Above photo: Trump holds election rally in North Carolina shortly before winning the election. @realDonaldTrump/X.
Some results indicate that rejection of Harris does not equal rejection of progressive policy.
Former president, TV personality, and businessman Donald Trump was elected on November 5 to serve a second term as president of the United States.
While polls from just before the election showed one of the tightest races in US history, the results indicate that Trump not only won every single swing state, but also received more votes in total than Harris (i.e. the popular vote), which a Republican presidential candidate has not secured since George W. Bush in 2004. According to the preliminary results, Kamala Harris even did worse than Hillary Clinton in 2016, who also lost to Trump.
Liberal pundits and journalists have already begun the cyclical “blame game”, trying to identify which sector of the population has moved ideologically to the right and is responsible for the victory of the far-right leader. However, this approach fundamentally misses what the core issue was in the elections. A deeper analysis indicates that it is not that voters have moved more in favor of Trump’s ultra-right agenda, but that there are more and more sections of the population that feel disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the current Democratic administration and party.
Numbers even indicate that Trump did not receive a new surge of voter support. In 2020, Trump received 74,223,975 votes. In 2024, he received 71,914,298 votes (at the time of reporting). The notable difference is the drastic dip in support for the Democratic candidate, with Biden receiving 81,283,501 votes in 2020 and Harris receiving 67,070,003 votes thus far in 2024. It is important to note, however, that the vote count is not yet finalized and votes from heavily populated states such as California continue to come in.
Some of the results of the various progressive referendums on the ballot also indicate that in states that went for the Republican Party, many showed up to the polls to vote for both Trump and also for progressive policy measures. This indicates that while people are dissatisfied with the current administration, they do not necessarily support Trump’s far-right program for the country.
In Missouri, which went to Trump with 61% of the vote, residents also voted to raise the minimum wage to USD 15 per hour and to give workers guaranteed sick days. Alaska, another solidly red state, is on track to pass a similar measure. In Arizona, which may also go to Trump (mail-in votes are still being counted), it appears that voters struck down a measure that would allow for tipped workers to be paid less than the minimum wage.
Other states that went to Trump also passed pro-abortion rights measures, including Arizona, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada.
Florida, a state that has been shifting more and more conservative and where Trump had his campaign headquarters, was one of the first states to be called for Trump. Yet, a majority of Florida voters voted for Amendment 4 which would have established the right to an abortion. However, the amendment did not pass because it received 57.2% of the vote, falling short of the required 60%.
The key question is: Why would people vote for both the ultra-right candidate Trump and progressive policies on the same ballot?
It could be because millions of working class people have seen their material conditions worsen under Biden’s administration. Skyrocketing prices from 2022 never fully cooled, and have in fact continued to steadily increase. Housing costs hit an all-time high in April of this year. Rent prices keep increasing, with asking rent prices rising 3.3% in September, only exacerbating housing unaffordability which plagues working people. Nearly half of renters across the US spend over 30% of their income on housing. Food in general costs around 25% more as of September of this year than in 2020.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who last night was reelected to his post in Vermont, put the blame for Harris’ loss squarely on the Democratic Party in a statement released today. “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” he said, citing worsening conditions for working people as well as the US’s unconditional funding of Israel.
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”
According to anthropologist and professor Jason Hickel, “Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even basic steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee —things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes.” For Hickel, this is due to the deep liberal commitment to capital. “They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment.”
Some results from key areas indicate that the Biden-Harris administration’s refusal to end the unconditional supplying of Israeli genocide turned off voters from select demographics.
Ending the constant flow of US weaponry to Israel became a firm line in the sand for Muslim and Arab voters in swing states including Michigan, communities which came out in droves to get Biden into the White House in 2020. In Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Arab-American population, Biden won by 74.2% of the vote in 2020. As of last night, Harris only had achieved only 27.8% of the vote, with 46.8% going to Trump and 22% going to third party candidate Jill Stein, who has stood firmly for an arms embargo against Israel.
Beyond these target demographics, polling from June showed that 61% of people in the US wanted to end aid to Israel, including 77% of Democratic Party voters. According to the Palestinian Youth Movement, “When over 75% of your voter base supports an arms embargo, it is a losing strategy to isolate them.”