Chethana Janith, Jadetimes Staff
C. Janith is a Jadetimes news reporter covering science and geopolitics.
The US election results have proved many assumptions wrong. Many experts had anticipated that Kamala Harris would win the 2024 US presidential elections. However, the election results have altered the US electoral and political landscape forever and will influence the country in the long run.
Factors that Shaped the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election Results
Those considering Kamala Harris to be the victorious candidate for the 2024 presidential election had made their assumptions on three key issues: women’s power, sexual abuse charges against the Republican candidate, and Gen-Z’s tilt toward her. Nonetheless, the election results demonstrate that multiple other remarkable factors were also at play in US politics, which proved many experts and observers wrong. Before the 2024 elections, many election observers theorized that a distinct electoral environment was influencing this election. This environment included access to reproductive health on the ballot in many states and a woman as a democrat candidate.
The confluence of all these factors would have provided Kamala with the sympathy vote of the female voters. However, these calculations were turned upside down by the election results. The Center of American Women and Politics (CAWP) reported that the female voters did not demonstrate any significant divergence from their previous voting trends. Kamala gained fewer votes than the last democrat candidate. She only succeeded in securing only 54 percent of votes, as compared to 57 percent earned by Biden in the previous election. This demonstrates that the US women followed similar voting patterns as in the past and the women as a Presidential candidate and other such factors didn’t provide any leverage to Kamala. Surprisingly, 52 percent of white women voted for Trump despite his misogynist remarks. This speaks volumes about the future of women’s rights in the United States.
Similarly, the majority of US men did not vote for the female presidential candidate. Trump secured a 55 percent male vote bank. The majority of these male voters were white. Moreover, it was anticipated that the Gen-Z would support Kamala Harris. However, the election results demonstrated the reality on the contrary. Reportedly, young voters were supposed to vote for the Democrat candidate by 12–14 points. However, Kamala secured only a 4-point margin among young voters aged 18-24. Astonishingly, this margin was also lesser than that of President Joe Biden in 2020. The majority of the young voters shifting towards Trump in 2024 are also white. Given this trend of white voters, it seems that ethnicity was also at play in the US presidential elections and will continue to impact elections in the country forever.
Shifting Ethnic Trends and the Future of U.S. Elections
Another significant factor shaping voting trends in the United States is that voting for a female candidate was unacceptable for the pseudo-liberal society of the country. Irrespective of their ethnicity or race, American men have prioritized male candidates over female candidates. Kamala even secured the lowest number of black men’s votes in the past 3 decades. Similarly, only 43 percent of Latino men voted for Kamala, while the majority of them voted for Trump in the recent elections. This also marked the lowest number of Latino men voting for the Democrats in the past 3 decades. Trump’s anti-establishment narrative also resonated well with the Gen-Z voters. The majority of the younger voters in the US are anti-establishment.
The US involvement and weapon supply to Israel amidst the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza has turned a large number of American youth against the country’s establishment. Moreover, the majority of them do not condone the US involvement in foreign wars, especially in Ukraine and the Middle East. The anti-establishment sentiment in the United States is so popular and strong that the US citizens have ignored any defects in the decency, competence, and character of the candidate for his stance. Similar trends have also been observed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Moreover, social media has also played a significant role in the US elections. President-elect Donald Trump has used social media platforms efficiently for his election campaign.
These new trends in the United States may not portend well for the country in the future. The political landscape in the country is altering. What’s alarming is that people in a so-called progressive country like the US still prioritize men over women in the elections. On the other hand, a significant ethnic shift is also being observed in the country. Over a few decades ago, 90 percent of the US population was white, which now stands at 59 percent. Simultaneously, the Latino and Hispanic population has also elevated to almost 20 percent from a mere 2 percent in a similar period. In the past, they had been overwhelming supporters of the democratic.
However, they have also bought Trump’s populist narrative. These significant shifts in the US electoral process demonstrate that the political landscape of the country will completely alter in the coming few years. Moreover, the changing ethnic trends in the country portend that the vote bank of the colored people would play the determining role in elections in the future.
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