Philippa Kaur

Polling of the US election has been widely criticised following the outcome of last Tuesday’s ballot. For weeks in the run-up to polling day the polls were widely reported as saying that the result was too close to call. Not only was there little difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in terms of national vote intentions, but this was also the position in seven “swing” states where the outcome would decide who would win the electoral college vote.

As a result, we were warned it might take days for the winner to be known while the final ballots were counted in what could be razor-thin margins in those swing states.

Yet, in the event, people in Britain woke up on Wednesday morning to be told it was clear that Trump had won. Not only was he ahead in all seven swing states, including in the three where Democrat hopes were highest – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – but he also had a decisive lead in the overall national vote. The polls had it seemed once again got it all wrong.

However, now that nearly all the votes have been counted, a closer look at the performance of the polls reveals that – although on average they did somewhat underestimate Trump – the error was less than in 2020. The problem for the polls at this election was that even the smallest error in one direction or the other from the anticipated very tight contest was almost bound to create the impression they had got it “wrong”.

Consider, first of all, the national popular vote. On this the various websites that aggregate the results of countless election polls into a summary average were not entirely in agreement. Most, including Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, reckoned Harris was ahead by a point or so. Some, however, including Real Clear Politics, suggested we were heading for a near tie (they had Harris just 0.1 point ahead). The websites that calculate a poll average vary in which polls they include and whether and how they weight them, thereby creating some potential for disagreement about exactly what the polls were saying.

In any event, it now looks as though Trump was only just over two points ahead in the popular vote. His lead has gradually been falling over the past week as more ballots have been counted and, rather than a decisive success for Trump, it looks as though he secured a narrow win in a close contest. In contrast to his first electoral success in 2016, however, he did succeed in winning the popular vote this time around.

So, even if we take the view that the polls were pointing to a one point lead for Harris, the average error in the polls’ estimate of the gap between the two candidates was three points. That compares with a four-point error in 2020 – and is less than half the near seven-point error in the polls’ average overestimation of Labour’s lead over the Conservatives in the UK election earlier this year.

2024 presidential election interactive map
Source: 270 to win

Meanwhile, we should remember there were several polls that did suggest Trump was narrowly ahead. Of the 17 polls that were included in Real Clear Politics’ final calculation, five had Trump ahead, while five anticipated a tie. Only seven actually had Harris ahead. And not included in those numbers were some notably accurate polls by two companies primarily based in the UK, that is, JL Partners (which anticipated a three-point lead) and Redfield & Wilton (which had Trump two points ahead). This was not an election where every polling company got it wrong.

Swing states

But what of those polls in the swing states where Trump swept the board? This surely painted an inaccurate picture? In fact, if anything, these polls were even better than those of the national popular vote.

In two states, Georgia and North Carolina, the polls suggested on average that Trump was one point ahead. In the event, he won by two points in Georgia, and three in North Carolina, errors of just one and two points respectively. The position is similar in the three “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on which Kamala Harris’ hope of victory primarily rested. In the two midwest states the polls had Harris just one point ahead when it was actually Trump who had enjoyed a one-point lead. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania the two candidates were tied in the polls when eventually Trump won by two points. In short, in each case the error on the lead was no more than two points.

Only in Nevada and Arizona was there a slightly bigger gap between the polls and the eventual result. In Nevada the polls pointed to a tie, but Trump won by three points. In Arizona the polling averages gave Trump a lead of a little above two points, while at present with nearly all the votes counted he has a lead of just under six points – indicating an error approaching four points. Across all seven swing states the average error in the polls was just over two points. This is well below the average error of five in polls of individual states in 2020.

In short, this was no landslide victory for Trump in the swing states. In six of the seven the Republican’s winning margin was no more than three points. This meant, as the pollsters themselves acknowledged could well happen, that rather than the swing states being evenly divided between Trump and Harris, leaving the outcome potentially on a knife-edge for days, just a small error in the polls could see either candidate sweep them all. That in the event was precisely what happened.

