Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned on the theme of change. She promised to “chart a new way forward” in American politics. On Tuesday, a majority of American voters seemed to say they wanted to go back to how the country was before the Biden administration.
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday became the second U.S. president to win a nonconsecutive second term. The last president to do so was Grover Cleveland. He won in 1884 and 1892.
In a victory speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning, presumptive President-elect Trump thanked supporters for backing his comeback.
“I think this is, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time,” he said. “Now it’s going to reach a new level of importance because we’re going to help our country heal.”
Most experts believe Trump secured a path to 270 electoral votes not only with his political message but also by embracing early and mail-in voting.
The Republican strategy of boosting early turnout appeared to challenge the idea that early votes favor Democrats. Voters cast roughly 78 million ballots before Tuesday, either in person or by mail. That total number is lower than 2020 levels, but shares between Republicans and Democrats evened out this year.
The former president performed well in key counties across battleground states. He secured wins in swing states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania. He also gleaned support from traditionally Democratic blocs and stoked voter enthusiasm.
Early signs indicated that Trump was more popular this year than in 2020 among working-class voters, Hispanic voters, suburban women, and young adults.
“Voter enthusiasm on the Republican side exceeded voter enthusiasm on the Democrat side largely because Republican voters could say why they liked Donald Trump,” political consultant Mark Weaver says. “But voters couldn’t give several reasons why they liked Kamala Harris.”
It was a strange election year. Harris had fewer than six months to whip together a campaign. Some analysts wonder whether having four extra months would have helped.
In the end, Weaver believes Harris was too tied to the Biden administration to persuade voters.
“I would like to see change,” Georgia voter Stephanie Burkhart said as she left the polls. “I don’t think you can do that with the incumbent [party].”
That attitude spilled over into the U.S. Senate where Republicans reclaimed a majority. Control of the U.S. House of Representatives is still up for grabs. As of Wednesday morning, many races were yet to be called.
Weaver says, “In a fairly normal year, we expect presidents to be reelected, except when the economy is bad, the world is at war, and Americans say the country’s on the wrong track.”
He says “all three of those things” were in play this year. So “swapping out Biden for Harris was not enough to change the natural tide of a change election towards the change candidate.”
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to himself. — Philippians 3:20-21
with reporting by Carolina Lumetta in Washington, D.C.
