Democrat data firm Catalist just released the most comprehensive report to date on how President Donald Trump won the 2024 election. But as usual, the corporate media and Democrat consultant class are misreading the data – and underestimating just how devastating last November was for liberals.
Breaking down the data
The Catalist report largely confirms what many exit polls found last year. Trump made gains among minority and young voters, too many Biden voters stayed home, and infrequent voters voted Republican. But the scale of these shifts and some other trends that have thus far flown under the radar hint at much deeper problems for Democrats than just one bad election night.
Trump’s gains among men – particularly minority men – were particularly astonishing. Among men overall, Trump performed six points better in 2024 than he did in 2020. But among black men, he performed seven points better, and among Latino men, he improved by an incredible 12 points. Kamala Harris did not improve among a single subset of men examined in the Catalist survey.
SOURCE: The Cook Political Report
Even among women, Harris struggled. Latina women moved seven points to the right. The only group among whom Harris improved over Joe Biden’s 2020 performance was married white women – and even then, she did only one point better.
In another troubling trend for liberals, the newest voters were less likely to vote Democrat. In 2024, for the first time in Catalist’s dataset, the Democrat candidate won fewer than 50 percent of the voters for whom that election was their first time ever voting – a cohort of 24 million Americans last year.
That data point alone should be setting off alarm bells for liberals. Typically, younger voters lean left and become more conservative as they age. If that trend holds but Republicans begin performing better with young people as soon as they’re able to vote, it creates a prohibitively low electoral ceiling for Democrats.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from the Catalist report is also the most nuanced. As the Cook Political Report explains, “For much of the 2024 election, the Harris campaign was convinced that they could win if the electorate looked similar to 2020, while the Trump campaign was eager to expand the electorate.”
In a sense, Harris got the electorate she wanted – 47 percent of voters were “super voters,” meaning they had voted in all of the last four general elections. In 2020, that number was 38 percent. And Harris actually performed better with this subset of voters than either Joe Biden in 2020 or Hillary Clinton in 2016, winning 50 percent of their votes.
But among less frequent voters – those who voted in 0, 1, 2, or 3 of the last 4 general elections, Harris lost ground. While Biden won at least 53 percent of the vote among all of these groups, Harris failed to crack 50 percent with any of them.
Moreover, according to Catalist’s estimates, 30 million people who voted in 2020 stayed home in 2024. About 55.7 percent of that group voted for Biden.
SOURCE: The Cook Political Report
Key takeaways
Taken together, these findings offer a few insights. First, Trump was indeed successful at expanding the electorate – and shattered conventional wisdom about minority voting patterns. Liberal dreams of an “emerging Democratic majority” driven by people of color and women, so popular in the early 2000s, are now coming crashing down. The 2024 electorate, which was three percent less white than 12 years ago, produced the first Republican popular vote winner since 2004.
Second, the gender divide is real and growing. The failure of the Kamala Harris campaign to reach men was not just a media narrative – it showed up in an enormous way at the ballot box. Since last November, Democrats have failed to reckon with their alienation of men and the aggressive feminization of the party. Unless Democrats address that problem quickly, expect the rightward trend among men to continue no matter who is on the ballot.
Third, the Obama coalition is collapsing, and traditional Democrat messaging tactics are becoming less effective with voters. As Cook put it, “Had the 2024 electorate been in place in 2012, the team in Chicago would’ve been over the moon.” But in 2016, 2020, and 2024, that same coalition that delivered two terms for Obama became increasingly pro-Trump – despite Democrats and the corporate media launching a decade-long smear campaign to portray Trump as racist and sexist.
Fourth, Americans who are less political, or at least less inclined to vote, really, really didn’t like what they saw from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and really did like Donald Trump’s message. What the “less frequent” voter data suggests is that a majority of Americans who have not voted in every recent election were incentivized to show up at the polls to vote for a change in direction – a clear rejection of Biden’s presidency.
The media misses the mark again
Following the release of the Catalist data, The Bulwark – a vehemently anti-Trump outlet – published its own breakdown of the data. It contains this somewhat amusing line: “Republicans were not able to boost their margins in the swing states in 2024 as much as they did nationally – meaning that in the states that actually matter, where all the ad spending and stumping happens, Democrats are in a stronger position than they are in the rest of the country. That’s something.”
Really? Trump won every single swing state and cut his margin of defeat in half in states like Virginia and New Jersey. Maybe Trump didn’t improve as much in the swing states as he did nationally, but that’s only because his improvement nationally was so impressive. If anything, that analysis should lead to the conclusion that Trump’s appeal is even broader and more robust than his popular vote victory or landslide Electoral College margin would suggest.
The Bulwark then trots out a now-familiar line: that no other Republican will be able to match Trump’s margins among rural and working-class voters. “Since Trump hijacked their political party, they’ve been shedding reliable college-educated suburban voters – along with most traditional Republican values and policies,” the piece reads. “And while Trump is able to offset this loss with Saddam Hussein–level margins among working-class voters, especially in rural areas, there’s no evidence a Republican who isn’t Trump can conjure similar appeal with voters otherwise uninterested in politics.”
But wait – didn’t The Bulwark and the rest of the Never-Trump crowd just get done telling us from 2021 to 2024 that Trump would be an electoral anchor on the party? Didn’t they all blame him for Republicans’ underperformance in 2022 and insist that January 6 and left-wing lawfare would make him unelectable? Now, however, we’re supposed to believe that Republicans don’t stand a chance without him on the ballot.
