(LOOTPRESS) – A sweeping new analysis of the 2024 presidential election reveals that Donald Trump’s return to the White House was powered more by rallying his existing base than flipping voters across party lines — all while assembling the most racially and generationally diverse coalition in Republican history.
The report, released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, draws on verified voter data to paint a clearer picture of what happened last November. It confirms a trend long suspected: President Kamala Harris lost ground among key demographic groups, and more of Joe Biden’s 2020 supporters stayed home compared to those who backed Trump.
Key Numbers Behind the Outcome
According to the study, 85% of Trump’s 2020 voters turned out again in 2024, while only 79% of Biden’s 2020 base voted for Harris. Meanwhile, 15% of Biden’s past voters didn’t show up at all, compared to a much smaller drop-off among Trump supporters.
Only 5% of Biden voters defected to Trump, and 3% of Trump voters moved to Harris — a marginal shift that underscores how turnout, not persuasion, was the deciding factor.
A More Diverse GOP Coalition
Trump’s 2024 campaign not only brought back loyal supporters — it expanded the Republican base in ways that reshaped the party’s demographics:
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Hispanic voters, long considered a stronghold for Democrats, broke nearly even between Harris and Trump.
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Hispanic men, who favored Biden in 2020, flipped in Trump’s favor.
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Black voter support for Trump nearly doubled, rising from 8% in 2020 to 15% in 2024.
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Asian American support for the Democratic ticket dropped sharply; Harris won just 57%, compared to Biden’s 70% four years earlier.
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Among naturalized U.S. citizens, the traditional Democratic edge vanished entirely.
As a result, nearly 1 in 5 Trump voters in 2024 was nonwhite, a significant jump from 12% in 2016. The percentage of Trump’s coalition that was white fell from 88% in 2016 to 78% last year.
Young and Nontraditional Voters
The report also sheds light on another notable shift: young voters didn’t turn out for Democrats in the numbers they did in past elections. While Trump didn’t necessarily win over huge numbers of Gen Z or millennial voters, more of his supporters in these groups voted — and more of Harris’s stayed home.
Among millennials, Trump even managed to narrowly win — a dramatic swing from the 13-point Democratic edge that group gave Biden in 2020.
Trump’s campaign specifically targeted men under 50 through podcasts and digital platforms, and the strategy appears to have paid off. Pew found that a group Biden won by 10 points in 2020 tilted toward Trump in 2024.
Meanwhile, Trump continued to dominate among noncollege-educated voters, rural communities, and religious voters — key parts of his base that turned out strongly.
A Reality Check for Democrats
The Pew report reveals a painful contradiction for Democrats. While Harris lost partly due to low turnout among Democratic-leaning groups, Pew’s data suggests that even if turnout had been higher, Trump still would have won — thanks to the breadth and loyalty of his base.
That finding challenges the long-held belief among Democratic strategists that simply getting more voters to the polls would deliver victory. In 2024, Republicans not only turned out — they turned a corner demographically.