Clearly, nobody involved in polling can afford to be complacent about the industry’s performance in this year’s presidential battle. There will be concern that for the third time in a row they have typically – though not universally – underestimated support for Trump. The trouble is, in a close election – and the polls were entirely correct in anticipating that this was going to be a close election – only the smallest of errors can create the impression that the polls have got it wrong.

The truth is that the polls are often at least a little bit out – and we should adjust our expectations of them accordingly. More

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20 2025. At that point he will become the first US president since Grover Cleveland – 130 years ago – to serve two non-consecutive terms, having lost the White House only to regain it four years later. In securing four more years in the Oval Office, Trump now has the opportunity to not just be a controversial figure, but to become a historically consequential president as well.

The eminent historian, H.W. Brands, argues that there have only been three great US presidents: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), an opinion with which scholarly opinion polls typically agree.

All three presidents had something in common: dealing with epochal issues and crises. Washington had to win the war of independence and ensure that the United States was established and on a firm footing at home and abroad. Lincoln had to win the civil war and address the nation’s original sin of slavery. FDR was faced with saving the capitalist system following the Great Depression and had to defeat fascism in the second world war.

Therefore, for most presidents, the goal is to be in a second tier of rankings among popular and scholastic memory. These are presidents who changed the direction of the country by influencing its political discourse and public policy. To do this, a president must win two terms of office.

Previous presidents, such as Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, can certainly lay claim to being considered to be consequential political leaders on these terms. Reagan reversed decades of economic and political consensus by declaring, in his first inaugural speech, that: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

As impactful as the policies of Reaganism may have been, it was his rhetoric that actually set the US political agenda for nearly 40 years.

Obama’s signature domestic reform, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) may once again be under threat of Republican repeal, and this time his old adversary John McCain is not here to save it. Obama’s promise and belief in the optimism of American progress was probably more his real legacy, but was perhaps simply masking the partisanship and divisions under the surface.

Trump 2.0

The response to Trump’s political comeback is as divisive as the man himself. His proponents welcome a political realignment to the extent that the Republican party is now the voice of blue-collar Americans in opposition to the elitism of the Democratic party.

Trump’s opponents say he will position the US on the side of authoritarians and drag the country – and the wider world – into economic turmoil if he follows through with his threat about tariffs. And the idea of a convicted felon limiting employment opportunities for his fellow Americans may also be questioned following his reelection to the highest of political offices, let alone concerns about the future of American democracy.

But there’s no arguing against the proposition that, having won a second term which means he will have utterly dominated US politics for a decade or more, that Trump is a consequential president. He has made the Republican party into the party of Trumpism. And by choosing J.D. Vance as his vice-president, he has potentially settled the question of a legacy for the Maga movement with the potential to carry on into another generation.

Unpredictable: Donald Trump’s foreign policy sometimes keeps even his allies guessing.
EPA-EFE/Anatoly Maltsev

On the international stage – and as a political disruptor – Trump will be a source of uncertainty for governments from Europe to Asia. There are those that argue his is an effective foreign policy approach. His supporters make a great deal of the fact that there were no major wars during his first administration like the ones that now imperil the world today. And to be sure, his inconsistency and the uncertainty that this brings, could be viewed as the embodiment of the “madman theory” which holds that an unpredictable leader is an effective deterrent in the era of nuclear arsenals.

But this will be little comfort for Ukraine, which may no longer be able to count on US support, or for the Nato alliance, for similar reasons.

Challenge for the Democrats

Everywhere from the corridors of power to social media sites will be speculating about the 2028 presidential race. It is here that we will see the real consequence of Trump’s election.

The Republicans will be searching for the candidate best placed to maintain Trump’s coalition. Indeed, “broad coalition” does now seem to be a fair description of the Maga movement. Democrats can no longer point to incredibly marginal Republican victories in swing states as they did in 2016. Indeed, they can no longer say that Trump has not been chosen by the majority of American voters. After being beaten in the popular vote by both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, he took the popular vote in 2024 by nearly 5 million votes over Kamala Harris.

