There are already mountains of hot takes on the causes of this election and I won’t claim to have the universal answer right now (though maybe in another article?).
However, looking at the data as it is right now, understanding that will change a bit as counting continues, this is NOT a story of racism and misogyny (at least not in terms of Harris as a candidate).
And this cuts two ways both on the electorate and also in redemption for Harris as a very strong candidate.
What?! You say dear reader?
Data
I used CNN”s exit polls from 2020 and 2024, you could choose another, but I don’t think the story will change dramatically.
I took the vote count in 2020 and a recent count for 2024, understanding of course this is preliminary and you will see vote numbers, they are projected/estimate from the turn out total and the various ratios from the exit polls so please not they are not “actual” counts among the demos.
Investigation
Instead of just looking at ratios, I converted to votes, to understand the absolute changes so we didn’t get confusion on turn out vs switching.
Of course this is just using the ratios and calculated vote totals just to really hammer that home, there is no actual voter direct correspondence, nevertheless I think this is a useful exercise to tease out some patterns.
And with the 10 millionish, or whatever lower but still outrageous number we land with, missing from the Dems this year, I think it will be beneficial to look at it from this perspective for that reason as well.
Theories & Realities
Theory 1->Racism played a substantial role delivering Trump more votes either switchers or stay at homers
So if this were true we should see EITHER a strong switch from Biden to Harris in White Votes absolutely or Ratios or both.
Here is what we see instead:
Comparison White Votes and Ratios by Gender 2024 to 2020
- First note, that Biden did slightly better in terms of ratio with White men than Harris, but this is certainly prone to fuzziness so if he did do better it is unknown if it is just random or not, certainly not hitting the theory out of the park.
- More critically, since White Men dropped in total and as part of the electorate Harris lost less White Men votes than Trump did in 4 years, which is really the key.
We would expect if racism per se were strongly playing a role here that we would see both White Women and Men going for Trump more this year in absolute and relative terms cs Biden, but that is not what we see, at best some very weak white men shift. Trump actually lost millions of White men voters from 2020.
Comparison White Votes and Ratios by Age 2024 vs 2020
- Here again note Harris outperformed Biden on ratios for each age group except 45-59 which is approximately an overlap for Gen X. Even there though it is extremely close.
- In terms of absolutes Harris grabbed additional voters in every demo except over 65s BUT that group just lost votes overall, and Trump lost more.
- Key point, is again, if we lost voters due to racism OR they switched (and again I am using the term racism here with respect to Harris herself, not a “general” racism that Trump would appeal to in both elections) we should see that in the ratios and/or the absolutes consistently, but this isn’t what we see. Even in the 45-64 range that voter jump is more parcel to the growth of that demo in the election, not the ratio, which Harris won similarly to Biden as we saw above.
Age for White Voters and Turn Out
Theory 2->Harris lost because of pervasive Sexism/Misogyny
So similar to the above, if this were true we should see this pattern in the ratios or (estimated) absolute vote counts
Revisiting this View:
Comparison White Votes and Ratios by Gender 2024 to 2020
Trump lost approx 4 Million White Men voters while Harris dropped about 3 Million from Biden. This is not what we would expect to see if this were a pervasive/substantial aspect of the election result. If anything this looks to be the opposite or at most an unclear essentially neutral effect.
What we ALSO don’t see is an identitarian effect that is particularly strong, which is to say, we don’t see dramatic changes in women voters moving to Harris here either, though there is some effect.
“Ok so then Dear Author, if Harris did so well where did the votes go?”
2024 vs 2020 vote Ratios and counts by Education and Race
So we can see here again a contrast to the prevailing narrative. Harris makes gains or has less losses with Whites, the reduction is Voters of Color voted substantially less than in 2020. Voters of Color with degrees went for Trump in a non insignificant amount.
This suggests there is less identinarianism than is generally expected and also there is very little evidence of racism playing a strong role (for Harris as a candidate, again not suggesting racism isn’t a part of Trump’s base from 2020 and 2024).
The question is, why such a decent number of switchers in Voters of Color, but more importantly why did so many not vote? The former is notable but not an election make or break. Harris could easily afford that swap if the Voters of Color No Degree group came out.
I don’t have an answer myself, though my first very tentative thought of why is this:
30% have related BLM/Justice topics as their top issue in 2020, more than Covid and nearly the same as the economy.
We hoped that democracy and a not ideal but mostly good economy and gratitude for helping everyone get through Covid would be motivating enough.
Maybe if the Harris team tied freedom with BLM movement adjacent messaging more and how terrible things were and have been for African Americans, and other groups, under Trump then maybe this would have helped turn out. It’s not conclusive by any means, but I think it’s worth consideration.
What we don’t see is something akin to Anthony Scaramucci’s take, which is reminiscent of other pundits’ as well, that instead of Men thinking of their daughters we had Mom’s thinking of their sons—there’s zippo evidence of this being a big player in the story other than Hispanic voters are more socially conservative on the whole and any messaging cutting against that grain comes with risk.
The bigger question raised there is why such a drop off in Hispanic women vote? This cost Harris an estimated 3+ million votes. She lost about 1 Million from Hispanic men voting for her less, and 2+ Million from Black women’s drop off.
Does the justice topic explain all or any of this? IDK, possibly, though I feel like Black men would have dropped more if that was the case and not Hispanic women but maybe the relationship is complicated there or, most likely, in that case it is something else. Maybe in that sub group social causes turned off Hispanic women and activated some Hispanic men for Trump, seems unlikely but IDK why.
All still TBD.
I’m hoping this can be a very ever so slight bright spot for readers. It won’t take away the fear, the ever increasing substantial fear, and the sting, I doubt much can at this point, but if it gives you some brief respite to think of your fellow citizens just ever so slightly less negatively for even a moment, it might be psychologically helpful. It may also help in the vindication that nominating a mixed race woman was not “the” problem and/or to the extent it was Harris was strong enough to overcome this or both.
Certainly it will be critical in terms of appropriate take-aways. I’m not saying there weren’t racists or sexists giving Trump votes, but they seem to be already baked in, and not generally at least activated by Harris herself, if anything the opposite. It also does suggest that thinking candidate identity will be motivating to certain subsets of the electorate is also at least partially mistaken or overblown.
Both of these elements of the candidate role in success are important I believe for the future—if there is a future.
There are still plenty of open questions and maybe final vote tallies will change the story a bit but we don’t have strong evidence right now that being a mixed race woman was a large part of Harris’s performance.
