How Donald Trump Won the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

Heading into election night, Morning Consult's final surveys showed former President Donald Trump leading or trailing within the margin in all seven key battlegrounds, reflecting a toss-up race that could easily break either way. We said in our final webinar of the cycle on Monday that America should prepare for the possibility that either candidate could sweep all seven Electoral College battlegrounds. That's exactly what's going to happen.

So how did Trump win?

While Trump's win was relatively narrow, the shifts in his direction relative to 2020 were broad-based: making gains in all 50 states and across a range of demographic groups. More than any narrow factor, this signals general voter dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration and conditions in the country, trends that have been consistently born out in our data.

Trump led on what mattered most: The economy

The political adage, ‘it’s the economy, stupid,’ was true again this election cycle. Although by many measures the U.S. economy is remarkably strong, many consumers, and by extension voters, were still reeling from sticker shock heading into Election Day. Our economists’ noted before Tuesday that our Index of Consumer Sentiment was still below its pre-pandemic averages. A third of voters in late summer said the United States was currently in a recession and 77% of registered voters graded the economy with a C or worse. 

While Vice President Harris performed better than President Joe Biden on economic issues, Trump still outperformed her in the key battleground states.

Biden was an albatross

Heading into Election Day, voters were more likely to disapprove than approve of President Joe Biden in 46 states, and even in liberal bastions like California, only a slight majority of voters approved of his job performance.

Shifts in vote choice from 2020 moved to the right across much of the country, a clear reflection of anti-incumbent sentiment that has been present in elections across the world since the COVID-19 pandemic was followed by historic inflation. 

Trump made gains with younger voters – helping him to surge past his 2020 performance in key districts

While Trump essentially made gains across the board relative to four years ago, some of the most striking shifts were among voters ages 18-34.

Our final tracking of the race showed Harris failing to recreate Biden’s margins among the youngest voters, and even trailing in some cases.