The 2024 Presidential Race
- Mackena Weber
- Nov 6, 2024
- 3 min read
For the second time, Donald Trump has won the presidency in a deeply-contentious national election. Taken before the election, the latest New York Times/Siena polling showed only a single point national advantage for Harris, with each candidate leading by less than one percent in most battleground states.
These predicted small margins in swing states may have been tied to a host of recent campaign issues and controversies, such as comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at a recent Trump rally. With our Electoral College system, the ballots of just a few in certain states have decided the next four years of a Trump presidency for the entire United States.
Why was it so close?
Political science often uses the term “expressive voting” to describe a general pattern of behavior that voters tend to act on, in which voting is an act of self-expression aligned with one’s personal preferences, rather than a solely strategic decision. This mindset helps give rise to two political phenomena that may have played a crucial role in this election cycle: identity politics and the single-issue voter.
Polling data has shown Harris having large advantages with Black voters and, particularly as a result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade which protected nationwide abortion access, with women voters overall. Alternatively, Trump pre-election had made sizable gains with Latino voters, even while running on a platform of mass deportation.
There are also sectors of voters with extremely specific policy interests influencing their vote. The NBC News Exit Poll shows that the economy and democracy were major issues for voters in 2024, with women being especially likely to rank abortion as their top issue.
What about election interference?
This election has also been marked by concerns about election fairness and security.
Throughout his campaign, Trump continued to make accusations of Democratic Party cheating, even after asserting in June that he would accept the results of “a fair and legal and good election.” Unsubstantiated fearmongering about noncitizen registration and voting also persists, with Virginia recently purging its voter rolls and catching U.S. citizens in the crossfire. States such as Georgia, which recently passed a law making it easier to submit voter challenges, have also received thousands of voter challenges that have placed citizens’ voting rights in jeopardy.
Even beyond Republican accusations of widespread voter fraud leading up to the election, there have been several alarming incidents of ballot boxes set on fire in Oregon and Washington, and even an 18 year old arrested for intimidating voters with a machete at a polling site in Florida. Incidents like these have raised concerns about voter intimidation and consequent suppression.
Election Day has also brought the added chaos of bomb threats, reportedly linked to Russia, at polling places in several swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In response, voting hours in some of those polling locations were extended, though concerns about foreign election interference persist.
How do identity and single-issue focuses work in our political system? What are the implications of different forms of election interference on the notion of U.S. ‘democracy?’
Additional Materials:
The election, but California-related: Release #2024-19: State Election Contests
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