats made significant gains in many states and counties. This was especially the case in Georgia and North Carolina. She at least held Biden’s overall numbers from 2020 in many swing states or made gains. However, Harris fell behind in Wisconsin and Nevada. Meanwhile, more voters consistently showed up in 2024 for Trump than in 2020. While it certainly is the case that many 2020 voters flocked from the Democrats to the GOP over the past four years, it also is apparent that many Democrats or Americans likely to vote Democrat were absent.
And that is one question analysts and strategists will be exploring over the coming weeks and months. Were voters not showing up due to the numerous voter laws enacted by state legislatures across the country after Trump’s tumultuous 2020 loss? Were millions so disarrayed with the Democratic party and President Biden that they hung up their voting gloves this time around? Was not voting a form of protest against Biden’s handling of the War in Gaza? Further analysis and surveying will offer insights regarding this issue. Of all the factors explored on Quora and elsewhere, voter turnout certainly seems to be one that will prove most impactful.
