Five reasons why Donald Trump won the US election

Opinion: For many ordinary people outside the US, it seems bizarre that Donald Trump was even a candidate, let alone the clear winner. Unlike his election in 2016, this time he won a majority of the popular vote as well as the required number of electoral college votes needed to win the presidency. It also looks increasingly likely the Republicans will also have clear majorities in both houses of congress.
Yet, for many observers – both ordinary citizens and seasoned political commentators – none of this makes much sense. He has been impeached twice, is a convicted felon, incited a riot after losing in 2020, and has been found liable for sexual abuse. There are still many other legal cases pending against him as well as multiple accusations of sexual abuse.
His overt racism, misogyny, dishonesty, rambling narcissism and naked self-interest are there for all to see. Polls across Australasia and Europe show that Trump would have no chance if non-US citizens could vote. Even centre-right party supporters everywhere supported Harris by clear majorities.
For professional campaigners and political communication academics, Trump’s success, in 2016 and 2024, also appears to go against decades of received wisdom. In first-past-the-post systems like the US, campaign leaders tend to do the opposite of the Trump campaign. The aim is to focus on undecided voters and swing states, reaching out with middle-ground policies; avoid alienating particular demographic groups or making controversial policy statements; nurture the mass, legacy media; and raise billions to spend on mass advertising campaigns.
Harris did all these things much better than Trump as well as raising a lot more money. In the past, Trump throwing out the tried and tested playbook (or much of it) would have led to certain defeat. Trump’s campaign approach seems irrational. Here are five reasons that explain why many elements of his campaign were anything but.
First, winning elections is not simply about getting a majority of voters behind you. It’s also about getting those voters out to the ballot boxes. US elections have notoriously low turnouts, often sitting in the 5-60 percent range. So, galvanising your base can be just as important. In that respect, it’s something Trump has done extremely well.
His extreme and crude rhetoric, about women, immigrants, liberals, the media and others, fired up his core supporters in a way that Harris rarely did. In 2016, key Democratic-supporting groups who had supported Obama, failed to come out in the same numbers for Clinton. It’s likely something similar happened with Harris. Her association with an unpopular Biden regime, especially on certain aspects of economic and Middle Eastern policy, demotivated many.
Second, the US has become one of the most polarised democracies in recent decades. Until the early 2000s, mainstream Democrats and Republicans shared many policy positions. But over 20 years, the differences have become stark; on the environment, abortion rights, immigration, gun control and many other things. Such is the split that, in the last three elections, US citizens have felt a real sense of antagonism towards the other side. In 2020, 90 percent of Biden and 89 percent of Trump voters said there would be “lasting damage” if the other side won. There was a similar sense in 2024.
Under such circumstances, it no longer seems to matter who is leading your side or what depths they stoop too. Many of Trump’s supporters (including Republican politicians) are well aware of his objectionable personality traits but support him anyway. The other side is seen as a more existential threat to them.
Third is Trump’s seeming authenticity. However outrageous he may appear, he is generally consistent in his broad statements. There may not be a lot of policy detail, but voters know what he stands for. Harris, like many professional Washington insiders following the campaign playbook, remained vague on the core issues that underlay voter concerns. A recent Pew survey showed that 69 percent of voters felt that Trump “stands up for what he believes in”, nine percentage points more than Harris. In a world where trust in politicians and governments is extremely low, an ‘authentic’ candidate can be quite appealing.
Fourth, if Trump has one genius quality, it’s getting the media to follow him. In all three elections he has participated in, he has had significantly less to spend on advertising. However, he tends to make up for this by drawing journalists (and news watchers) like moths to a flame. In 2020, he gained three times as much news coverage as Biden. He knows that the more outrageous and extreme his statements, the more coverage he will get. He effectively drowned out Harris in 2024. This was crucial at a time when many undecideds were trying to get an impression of who Harris was.
Yes, much of Trump’s press in the mainstream media was negative. But that doesn’t matter that much when media trust is at similarly low levels to that of trust in politicians, and when Trump and his supporters never missed a chance to condemn traditional journalism.
Last, Trump has a far greater appeal to a chunk of what was once a core Democrat supporter base: that of the rural working classes (not just white and male), most especially those who have felt themselves forsaken by decades of economic policy. Globalisation, deindustrialisation and the tech revolution may have done well for the professional middle-classes on the US coasts but not for them.
Trump, ‘the blue-collar billionaire’, with his America First promises, appealed to them in a way that well-off Democrats couldn’t. The pop icons, Hollywood stars, journalists, academics and others who came out loudly for Harris, only served to remind them how far-removed Washington Democrats have become from those on minimum wage.
The US political and electoral landscape has changed tremendously in recent years. Trump, for all his failings, has adapted better to that landscape than any other politician in America. There was always a lot more method in the electoral campaign madness.