Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. . . again. It was a historic political comeback for a candidate rejected by the people just four years ago. But this time, Trump took almost every coveted state. The entire blue wall. . . turned red. And, unlike 2016, this was not just an electoral college victory. Surprising pollsters and betting markets alike, Trump also won the popular vote. To top it off, Republicans took control of the Senate.
Simply put, it was a red landslide.
It is extremely rare in our history for a president to come back after losing a reelection bid so badly. In fact, Trump’s rebound is bigger than Nixon’s, and bigger than Napoleon’s in 1815.
And yet it happened on Tuesday night with the most flawed candidate American politics has ever seen. How did he do it?
If you were only watching cable news over the last few years, you would be shocked by the outcome. But if you had been reading The Free Press, you probably were not surprised. Yes, Kamala had the support of Beyoncé, Oprah, Taylor Swift, and almost every A-lister with a pulse. She outraised Trump by around $600 million. She was endorsed by industry leaders in science and economics. But it’s been clear for some time now that the Democrats do not have the buy-in or trust of the American people. Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik said it best: “They didn’t lose because they didn’t spend enough money. They didn’t lose because they failed to trot out enough celebrity influencers. They lost because they were consumed by their own self-flattery, their own sense of self-importance.”
Still, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, CNN and MSNBC tried to explain away Trump’s appeal, and the profound failure of the left, with accusations that the American people are the ones to blame.
But those explanations are not right.
As exit polls came in, Trump showed strength with black and Latino voters. CNN exit polls showed he won about 13 percent of black voters (up from 8 percent in 2020) and 45 percent of Latino voters (up from 32 percent last election). It was a massive pickup. He won among voters who make less than $100,000 and, compared to 2020, Trump improved in cities, in rural areas, and in suburbs.
Helping us make sense of it all are Free Press contributor and Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, pundit and political powerhouse Brianna Wu, and Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik. We reflect on why Democrats lost so dramatically and decisively, how Trump’s comeback happened, how he found success with black and Latino voters; what the next four years might look like with Trump returning to the White House; and if this will be a wake-up call for Democrats.
Click below to listen to the podcast, or scroll down for an edited transcript of our conversation.
Bari: I want to start by understanding how each of you are feeling, because I think each of you represents a different segment of the American electorate. Brianna, let’s start with you.
Brianna: I’m terrified as a trans woman. The Republicans spent $250 million on ads specifically targeting me. They’ve been taught a lesson that this is a strategy that works. It seems to be a winning strategy for them. But even beyond what happens to me personally, I’m really concerned about the U.S. economy and I’m really worried about NATO. I don’t want to live in a world where China and Russia are free to do whatever they want. It’s very clear he wants to reshape the U.S. relationship with NATO and scale that back. On every single front, I’m afraid for my country. But I’ve also been through this before. And you know, I feel like I’m more prepared for it this time.
Batya: I wanted Trump to win. I think he’s going to be an amazing president. But to me, what’s really important here is that he won a mandate. He won the popular vote as well as the electoral college. And that was the thing I was praying for the most, was not so much that he would win, but that whoever won would win in a big and indisputable way, so that as a country we can start to heal and come together again. And the fact that the people who made him win were voters of color and women. You know, it was everybody that we had been told to expect to go for Harris. These narratives of who is a Democrat and who is a Republican have been totally shuffled.
Peter: I feel good in the sense that there is a clear outcome. I think, like most people, I was most concerned about the possibility of a hotly, highly disputed outcome, that it was going to be weeks or months of uncertainty and wondering, “Is there going to be another January 6–like event?” I think the likelihood of anything like all that happening now is exceedingly low because it’s not just that Trump won. It’s that Republicans won across the board. The correct move now for Democrats from Kamala Harris to the county commissioner is to say, “We lost fair and square and we will move forward and take a very long, hard look in the mirror and ask how we arrived at this juncture.”
On the crisis in the Democratic Party:
Bari: Why did Kamala Harris [and the Democrats] lose this election?