Going into the 2024 race, President-elect Donald Trump faced two impeachments, 34 felony counts, the bitter history of January 6th, and he felt that the world stood against him. The Democrats felt that they had high chances of beating him with the perspective that his character was too horrendous for anyone to vote for.
However, it quickly became apparent that riding the Trump hate train would fall short. Many American citizens no longer wanted to hear Vice President Harris explain why they should not vote for him, but rather why they should vote for her. While Harris busily tried to destroy Trump’s image even further, he got busy reaching out to voters and young men, proving himself to the working class, and creating a strong appearance that ultimately helped him win the race.
Trump went on a run of “bro” podcasts, creating viral moments for his cult-like MAGA followers to adore, and for Harris supporters to denigrate.
Aiming to appeal to young and first-time voters, he appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE),” which reached 50 million views on YouTube. On this podcast, Trump appeared as though he was a friend one could talk to. The host, Joe Rogan, is one of many voters who were once outspokenly anti-Trump but ended up endorsing him just days before the election.
I believe that many people, like Rogan, have flipped after being fed up with the way that the Democrats are currently running the country. With Harris’ inability to distinguish herself from the Biden administration, many realized that her campaign had no real substance besides putting Trump in a negative light. This is potentially what caused nearly nine million Biden voters to not side with Harris.
The biggest benefit of Trump going on JRE was the audience he reached. Rogan’s podcast has predominantly male listeners who are under the age of 30. These men played one of the biggest roles in securing the victory for Trump, who managed to pull 7% more of this demographic than Harris this election.
Beyond strengthening the support from his voter base, Trump formed alliances with people who previously opposed him. The most prime example of this is his running mate, JD Vance, who just a couple years ago compared Trump to Hitler. The combination of these impactful alliances and strengthened support from his voter base helped Trump win the election.
Even when not looking at all this work from Trump, I think one fact remains: Harris underperformed. In all fairness to her, she was assigned the extremely tough job of trying to prove how she would be different from the administration she had been a part of for the last four years.
Still, she failed to perform well in interviews and in getting votes from Biden supporters. The Harris campaign relied too heavily on the hope that Republicans would yet again not turn out to vote, that Trump’s image was too horrendous for him to win, and that Biden’s voter base in 2020 was going to be enough.
Young white men were of course a key factor in securing Trump’s win, pulling 56% of first-time voters. Harris won, but still underperformed with nearly every kind of young person, including White women, Black voters, and Latinos, who sided with her by only six points. Had the Democrats held a primary election for citizens to choose who they wanted to task with beating Trump, they might have held office for another four years.
