US election: How big a win was this for Donald Trump?
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. It was a historic realignment. Uniting citizens of all backgrounds around a common core of common sense.”
Never knowingly understated, those were some of the words of Donald Trump as he proclaimed victory early on Wednesday morning.
Unlike some of his claims following the 2020 election, much of the statement above is supported by data.
President-elect Trump increased his vote share in 90% of US counties, compared with 2020, and became just the second Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote.
He also increased his vote significantly among many demographic groups which had been least likely to back him in the past.
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There’s still counting to do, not least in battleground Arizona, but now the result is clear, where does his victory rank in history, and how much of a mandate does he really have from the American people?
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How big was the win?
Kamala Harris would have won if she had persuaded 123,750 people in the right proportions in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan to vote for her instead of Trump.
That sounds like a big number, but it’s less than 0.1% of the 140 million-plus people that cast votes in the election, and less than 1% of the voters in those three key states.
Presidential elections often tend to be even closer than this, however. Trump’s win this year is the clearest one this century that wasn’t achieved by president Barack Obama.
How big were the gains?
Trump made improvements almost everywhere, but he may still end up on fewer total votes than he won last time.
Despite the warnings of what was at stake at this election, it looks like the final number of people to cast a ballot will be lower than in 2020.
The Democrat vote is down around 10 million, while Trump’s vote appears relatively similar to last time, despite a growing population.
In terms of share of the vote, however, he increased his in more counties than any other candidate since at least 2004, and he recorded the highest Republican vote share this century in more than two-thirds of counties across America.
Most of those improvements weren’t by much, however. Just 120 out of the 2,800 counties recorded an improvement of more than five points – the lowest number by a winning president this century other than Joe Biden.
That’s reflected if you look at the number of counties he flipped from being majority Democrat to majority Republican – 95 counties so far. That number was also the lowest this century, other than that achieved by Biden and less than half of what Trump flipped in 2016, perhaps a sign of the recent partisanship in US politics.
What about the type of people backing him?
This tells a similar story.
President-elect Trump gained ground among most voter groups. The biggest increase in support was among Latinos (up from around a third to just under half) and younger voters (up from around a third to two-fifths) who were key to securing his win.
A smaller increase of eight points was enough for him to win majority support among people earning less than $50,000, who had backed every Democrat since Bill Clinton. And crucially, he narrowly took back the suburbs, where American elections are so often won or lost.
Those marginal gains across different groups helped Trump to win the key battlegrounds and go some way to broadening his coalition of voters, making it more representative of the average American.
The youngest voters, oldest voters, lowest-earning voters and Latinos all voted significantly closer to the US average than they have done in other recent elections. So, while they might not necessarily be “for” the president-elect as a whole, they were willing to vote for him.
While black voters and voters who didn’t go to college also moved further towards Trump, these two groups still differ significantly from the average in this election. There also remains a clear education divide with college-educated people much more likely to vote Democrat.
The Democratic decline
While much of the story so far is about a small but united shift in support, there were also some really historic and surprising results, particularly in the big cities.
In New York, Chicago, Detroit and Las Vegas, Trump earned a higher vote share than any other Republican since George HW Bush in 1988.
He still lost overall in the counties that include those cities, but once more it was a story of progress, whether it was down to who turned out or increased support.
But there were previous Democratic strongholds that did turn Republican, including parts of Florida like the formerly true-blue Miami-Dade, which has the second-largest Latino voting age population in America and backed Hillary Clinton by a margin of almost 2:1 in 2016.
Its one million-plus voters backed a Republican for the first time since 1988, and president-elect Trump got the highest Republican vote share there since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide.
He also returned Pinellas to the Republican column and made significant gains in other big population centres like Broward and Palm Beach Counties.
The turnaround of US politics since Trump shook it all up in 2016 means there are now only two counties, out of more than 3,000, that have voted for the winning candidate at every election since 2000.
Those are Blaine County, Montana, an agricultural area up on the Canadian border, and Essex County, a mountainous part of upstate New York, bordering Vermont.
Essex-man was a key part of some of Tony Blair’s big electoral wins at the turn of the millennium. Perhaps a different Essex-man rises again, this time to define America, as it moves towards the next period of its history.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
US
Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem
Stock markets around the world fell on Thursday after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs – with some economists now fearing a recession.
The US president announced tariffs for almost every country – including 10% rates on imports from the UK – on Wednesday evening, sending financial markets reeling.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
Trump tariffs latest: US stock markets tumble
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
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Tariffs about something more than economics: power
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Tanking stock markets, collapsing world orders, devastating trade wars; economists with their hair ablaze are scrambling to keep up.
But as we try to make sense of Donald Trumps’s tariff tsunami, economic theory only goes so far. In the end this surely is about something more primal.
Power.
Understanding that may be crucial to how the world responds.
Yes, economics helps explain the impact. The world’s economy has after all shifted on its axis, the way it’s been run for decades turned on its head.
Instead of driving world trade, America is creating a trade war. We will all feel the impact.
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PM will ‘fight’ for deal with US
Donald Trump says he is settling scores, righting wrongs. America has been raped, looted and pillaged by the world trading system.
But don’t be distracted by the hyperbole – and if you think this is about economics alone, you may be missing the point.
Above all, tariffs give Donald Trump power. They strike fear into allies and enemies, from governments to corporations.
This is a president who runs his presidency like a medieval emperor or mafia don.
It is one reason why since his election we have seen what one statesman called a conga line of sycophants make their way to the White House, from world leaders to titans of industry.
The conga line will grow longer as they now redouble their efforts hoping to special treatment from Trump’s tariffs. Sir Keir Starmer among them.
President Trump’s using similar tactics at home, deploying presidential power to extract concessions and deter dissent in corporate America, academia and the US media. Those who offer favours are spared punishment.
His critics say he seeks a form power for the executive or presidential branch of government that the founding fathers deliberately sought to prevent.
Whether or not that is true, the same playbook of divide and rule through intimidation can now be applied internationally. Thanks to tariffs
Each country will seek exceptions but on Trump’s terms. Those who retaliate may meet escalation.
This is the unforgiving calculus for governments including our own plotting their next moves.
The temptation will be to give Trump whatever he wants to spare their economies, but there is a jeopardy that compounds the longer this goes on.
Read more:
Do Trump’s numbers on tariffs really add up?
Trump hits island home only to penguins with 10% tariffs
Could America’s traditional allies turn to China? Pic: AP
Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who coined the conga line comparison, put it this way: “Pretty much all the international leaders I have seen that have sucked up to Trump have been run over. The reality is if you suck up to bullies, whether it’s global affairs or in the playground, you just get more bullying.”
Trading partners may be able to mitigate the impact of these tariffs through negotiation, but that may only encourage this unorthodox president to demand ever more?
Ultimately the world will need a more reliable superpower than that.
In the hands of such a president, America cannot be counted on.
When it comes to security, stability and prosperity, allies will need to fend for themselves.
And they will need new friends. If Washington can’t be relied on, Beijing beckons.
America First will, more and more, mean America on its own.
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