Now Election Day was a win for Donald Trump and Republicans. President Trump won all of the seven swing states. He is the likely winner of the popular vote, and Republicans will control the House and the Senate in the coming Congress.

The bottom line is that election day was a Republican victory. But if we look behind the top line numbers, there are some sides that point to Republican strength and the building of a broader Republican coalition that is very positive for their future, and other signs that the victory did not go as far as might have been expected, particularly in Congress.

First, let’s look at the areas that were most focused on by pollsters in the media, the seven swing states and the national popular vote in 2020 Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 4.5 percentage points to Joe Biden. He lost six of the seven key swing states, all but North Carolina, but many of the swing states were very close, and Donald Trump performed better in all of the swing states than he did at the national popular level.

The popular vote in 2024

moved significantly toward Donald Trump from a 4.5 percentage point loss to a narrow win in the popular vote.

Did pollsters and media get this core story about the swing states and the popular vote wrong,

while the media broadly discounted Trump’s chances, the data were there in the polls to see this story, polls generally showed a much closer popular vote than in 2020

and in the seven states, Donald Trump seemed to hold a slight edge in the southern and southwestern swing states, while the three blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin were toss ups. The path for Kamala Harris lay in winning the three blue wall states, and thus a razor thin majority in the electoral college, while the path for Donald Trump was to win one of those blue wall states to clinch a victory.

In the end, Donald Trump performed a couple of points better than the public polling showed, winning the popular vote rather than losing it narrowly and winning all seven swing states, most of them by a couple of percentage points more than the polls showed. Arizona and Nevada moved toward Trump, even a bit more than that.

So in the areas that had the most focus and mattered the most for winning

Donald Trump performed a couple of points better than the public data showed.

But in another sense, Donald Trump and Republicans performed much better than anyone anticipated in states that were less consequential for the presidential outcome. Trump had many impressive gains compared to 2020 Donald Trump improved his performance by above or near 10 percentage points in Republican states like Texas and Florida. He had similarly large performance improvements in democratic states like New York and New Jersey, where Democrats still won, but by much less than in 2020

and some of the gains heralded what may be a new Republican coalition with working class Hispanics into a lesser extent, African Americans, moving towards Republicans

in Miami, Dade County, the share of the Republican vote in The Presidential election went from 34% in 2016

to 46% in 2020

to 55% in 2024

and along the Texas Mexico border, Trump won all but two of the heavily Hispanic and traditionally Democratic counties.

These large gains did not have a significant effect on the swing states that were key to victory, but if Republicans are able to replicate these gains in future elections, this may show a broader coalition that could contribute to future victories.

Finally, the Republican victory was less impressive in the gains in Congress they might have anticipated. Importantly, Republicans will control the Senate and the House, but a victory of this magnitude might have translated into much larger congressional victories

in the Senate. Republicans gained three seats in strongly Republican leaning states that they should have won. Donald Trump won West Virginia by 42 percentage points, Montana by 20 and Ohio by 11. So it was not a surprise that Republicans gained Senate seats in those states, but Donald Trump won all seven swing states, and Republicans lead narrowly in only one.

Of the five Senate seats up for grabs in those states, in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan, Republicans lost Senate seats by less than two percentage points, they will likely end up with 53 Senate seats where they might have had control up to 57 with a small shift in the vote in

Yeah, and in the house, the most likely outcome is the same small majority for Republicans that they held before the election.

All of the impressive gains in the country did not translate into a gain of seats

overall. Republicans won the most consequential elections, the presidency, House and Senate, and they won all seven swing states.

They showed impressive newfound strength with former Democratic groups such as Hispanics and African Americans, but they underperformed in Congress, leaving themselves with majorities, but narrow majorities to govern the.