Even if that analysis were correct, it would mean that another more “traditional” Republican candidate would be able to bring back those college-educated suburban voters who used to be a core component of the GOP coalition. And if that Republican candidate could maintain some subset of the rural and working-class base that Trump activated, it would leave him or her in a similarly strong electoral position.
Ultimately, what drives the political elite crazy isn’t just that Trump keeps winning – it’s that he keeps proving them wrong. Again and again, they’ve declared him finished and out of step with the American public. Yet each time, he defies the odds, redraws the political map, and reshapes the electorate in ways they neither understand nor control.
Trump didn’t just win in 2024. He shattered long-held assumptions about voter behavior, media influence, and party loyalty. What Democrats and the media fail to realize, and what each new revelation about last November proves, is that the old playbook no longer works – and that the outsider the elites tried to cancel is now the defining figure of a new political era.
Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
President Trump is an amazing man. He was our last chance at saving this country. He is doing his best to save it. Thanks to all who voted for him. But the fight isn’t over. We must defy the odds and keep the House in 2026. That election will be just as important as 2024 was.
I no longer believe in polls since 2016. “Polls” are often manipulated to create voter behavior than to reflect it. “College educated” = college indoctrinated. Most of the media are Democrat propagandists who deal in feelings, not facts, which is why Hollywood has such an influence. Can anyone forgive the lies about Covid vaccines and the damage to our economy and to the mental and educational damage to our children. Millions died because Ivermectin was not allowed to be used in order to enrich Pfizer, and doctors who tried to tell people of the efficacy of it were threatened to have their medical licenses removed. Democrats cannot be forgiven for their lies.Biden’s dementia was evident in 2020, although Democrats tried to shield him from the public by using Covid as an excuse. Democrats lost because people finally realized the gaslighting.,
I didn’t even have to read the article to know why they lost. It’s really simple: the average American knows what a woman is, knows that men and women are physically different always have been and always will be, does not believe in killing babies, does not believe climate change is going to destroy the planet, and above all does not hang around with liars! The Democrats party stands for absolutely nothing that the average American stands for. They have turned their party over to radical hard left Marxist liberals. They will never win another election. Everything they say is wrong everything they do is wrong and if their lips are moving they are lying! People do not identify with that unless they too are corrupt. I don’t know about you but I’m not tired of winning yet! Go Trump!
she lost because she was unqualified and unlikeable
Democrats are oblivious to the concept that the majority of Americans see globalism, communism and socialism as detrimental to their quality of life. DEI and CRT – reverse racism is just another form of racism. As for illegals, Americans can no longer afford to pay for the rest of the world’s free ride, nor do they wish to.
I don’t agree that a lot of Biden’s previous voters simply didn’t show up to vote Democrat in 2024. They never existed the first time but were created by election fraud! In 2024 the Republicans tightened their ship and prevented the fraud for the most part and suddenly the Phantom voters do not show!
The ‘cackling moron’ is a joke.
She should have never been in the position she was put in. Not able, not capable, not up to the task mentally or intellectually. She is a small town material, flapping around like a carp out of the pond.Pathetic, that was the VP of the USA, but when the capacity of her President is taken into consideration it was worse than blind leading blind. It was the first time for everything situation.
Harris thought because she is a minority and a female that she could sway the Socialist agenda..in reality..Communism.
No Willie Brown; No special skills Kamala Harris….
Nice analysis, obviously the dems still don’t get it, luckily for republicans. My guess is that Ron DeSantis will explode a lot of the myths about the electorate. As a very successful governor and much less controversial figure than Trump he should be a slam dunk and likely would not stray far from Trump’s MAGA path!
Another poll analysis, AMAZING! If I recall, ballots do not have our names on them so the only way that this report can get data for it, is to do polls on corners or house to house to find out how people voted and probably done in Democratic strongholds. So as usual — JUST A GUESSING GAME. More lies and deceptions.
Trump reshaped the whole Republican Party and Took the lead.
The main problem I observe is that people are reluctant to reconsider what they’ve been conditioned to accept. We live in a society driven by emotions, often discarding facts. I believe that our manner of speaking influences perceptions and that Obama’s election was bolstered not just by black voters, but also by broader appeals. It’s important not to judge superficially. Trump has harbored similar views but also spoke of change since his youth. Although he was a Democrat, he faced rejection from the party because he didn’t truly align with them. He recognized how the political landscape operates and learned that adversaries can be hiding within. Trump has many challenges to address, far beyond our comprehension. We should adopt a success-oriented mindset, actively following our narrative while striving for unity in a state in need of cohesion.
At this moment, why don’t give credit to the democrats in Congress and Joe Biden on Woke, CRT , and DEI . That the Americas, in defeating Kamala. Another thing is Kamala Harris garble speech didn’t help.
While these trends are amazing for the future it’s about time for the GOP to continue shaming itself as a party and throw up their hands and declare defeat with victory in their grasp. The Republicans are to be feared for fighting against the people as much as the evil Democrats are.
Would our time not be better served by concentrating on assisting Netanyahu in his genocide campaign? I mean, merely sending munitions isn’t enough. We need to send troops in to help provide them with baby bayonetting skills.
Kamela is old news.