Trump increased support for the Republicans in safe blue states such as New York. He has gained support across different demographics, including Hispanics and African-Americans

The challenge now is for the Democrats to change. They need to once again learn the language and address the issues that matter most to the American heartlands. Bill Clinton and his “New Democrats” were the consequence of the Reagan revolution, even declaring that the era of “big goverment” was over as he looked ahead to his own reelection in 1996. Obama was a generational political talent in coalition building, albeit bookended by Republican presidents able to reach beyond their traditional support, particularly with minority voters.

Trump has changed the game in US politics. He may be a highly divisive character who has both provoked and capitalised on the emotions of a deeply divided country. But it’s impossible to argue against the proposition that, in the broad sweep of US political history, the man who has become America’s 45th and 47th president won’t be remembered as a figure of major consequence. More

A key figure in Donald Trump’s election campaign and a likely figure in his incoming administration is Robert F. Kennedy Jr, or RFK Jr for short. After abandoning his own tilt at president, the prominent anti-vaxxer endorsed and campaigned for Trump, helping propel him to victory.

Kennedy promoted the banner “Make America Healthy Again” during the campaign. Now Trump has made clear Kennedy will play a significant role in health.

He has been promised a “big role” in guiding health policy, and Trump has said he would enable Kennedy to “go wild” on health, food and medicines.

So, who is Kennedy and what could his vision of a healthy America mean for public health in the US and globally?

Who is RFK Jr?

RFK Jr was born into a famous American political dynasty. He is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, who served as US attorney general under his brother John F. Kennedy, who was president. Robert F. Kennedy was then a senator before he was assassinated during his own run for the presidency in 1968.

His son, RFK Jr, was a prominent and effective environmental lawyer and activist, helping to pursue litigation against corporations, including Montsanto and DuPont.

For the past 20 years, however, he has been better known for his embrace of various conspiracy theories and as a key source of vaccine misinformation spreading on social media.

Kennedy has recently said he is “not going to take anyone’s vaccines away”. However, he continues to make false claims about COVID vaccines, and to promote false facts about vaccines and autism when there is scientific consensus there is no causal link.

What role will he have?

Although Trump has publicly committed to Kennedy having a major role, it is unclear what that will be.

Based on a video obtained by Politico, Kennedy said he was promised control of federal public health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and its sub-agencies, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health.

Such broad authority would be unprecedented. Appointments to major agencies and cabinet positions in the US government require approval by Congress. Kennedy’s lack of experience in health care or public health, and his absence of scientific training and credentials, will make such an approval uncertain. His unscientific allegations would resurface and there would be an almost certain media circus.

Even if Kennedy was in a position of authority, many changes to these federal agencies would require Congressional oversight. For instance, any changes to how drugs are approved would be challenging to implement in the short term.

This is not to underestimate the damage Kennedy could do. In the past, Trump circumvented Congressional approval for various posts by appointing “acting officials”. So even without any official post, Kennedy’s potential influence in the Trump administration is alarming.

More misinformation

It is no surprise Trump has embraced Kennedy as the “health czar” of his second presidency. They have both spread COVID misinformation and promoted unproven treatments, particularly early in the pandemic. These include promoting hydrocholoroquine (when there is strong evidence of its toxic effects to the heart).

Kennedy leverages the language of science to give a veneer of credibility. He promises to return health agencies “to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science” and to “clean up” agencies he accuses of being corrupt. He may well roll back regulatory controls that protect the health of Americans from unproven treatments.

If Kennedy is to be the health czar of the Trump presidency, his platform to recruit Americans to his anti-science agenda would be considerably enhanced. The result? The very real threat of worsening the public’s health.

Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable infections, such as measles, will rise.

Many Americans also grew up with fluoridated water and have not witnessed the impacts of widespread dental caries (tooth decay). So, Kennedy may be well placed to convince enough of the American people that fluoridated water is dangerous, and that fluoride should be an individual’s choice.

Governments and public health officials may face an uphill battle to maintain fluoride in the community water supply, rolling back one of the greatest public health achievements of the past century.

