How did Trump win? He improved his standing with Asian, Black, Latino, youth, independent and women voters
President-elect Donald Trump’s recipe for victory in Tuesday’s election was built on his ability to improve his support from 2020 with several different demographic groups, exit polls show.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the most notable findings.
Popular vote
Trump is currently on track to win both the Electoral College and the popular vote, meaning he will become the first Republican to do so in 20 years.
Independent voters
For the first time in U.S. history, more independents voted than Democrats in a presidential election, Reuters reported. While 34% of the electorate was made up of independent voters, according to an exit poll conducted by Edison, just 32% of the vote came from Democrats while 34% were Republicans.
While Harris beat Trump with independents by a margin of 50%-45%, he gained 4% among independents from his performance in 2020.
Latino voters
Trump saw a significant rise in 2024 in his support from Latino voters, according to a CNN exit poll. While Harris won Latinos by 8 points this year, in 2020 Biden won that group by 33 points.
An NBC News exit poll offered a similar finding — that Trump had improved his standing among Latino voters by 13 points in 2024.
Black voters
Though an exit poll conducted by the Associated Press found that Harris had won 80% of the vote of Black voters, that figure is 10 points less than the 90% of Black voters who supported Biden in 2020.
Younger voters
Support for the Democratic ticket among voters between the age of 18-29 dropped from 60% in 2020 to 55% in 2024, an exit poll conducted by CBS News found.
CNN’s exit poll found that the Democrats’ advantage with voters 18-29 years of age fell from +24 points in 2020 to an 11-point advantage in 2024.
Women voters
Trump managed to whittle away at a 23-point gender gap in 2020, in which women supported Biden by a margin of 57%-42% and men favored Trump by 53%-45%, to a 22-point gap in 2024. This year, women voted for Harris by a margin of 54%-44% while men supported Trump 54%-44%, according to an NBC News exit poll.
Asian voters
While Trump lost the Asian American vote to Harris by a margin of 56%-38%, he improved his share of that demographic by 4% from his 61%-34% loss to Biden in 2020, according to an exit poll from NBC News.
Rural voters
While Harris maintained a healthy 21-point advantage among urban voters, Trump doubled his 15-point margin in 2020 among rural voters to a whopping 30-point advantage in 2024, CNN reported.