It is a new day in Washington as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House and Republicans have control of the Senate and House. As prep for your upcoming inaugural events, these discussion points recap seven must-know facts from the 2024 election: 1. For the first time since the Watergate era, independents surpassed one of the major political parties to rank second in terms of party identification. Independents went from 27% in 2020 to 34% in 2024 — a 7-point increase. 2. Coming in behind independents as a percentage of the electorate, Democrats were de facto the third party in the election. Democrats went from 37% of the presidential electorate in 2020 to 31% in 2024, a 6-point drop. 3. Republicans had a historic party ID advantage. While the overall percentage of the electorate that was Republican decreased by 1%, going from 36% in 2020 to 35% in 2024, Republicans had a +4 party ID advantage after not having any advantage in the ten prior presidential elections. 4. The view of the economy was very negative. Exit polls showed that an overwhelming 75% of the electorate said inflation had posed some level of hardship for them and their families. From our post-election survey, economy/inflation was the top issue at 40%, with Republicans leading on economy issues handling +11 and inflation +12. In contrast, Democrats chose to focus their campaign messages on abortion and democracy. 5. Trump was the change candidate. Exit polls showed that the top two most important candidate qualities (out of a choice of four) were his ability to lead and to bring needed change. Trump won decisively on both attributes, leading 2:1 on the ability to lead (+33 Trump), and 3:1 on can bring needed change (+50 Trump). 6. Republicans made significant inroads with Hispanic voters with Trump winning 46% of this voter group. This is an improvement from the performances in 2016 (28%) and 2020 (32%). 7. Despite Democrats’ campaign emphasis on abortion and having a female nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris won women only by 8 points. Harris’ margin among women was significantly smaller than President Joe Biden’s 2020 margin among women (+15) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 margin among women (+13). David Winston and Myra Miller are co-founders of the Winston Group. This was republished with permission from the Winston Group. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
