Guess who’s back, back again? It was of little use to Barack Obama, former president of the United States, to have sung one of the songs of rapper The American Eminem at one of the Democratic rallies. The moment went viral, but at the end of election night it was Donald Trump who embodied one of the country’s best-known successes. rapper.

The Republican’s return to the White House is historic: it is only the second time that a former president has been re-elected in alternate terms. After Joe Biden withdrew in mid-July, it was Kamala Harris, still serving as vice president, who triumphed as the Democratic Party candidate.

The polls showed close results, but the blue dream (the color of the Democratic Party) ended up destroyed. Donald Trump gained strength in sectors of the electorate that typically belonged to Democrats, he won in all undecided states and even achieved a strong increase in the votes of Latino immigrants.

There was one major concern on voters’ minds: the economy. Inflation caused the prices of goods and fuel to rise, and American families turned to Republicans. Discontent with the current administration is demonstrated in an exit poll published by CNN where 46% of respondents said they lived in a worse financial situation than four years ago, when Donald Trump left the Oval Office. Of them, 81% said they had voted for the re-election of the former president.

This is just one of the reasons given for Trump’s victory. The United States is turning red again (the color of Republicans), and these eight graphs explain how.

Trump mobilized more voters

The 2020 elections, which ended with the victory of the Democratic Party, brought more people to the polls than in previous years. Now, turnout would have been similar, but Kamala Harris’ party lost votes. This time, Trump managed to mobilize more voters.

According to Ricardo Ferreira Reis, director of the Center for Applied Studies at the Catholic University, this change is due to “people who did not vote before” and new voters. Historically, young voters vote for the Democratic Party and the trend has continued. But the blue advantage over the Republicans was reduced: many young people who went to the polls for the first time voted for the Republican candidate.

In addition to winning over more young voters, Trump also convinced more white voters to vote. A Sky News poll reveals that 71% of white voters turned out to vote, 4% more than in 2020. History says that these voters tend to be more conservative, especially outside urban areas. “That’s what happened this time. That is to say, the rural American population felt abandoned in an economic context, they suffered greatly from inflation and, therefore, they are the ones who mobilized to vote. They also have a lower education rate and are an electorate vulnerable to being convinced by Trump’s speech,” explains Ricardo Ferreira Reis.

The right convinces the traditionally left-wing electorate

When we look at the map, we see that the vote for the Democratic Party is concentrated in the coastal areas of the country, where the largest urban centers are located. This is the case of the states of California, on the west coast, and New York, on the east coast. And even in the strongholds of the Republican Party there are counties where the blue vote predominated. In the case of Texas, the vote in the large cities of Austin, Dallas and Houston went to Kamala Harris.

But this vote was not enough to collect votes for the electoral college, despite highlighting other patterns in American politics: the vote of the most educated voters, who are concentrated in large cities, still belong to the Democratic Party.

“The liberal professions live here: lawyers, doctors and teachers. Currently there is a division of votes according to people’s literacy,” explains Ricardo Ferreira Reis. Less educated citizens tend to vote for Trump, but this was not always the case. “Before it was the left that fished in these waters. And that is why the Democrats were surprised to see that a type of electorate that they were used to being captive to the left was aligned quite a bit to the right,” says the expert.

And even in urban and Democratic strongholds, where Donald Trump lost, the Democratic Party narrowed its lead over its opponent. It happened in New Jersey and in Manhattan, in the center of New York. Ricardo Ferreira Reis believes this could be a symptom of discontent, as inflation and the cost of housing may have led voters to resort to a “protest vote in relation to the current administration.”

The swing states elected Trump

In every American election campaign there are states that deserve more attention. they are called undecided states. These are states that do not have a consolidated sense of voting but are worth a considerable percentage of the electoral college votes, thus becoming decisive in winning an election. This year, unlike what happened in 2020, the Democratic Party lost in all of them.

The fall of the blue wall

Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. These are the states of the so-called “blue wall”, a large and compact area, located in the famous rusty beltwhere historically the vote for the Democratic Party predominates. Trump destroyed that wall (again, he had already done so in 2016) and Kamala Harris had to pick up the pieces.

