2024 Election Results–The Politics
As you are no doubt aware, former President Donald J. Trump (R) was elected President again this week, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris (D). As we discussed in our Voter Guide, even though the polls showed a near tie in each of the seven big swing states, it appears the late deciding voters all broke heavily in one direction in the final days of the race, this time in favor of Trump, giving him a bigger win than either Biden had in 2020 or Trump had in 2016. Trump has won all 7 of the swing states, and based on the vote totals right now, Harris would have needed a 2% across the board swing to flip enough states to have been elected. It’s a close win for Trump, but also a clear one, and not something that can be written off as a quirk of the pandemic or the electoral college–previous claims that Trump’s support was some kind of aberration or freak occurrence seem proven wrong.
Trump both got his supporters to turn out and convinced others to change their opinion and support him for a return to office. He made gains in a wide variety of demographics, though the biggest shifts seem to be in Hispanic citizens and young men. Compared with 2020, Trump saw an improvement in 48 states (Washington and Utah the exceptions). There are still a few million votes to be counted out West, but as of now Trump has gotten about 2 million fewer votes than he did in 2020, Harris on the other hand is running 13.8 million behind Biden’s total. While there may have been a broad anti-MAGA coalition in the midst of the pandemic and the unrest of 2020, it looks like a big part of that voting bloc, after 4 years of the Biden Administration, either stayed home or switched their vote in the hopes that Trump will bring back the economy of 2019. Democrats’ decision to run the governing partner of a President with a 38% approval rating at a time when only about 27% of voters believe the country is on the right track seems to have been a historic mistake, and one that perhaps should have been more obvious to them.
Trump is nearly certain to win the total popular vote when all votes are counted–only the second Republican to do so in the nine presidential elections from 1992 on (W Bush in 04 being the other). He’s also to be the second person ever to be elected to a nonconsecutive term in office, the other being Grover Cleveland back in 1892.
As expected, Republicans will flip control of the US Senate as well. Though incumbent Senators Tester (D-Montana) and Brown (D-OH) were able to run well ahead of Harris, it wasn’t enough and they were defeated. Democrats were narrowly able to hold onto their seats in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada despite Trump winning those states. Pennsylvania, and Arizona are still too close to call, though analysts are expecting Dems to hold on in AZ, while PA is leaning to a Republican flip for Dave McCormick. Republicans will have between 52 and 54 of the chamber’s 100 seats.
Control of the House of Representatives has still not been called as Democratic candidates seem to have held up better in the fight for that chamber. Right now the expectation seems to be that Republicans will maintain control, though again with a very small majority, as little as 2 or 3 seats out of 435.
New Jersey
Here in New Jersey, Harris won the state as expected, but her small margin of victory has proven shocking to folks both in the state and national observers. With some votes still to be counted that will likely increase her margin of victory slightly, she is only ahead by 5 points, 51.5% to 46.6%, with 1.9% going to third parties. 4 years ago Trump lost the state by 16%. This is the closest a Republican presidential candidate has come to winning the state since 1992; in fact it’s just the second time in the last eight presidential elections that we’ve even seen a single digit race. This comes despite the fact that neither candidate made any meaningful effort to flip the state, with rallies, campaign ads, or spending. Trump saw an improvement in every county relative to 2020. The biggest swing came in Passaic County, which went from a 17 point Biden win to a 3 point Trump win. Passaic County has a combination of large numbers of Hispanic voters, the state’s largest concentration of Arab-American voters, and rural areas in the western part of the county–three groups that swung hard against Harris. The traditional Democratic bastion of Hudson County also swung 18 points toward Trump.
Congressman Andy Kim (D) was elected to a six-year term in the US Senate representing the state; he is leading Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw by 8.5%, overperforming Harris’ showing. Kim will be filling the Senate seat vacated by the conviction of Sen. Bob Menendez earlier this year. Gov. Murphy has promised to appoint Kim to the Senate soon, before the January 3rd inauguration date.
There was no party change in the 12-person makeup of our House delegation. In the most closely watched district (the 7th in Central Jersey), Congressman Tom Kean Jr. (R) was reelected by a nearly 7% margin. Asm. Herb Conaway (D) was elected to the open seat in the 3rd district, and state Sen. Nellie Pou (D) won the North Jersey-based 9th district that became open when longtime Congressman Bill Pascrell died in August. She is only winning by 4% in a district that had voted for Biden by 19%, showing that the swing towards Republicans has had some down-ballot effects.
Such a surprisingly close race does seem to have genuinely concerned Democrats in the state. Gov. Murphy says Democrats ‘need to look in the mirror’. The race to be his successor as Governor will heat up significantly with these elections behind us. Both parties are looking at a competitive primary in June and clearly a competitive general election next November. No political party has managed to win three NJ governor’s races in a row since 1965.
This election absolutely gives Republicans real hope of taking over, it’s much easier to shift an electorate by 6 points than by 16 points. On the other hand, we’ve also seen over the last 30 years that once in office, presidents become less popular and their opposition becomes more energized. Dems may also make a more concerted effort to move to the center and nominate a more moderate and electable candidate to compensate for these results. On the Republican side, this may also be a good result for radio host Bill Spadea’s primary campaign, as he has run the most pro-MAGA campaign. Republicans will feel energized and will likely see meaningful investment in the governor’s race now. That would be a key difference–in 2009 when Chris Christie beat Jon Corzine there was substantial investment from national groups, when Jack Ciattarelli ran against Murphy in 2021 national strategists thought the race was unwinnable and didn’t invest–part of the reason he fell 3% short.
The entire General Assembly will also be on the ballot, and we will have contested primaries in addition to contested general elections. A race this close means several legislative districts flipped to Trump, and a strong republican candidate for governor could bring in several new assembly members and cut the Democrats’ current 52-28 margin (the state senate will not be on the ballot until 2027).
.jpg)
