The 2024 election has proven to have eye opening results with the re-election of Donald J. Trump. While a few jurisdictions, including California, continue counting votes over 2 weeks out from the election, the data has revealed some bold truths. There were dramatic shifts in voting patterns and President-Elect Trump actually outpaced generic Republicans nationwide. There are even examples in states Trump won where the gap between his vote share and MAGA “firebrands” was larger than that of more standard Republicans. This is to say while Trump won big and Republicans now control both chambers of Congress, MAGA candidates once again floundered much like they did in 2022. How did Donald Trump do better than not just Republicans but standard bearers for his own movement within the party? The numbers tell a fascinating story.
State-wide races in the “swing states” offer the most insightful information. These races provide the best apples to apples comparison for Trump vs. his own party. Republicans will go into the next Congress with 53 senators, but if Republican senatorial candidates had won in every state that Donald Trump carried, they would have 57 senators in January 2025. For the most part Trump stayed out of the Republican state primaries, unlike 2022, but he did stridently back a couple of candidates. These candidates were in Arizona and North Carolina where the data showed a stark contrast between President-Elect Trump and “Firebrand MAGA” candidates. In Arizona, Trump won the state by over 5 points while MAGA acolyte Kari Lake lost the senate race by over 2 points, creating a 7-point gap between them. In North Carolina, Trump won the state by 3 points but Republican candidate for Governor Mark Robinson lost by over 14 points making the difference here 17 points! To be fair, Robinson was a flawed candidate—even before devastating information against him was reported, he was losing by double digits in the polls.
Now turning to the four other senate races (Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania), all swing states Trump won, there is a similar story but to a lesser degree. Towards the end of the election some of these candidates must have noticed a shift in favorability for Trump because they started running ads featuring the now President-Elect when they previously kept him at arm’s length. The average difference in these four races between Trump’s percentage and the Republican candidates’ was only 2.05 with only Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania winning. There are several ways to interpret this, but I believe the most salient way to view this is that being MAGA has almost become a separate entity from Trump. Candidates can espouse the ideology, but it does not have the political power without the candidate being Trump and it does not play well in swing states. This led to more moderate Republicans running closer to Trump’s numbers than their more extreme colleagues.
Another couple of noteworthy results happened in New York and New Jersey. In Jersey, Trump went from losing the state by 16 points in 2020 to only losing by 6 in 2024. A very similar result occurred in New York where Trump lost the state by 23 points in 2020 but in 2024 that number went down to 12. This trend was experienced nationwide with Donald Trump wining all the swing states along with red states getting redder. Texas and Florida went from favoring Republicans to being solid ruby red states with the President Elect winning both by over double digits. All this to point to the uniqueness of candidate Trump in 2024 as opposed 2016 where he eked out an electoral victory while losing the popular vote. A MAGA candidate like Kari Lake would not bring New Jersey within 6 points of going Republican in a presidential election.
There are various explanations for Election Day results. They range from the return of ticket splitting, which is when voters vote for both parties on their ballot, to the Latino vote continuing to grow more Republican. The topic du jour this political season was Men vs. Women where men came out in force for Trump, but it turns out that more women voted for Trump this time than in 2020.
Donald J. Trump has been in the American zeitgeist for over 50 years, but these “MAGA” imitators are doing a schtick people can see right through. Perhaps Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance can take up the mantle, but one thing is for sure—it won't be the same. The American people, for some reason, relate to the billionaire from Queens born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Maybe the criminal cases brought against him, some very legitimate others not so much, helped ground him to Americans. Convicted felon, almost assassinated twice, impeached twice, found liable for sexual abuse, business mogul, “insurrectionist”, television star, election denier, presidential loser but two-time U.S. presidential contest winner—there is no denying it now Trump will be a uniquely American historical figure. He has defied the odds of his own party and the Make American Great Again movement. Why?
Because only Donald Trump is Donald Trump.
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