The structure was beginning to show a certain fragility. It’s all due to a paradigm shift. Ana Cavalieri calls it “an ideological mutation.” The International Relations researcher explains to the Observer that “there was a decline in industries in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which really hurt the working class,” combined with a shift in attention by Democrats, who turned to “elites sophisticated urban areas. , coastal and academic.” A considerable part of the population in these areas considers her “elitist and condescending.”

Democratic vote falls among women

Another belief that was dispelled this election night was that the female vote would go to Kamala Harris in a consolidated way. There were more women voting in this election, but even with the Democrats’ strong campaign for abortion and gender equality, this was not enough to secure the female vote. In contrast, support for Kamala Harris, who could become the first woman elected president of the United States, has declined among women.

“It’s a very interesting realignment, because class politics overlaps with racial politics. The white and Hispanic working class is strongly aligned in favor of the Republican Party and Trump and rejects the politics of the elites,” explains expert Ana Cavalieri.

Trump wins the Latino vote

Donald Trump’s anti-immigration speech was not enough to alienate the Hispanic community. Latinos are an important demographic part of the American electoral fabric that seemed assured for Kamala Harris. But something did not go as expected: the Democratic advantage decreased considerably.

“They are more conservative in terms of family and educational policies,” Ana Cavalieri begins. “Many of them have a certain fear of everything that borders on far-left politics, that is, communism, because many of them leave countries that, essentially, have experienced economic difficulties due to authoritarian systems closely linked to the left,” he explains. .

The turn of the Democratic discourse towards “progressivism” has been rejected by the Hispanic community. “That identity discourse, instead of working with Hispanics, had the opposite effect,” says the expert. Donald Trump’s anti-immigration statements were not enough to alienate voters, since many of these citizens “entered the country legally and do not view uncontrolled immigration favorably.”

Cavalieri states that Latinos fear that uncontrolled and illegal immigration could “bring problems with integration, and also with the level of social benefits that are granted.”

Ricardo Ferreira Reis considers that the Latino vote for Donald Trump is a consequence of the good integration of the community. “They are reproducing and replicating behaviors of other ethnicities,” the expert contextualizes and adds that something similar is already beginning to happen in relation to the vote of the black population.

The Democratic discourse shows wear and tear, even among the black community

Since 2016, the blue advantage among black voters has been slowly but steadily declining. “Everything indicates that it was young black people who mobilized in favor of Trump,” says Ricardo Ferreira Reis, pointing out that they could be part of the “new voters” who made a dent in the results of the Democratic Party.

According to the expert, the explanation is purely economic, and he repeats that “it could be a replica of the behavior of other ethnic groups” as well as a symptom of “good integration”, seeing no “reasons to [os votos destes jovens] be different just because they are a different color.”

Despite the “insistence of the Democrats on the identity discourse of race, this discourse no longer works and is worn out,” maintains Ricardo Ferreira Reis.

“They don’t want to exacerbate racial hatred,” adds Ana Cavalieri, who agrees with the erosion of Democratic discourse on racial grounds. Even so, remember: “The black vote continues to be the most important bloc that remains loyal to the Democratic Party, even though Donald Trump has reached a historic percentage.”

Donald Trump won after four years away from the Oval Office during which he was convicted by the courts, involved in sex scandals and the target of suspicions of having incited the invasion of the Capitol in 2021. In his first speech after the election, He proclaimed his return as the “day Americans took back control of their country.”

Military conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East will be one of the concerns of this mandate. Trump assured: “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.” And after dispatching all the messages, he ended his victory speech with an internal message: “It is time to leave behind the divisions of the last four years, it is time to unite.”

After the tough defeat, Kamala Harris reacted to the will expressed by voters dressed in black, but without a smile. Harris asked her followers to “roll up their sleeves.” “It’s okay to be sad or disappointed. But we must accept the results of these elections,” he said.

The Democratic candidate took the stage with the same music that accompanied her during the rallies. Freedomby the singer Beyoncé, resonated outside Howard University to accompany a message that the Democrat never tires of repeating: “This is the time to organize, mobilize and remain committed to freedom, justice and the future that we all know.” that we can build.” .”