2024 Post-Election Report

A retrospective and longitudinal data analysis on why Trump beat Harris

On November 5, former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election after more than 150 million Americans voted, a slightly lower turnout rate than in 2020. 

Data for Progress polling has consistently shown that the top issues for voters in this election were inflation and the cost of living. While the inflation rate has cooled over the last three years after spiking following the height of the COVID pandemic, the higher cost of living has angered voters, as it has in other affluent countries around the globe. The U.S. election result adds to a clear trend of both left and right incumbent parties being punished by voters for post-pandemic inflation.

While most analysts acknowledge the role of inflation, others point to President Joe Biden’s age and decision to stay in the race through mid-July, voters’ perception of Harris’ as insufficiently populist on economic issues or out-of-touch on social issues, and Democrats’ failure to use non-traditional media to connect with politically disengaged voters as additional explanations for Trump’s victory. 

To help explain and contextualize the 2024 election results, and the merits of these explanations of Trump’s victory, Data for Progress analyzed data from dozens of national surveys of likely voters conducted over the last year.