Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The Democratic Party lost the presidency to an unpopular, indisciplined authoritarian with a penchant for rambling incoherently about Hannibal Lecter — again.

Americans not only elected Donald Trump on Tuesday, but by all appearances gave him a popular mandate: Ballots still need to be tabulated but, as of this writing, Trump is poised to win the popular vote by a hefty margin.

Democrats also lost their Senate majority. If current results hold, Republicans will enjoy a 53-to-47 seat advantage, and likely narrow the House advantage.

All this amounts to a crisis for Democrats. The only question is the scale of their challenge.

The optimistic read of Election Day results is that the party drew a bad hand. Democrats faced a series of contingent headwinds — voter outrage over post-pandemic inflation, a rhetorically inept president, and an electorally undistinguished nominee — none of which are likely to burden them going forward. In this read, Democrats may need to adjust their tactics. But their basic strategic orientation remains sound.

Yet there is another, bleaker interpretation of Tuesday’s returns. From this vantage, Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss looks less like bad luck than the byproduct of deep, structural trends that will be difficult to reverse, especially once the GOP gets out from under Trump’s grip. For this reason, Democrats would need to substantially revise the party’s agenda and messaging.

It is impossible to say with certainty which of these readings is closer to the truth. 

But I suspect that the Democrats’ problems are larger than the peculiar disadvantages they faced this election cycle. If the party does not take that possibility seriously, it risks condemning the United States to a period of reactionary rule that extends well beyond Trump’s second term.

The past four years were a very bad time to be in power. The pandemic did real damage to the global economy, which governments papered over through deficit spending in 2020. But the bill for Covid-19 was always going to come due in 2021 and 2022. And virtually every party that happened to be in power at that time has suffered at the ballot box.

Since the onset of post-pandemic inflation, ruling parties in Austria, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Japan, among other nations either lost seats or control of government altogether. 

Second, the Democrats spent the first leg of the general election campaign tethered to an octogenarian who lacked basic proficiency in public speaking. Biden’s conspicuous feebleness — and the Democrats’ initial compulsion to unite behind him, in defiance of the public’s wishes — made it all the more difficult to overcome the public’s discontent with elevated prices.

Third, Harris was a suboptimal standard-bearer who owed her nomination more to circumstance than demonstrable electoral success. In her first statewide election in 2010, she defeated a Republican in the California attorney general race by less than 1 percentage point (two years earlier, Barack Obama had bested John McCain by more than 23 points in that state). In 2020, Harris's presidential campaign collapsed before the primary’s first ballots were cast.

Fourth, as of this writing, it looks like Democrats will win the Senate races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. This suggests that swing-state voters may have been more discounted with the Biden-Harris administration than with the Democratic Party writ large.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Trump is all but certain to do many things that the public won’t like. His team is already signaling it intends to move forward with mass deportation, a concept voters may like in the abstract, but which will yield price increases they are sure to loathe and humanitarian nightmares that many will struggle to stomach.

Free of Biden and Harris’s personal liabilities — and from culpability for any economic discontents — Democrats will have an excellent shot of regaining the White House on a wave of anti-Trump backlash in 2028.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images News

There are reasons for fearing that the Democrats’ problems are deeper, however.

All the data available to us right now is imperfect. But the returns and voter surveys tell a consistent story: In 2024, two long-term trends in American voting behavior — that are highly unfavorable for Democrats — accelerated.

The first is the rightward drift of working-class voters. Americans without college degrees have been shifting rightward for decades, but Trump’s conquest of the GOP in 2016 greatly accelerated that trend. Biden fended off further erosion in his party’s working-class support four years later. But according to AP VoteCast, Trump – who won non-college-educated voters by 4 points in 2020 — won them by 12 points four years later.

To a large extent, Democrats have compensated for losses with working-class voters through gains with college graduates. But Harris still lost about one point of support with the demographic relative to 2020, according to the AP survey.

Meanwhile, in a distinct — but likely related — development, Democrats lost ground with nonwhite voters. Harris’s margin over Trump with Black voters was 14 points lower than Biden’s, while her advantage with Hispanic voters was 13 points smaller than the last Democratic nominees.

Democrats lost ground almost everywhere. But they maintained support — or grew it — in some overwhelmingly white and affluent enclaves, such as Cumberland County, Maine, and the Northwest Hills Planning Region of Connecticut.

These trends are concerning for at least two reasons. They might derive from deep-seated, structural changes in American life and will therefore be difficult to fully reverse.

And Trump’s retirement from politics could plausibly exacerbate these concerns.

