Is there a national shift to the right in the U.S.? Strategists weigh in

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Supporters of Donald Trump gather near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Election Day. / Getty Images

In the days leading up to election night, news outlets across the country, including NPR, were predicting a historically close race — one that could take days to call.

But as Tuesday night progressed, it became clear former President Donald Trump was on a path to victory. And by early Wednesday morning, the result was called.

With a race that was expected to be historically tight behind us, the question is: How did Trump win so decisively?

All Things Considered hosts Juana Summers and Mary Louise Kelly unpack this with two veteran political strategists, Democrat Anna Greenberg and Republican Sarah Longwell, hitting four big themes.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

1. The big gender gap didn’t really materialize

Mary Louise Kelly: I want to walk through who turned out for Trump and what issues drove them. Let's start with women. Anna, early indication showed women were going to turn out in high numbers. The thinking was that would help Harris. It didn't. What happened?

Anna Greenberg: First of all, I think that, like many people, myself included, we got a little bit ahead of our skis in the early vote, where you saw actually a pretty significant gap in turnout between men and women, suggesting that there would be an even bigger gender gap than there normally is in turnout. And it turned out that it was not the case — 53% of the electorate was female, which is fairly standard, and there was a gender gap, but it wasn't as big as many were predicting. And so Harris won 53% of women, while Trump won 55% of men, and clearly that wasn't enough.

Kelly: So Sarah, jump in on this, and your take on the so-called gender gap, which didn't really materialize. Does that tell us female voters were not as fired up over reproductive rights, over the issue of abortion, as everybody thought they were?

Sarah Longwell: Yeah. I also think that it was just, look — it was the economy. I do focus groups all the time, and I always start them by asking people, “How do you think things are going in the country?” And for years now, people have been saying they do not think things are going good. Inflation has been killing them. You know, they're frustrated with immigration. And so the Dobbs effect was just minimized. And I think that women, they did obviously break for Harris somewhat, but it wasn't nearly at the scale she needed to make up for the fact that Democrats were doing poorly with men of all races, and the bottom was falling out with Hispanics. They really needed white women to make up for those numbers, and they didn't.

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A Vote Here/Aqui sign is posted at a polling place at a church after the polls opened before sunrise on Nov. 05 in Tempe, Arizona. / Getty Images

2. Latino voters shifted toward Trump

Juana Summers: I want to talk about Latino voters, because an NBC News exit poll found that, compared to 2020, Latino voters swung toward Trump by 25 percentage points. Particularly interesting was Latino men. So Sarah, do we have a sense of what it is about Trump's message that is driving such seemingly decisive support with this group in particular?

Longwell: Yeah. When I do focus groups with Hispanic voters they sound just like white voters who vote for Trump. There's been very little difference. And they tend to be very hawkish on immigration. They too cite the economy as the number one issue, hit hard by inflation. And then there's also certain cultural elements. A lot of it is just they do not like the sort of Democratic Party's more identitarian politics. They tend to reject that. And they have been culturally breaking more and more for Republicans now for a while. And then the bottom really fell out this election cycle.

Summers: Anna, let me bring you in here. I mean, this is a group that has traditionally supported Democrats. I will just note that Vice President Harris trailed President Biden's 2020 numbers with this group. Explain to us what you're seeing here. Why is the party losing support?

Greenberg: Well, I think that there has been a change in the Hispanic electorate that has been underway for some time. Because as the population grows and more and more Hispanic voters were born in the U.S., are native English speakers, consume more English — almost exclusively English language media — they start politically seeming like just everybody else, right? And as the population grows in that segment in particular, you would expect, just like historically, Irish immigrants, Italian immigrants, Polish, to assimilate and be like everybody else. So in some ways, from a demography standpoint, it's not that much of a surprise. And Hillary Clinton also underperformed among Hispanic voters. And I think that Democrats need to think about this, in a way, as the new normal, and start thinking differently about how you reach out to Hispanic voters. In particular, understanding the differences in the in the population, in communities, from state to state, from region to region, generationally, language, even country of origin.

3. The economy was *the* talking point

Kelly: Let me just park us for a moment on the economy. I want you both to listen to what we heard from a voter in Michigan earlier this week. This is Michael Gee, he was talking about how he sees the difference between the economy now and the economy under President Trump:

“I think people were more confident, things were running smoother, could provide for our family. I was in 7-Eleven yesterday, eggs were $6.99 for a dozen eggs. I've never seen eggs that expensive in my life.”

Sarah Longwell, did Trump's victory really boil down to something like the price of eggs?

Longwell: I actually think yes, that that is one of the biggest factors, and we heard it all the time in the groups. And in fact, I do think it's sometimes tough for people in big cities to understand how price sensitive these voters are. When I do focus groups with voters, and this is one of the reasons I think Democrats underperformed with young people, people just know exactly how much milk costs. They know exactly how much eggs cost. They're very sensitive to the price of gas. In the inflationary environment that we had post-COVID, this has felled incumbents across the globe. Incumbents are losing at a rapid rate in this post-COVID environment because inflation is something that really does end presidential elections.

Kelly: Although we know, Anna, that inflation has returned mostly to something resembling normal levels. So why didn't that resonate?

Greenberg: Right. And incomes have risen, and the stock market is doing great, all those things. First, I agree with Sarah, but I think it also more broadly suggested this was a failed administration. And if you look at Joe Biden's job approval numbers and his favorability, [it was] obviously incredibly low, and stayed incredibly low even after we saw the switch in the ticket. His numbers did not get any better. And in many ways, this was a change election. And so I think the inflationary pressures and the sense that it came from the Biden administration was part of a vote for change.

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Chalk art on the sidewalk outside a polling station on the campus of Wayne State University on November 5 in Detroit, Michigan. / Getty Images

4. A national ‘shift to the right’ is open to interpretation

Summers: Sarah, I've got just a big picture question for you. We saw Trump win big Tuesday night. He made gains in nearly every demographic. You look at a map, it looks quite red. One could surmise that the whole country is swinging right. Is that the case?

Longwell: It is, and it's not just the swing states. Places like Illinois, New Jersey — they all saw swings to the right. But I don't know that that necessarily means that the country is getting more conservative, per se. I do think it has much more to do with the fact that people were really frustrated with the economy. It was a widespread situation. You know, the fact that there was that much movement in states where they weren't having advertising, they weren't having get out the vote operations like the swing states were, indicates that there was a massive macro frustration with the Biden administration and the economy and immigration that led the country to sort of roundly reject Kamala Harris as somebody who was seen as the incumbent.

Kelly: Anna Greenberg, the Democrats have lost The White House. They have lost the Senate. We don't know yet where the House will land. Are Democrats ready now to change their message, to do the work to change who feels that they belong in the Democratic Party?

Greenberg: Well, I think that's an enormous question that is difficult to answer, especially the day after the election. I think that there will definitely be soul searching, and there will be, you know, an autopsy, just like there was for the Republicans in 2012. But I think when you are a party that represents a diverse coalition — racially and regionally, in terms of education level — the notion that you can sort of turn on a dime and say, “Well, I'm just going to talk about things that men care about, and hopefully I'll win an election,” isn't really how it works. And I'm not suggesting that Democrats have a wonderful message to men. I'm not even suggesting that all men are actually a good target for the Democratic Party. The Republican advantage in terms of message is its homogeneity, and the Democrats advantage around its diversity is both that it is broadly representative, but also much more challenging for this, what I think is a minority, homogenous set of voters, even though Trump obviously won the popular vote.