To be sure, Trump likely helped Republicans gain ground with non-college-educated voters in 2016 by forcing the party to embrace stances on immigration and entitlement spending that are popular with that demographic. 

Given that the rightward drift of working-class voters is a transnational phenomenon, a future Republican standard-bearer would have a good chance of building on Trump’s gains, particularly if they retained his positioning and populist rhetoric.

All this wouldn’t be so damaging for Democrats, if the rightward drift of nonwhite and working-class voters ensured the leftward movement of college-educated whites. But it is hard to imagine a GOP nominee more offensive to the sensibilities of the highly educated than Trump, a vulgar, anti-intellectual, misogynist who evinces contempt for democracy.

If the GOP nominates a more ordinary Republican in 2028, then Democrats could see their share of the college-educated vote fall, even as structural forces prevent a rebound in their Black and Hispanic support.

It is entirely possible that Trump’s misgovernance will solve the Democratic Party’s problems for it. If he follows through on his immigration and trade plans, he will engineer an economic disaster. But Democrats should not bank on that (not least because it’s their responsibility to do whatever they can to prevent such a calamity from happening).

Prudence demands that Democrats take the grimmest interpretation of Tuesday’s results seriously. The party’s eroding support from both working-class and nonwhite voters could render it uncompetitive in future presidential elections, and has already put it at a large disadvantage in the fight for Senate control.

Democrats do not control their fate. A second Trump presidency threatens to pervert the democratic process in ways that entrench Republican power. But the party can try to make itself appealing to a broader share of Americans. And it must.

Michael Swensen/Getty Images

Elon Musk’s misinformation machine: Billionaire Elon Musk’s ownership of X has put him in a unique position to influence politics. With 203 million followers, Musk has the biggest reach on X and is the platform’s most prominent pusher of anti-immigrant conspiracy theories and right-wing propaganda.

Arizona to crack down on homeless encampments: Voters cast ballots in favor of a measure this week that will soon allow property owners to expense security and cleaning-related purchases when cities do not enforce laws against camping, loitering, or public drug use. It’s just the latest effort to push local governments toward tougher enforcement of outdoor homelessness. 

Parenting through the election aftermath: Our columnist is planning to talk to her kids in the months and years ahead about the issues concerning our country. As Americans process the results of the election, she recommends focusing on family and what can be done on a local scale, no matter who’s in the White House.

Animal rights lost big on the ballot, too: During his first four years in office, President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet made policy decisions that were detrimental to animal welfare. His second term could go even further in weakening animal protections, given his deregulatory tendencies.

Raygun retires: Australian breaker Raygun has announced her retirement from the sport after the viral outcry after her performance at this past summer’s Olympic Games in Paris. Her dance moves created conversation about whether or not breaking should be in the Games at all.

Snow returns to Mount Fuji: Japan experienced one of its hottest summers this past season, delaying Mt. Fuji’s snowy cap. Earlier this week, snow finally fell, ending its longest period without snow since record-keeping began 130 years ago. [BBC]

Monkey business in South Carolina: According to authorities, 43 monkeys have escaped from a research facility near Yemassee. This isn’t the first time, either; eight years ago, 19 monkeys escaped from the same facility. [CBS News]

Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Post-election, some of us are probably turning to content designed to soothe and comfort. However, it’s moments like these that highlight one of art’s most crucial functions: to inspire and sometimes even anger people into action. The Oscar-nominated short film Red, White and Blue (2023), which is currently making the rounds on TikTok and is free on YouTube, seems to be doing just that. 

Inspired by director Nazrin Choudhury’s experience receiving an abortion in the UK, the story follows a single mother (Brittany Snow) working as a waitress and desperately seeking the procedure in Arkansas, where it’s currently illegal except in the case of a medical emergency. The film doubles as a well-acted, beautifully constructed story and a powerful PSA. Thanks to a gut punch of an ending, these characters and their experiences will linger long after the credits roll.

—Kyndall Cunningham, culture writer

IMDb

Are you enjoying the Today, Explained newsletter? Forward it to a friend; they can sign up for it right here. 

And as always, we want to know what you think. Specifically: If there is a topic you want us to explain or a story you’re curious to learn more about, let us know by filling out this form or just replying to this email. 

Today’s edition was produced and edited by senior editor Lavanya Ramanathan, with contributions from staff editor Melinda Fakuade. We'll see you Monday!

Become a member to support fearless, independent election coverage.

This email was sent to you. Manage your email preferences or unsubscribe. If you value Vox’s unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring contribution.

View our Privacy Notice and our Terms of Service.

Vox Media, 1701 Rhode Island. NW, Washington, DC 20036.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.