If Kennedy’s anti-science claims gain traction, his legacy will be the opposite of the banner “Make America Healthy Again”. The health of the American population will deteriorate with far-reaching impacts for decades to come.

There are global implications, too

The potential harms of elevating someone like Kennedy to positions of authority and influence will not just affect Americans.

For instance, after Kennedy and his anti-vaccine organisation visited Samoa in 2019, the deaths of two children were falsely attributed to the measles vaccination. Vaccination rates in Samoa plummeted to 31% (half the previous rate) and a subsequent measles outbreak killed 83 people.

Kennedy questioned if the deaths were related to a “defective vaccine” and denied he had any hand in spreading misinformation.

One of the outstanding achievements of the previous Trump presidency was Operation Warp Speed, which enabled the development, testing and mass production of COVID vaccines at unprecedented speed, saving many millions of lives around the world.

Should another pandemic occur over the next four years, with Kennedy in the White House, the US is unlikely to provide similar leadership.

Kennedy has been deeply critical of COVID vaccine development, including in his best-selling 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci, about the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Kennedy said COVID vaccines were not sufficiently tested and continued to advocate for disproven COVID treatments, specifically hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

In a podcast earlier this year, Fauci recalled a presentation Kennedy gave him about vaccinations. For 40 minutes Kennedy “showed slide after slide after slide that […] made no sense at all”.

Later, Fauci spoke with Kennedy saying:

Bobby, I believe you care about children and you care that you don’t want to hurt them. But you got to realise that from a scientific standpoint, what you’re saying does make no sense.

Unfortunately, in the distorted reality of a Trump administration with Kennedy at his side, truth and science may no longer matter. And the health of the world will suffer. More

Donald Trump was elected US president this week. Despite vastly outspending her opponent and drafting a galaxy of celebrities to her cause – Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, Ricky Martin, Taylor Swift – Democratic candidate Kamala Harris lost the Electoral College, the popular vote and all the swing states.

This has bewildered and dismayed liberals – and much of the mainstream media. In the aftermath, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders excoriated the Democratic Party machine.

It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.

He continued:

Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.

Harris ran a campaign straight out of the centrist political playbook. Sanders observed that the 60% of Americans who live pay cheque to pay cheque weren’t convinced by it.

Bernie Sanders has excoriated the Democratic Party for abandoning the working-class.
Bernie Sanders/AAP

She sought to dampen social divisions rather than accentuate them. She spoke of harmony, kindness and future prosperity, of middle-class aspiration rather than poverty and suffering. Her speeches often repeated rhetoric like her promise to be “laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class”.

This was unlikely to endear her to those for whom social mobility appears impossible.

Words of blood and thunder resonated

Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chair, refuted Sanders’ claims, saying:

[Joe] Biden was the most pro-worker president of my lifetime – saved union pensions, created millions of good paying jobs and even marched in a picket line.

But did those workers feel like the Democrats were speaking to them? And did they like what they heard?

Class politics needs to not only promise to redistribute wealth, but do so in a language that chimes with people’s lived experience – more effectively than Trump’s right-wing populism.

Harris’s genial, smiling optimism failed to strike a chord with voters hurting from years of inflation and declining real wages. And her use of celebrity advocates echoes writer Jeff Sparrow’s criticism of the left as “too often infatuated with the symbolic power of celebrity gestures” after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential election loss.

Kamala Harris’ ‘galaxy of celebrities’ did not help her.
Annie Mulligan/AAP

By contrast, Trump’s words of blood and thunder hit the spot – not only in his rural and outer suburban strongholds, but among those voters in rust-belt inner cities, who had voted decisively for Biden four years earlier. The greatest threat to America, he said, was from “the enemy from within”. He defined them as: “All the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country; that’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia.”

Harris’s attempt to build her campaign around social movements of gender and race failed abjectly. In particular, the appeal to women on reproductive rights, and to minority voters by preaching racial harmony resonated less than Trump’s emphasis on law and order and border control. Women voted more strongly for Harris than for Trump, but not in sufficient numbers to get her into the Oval Office. Latinos flocked to Trump despite his promises to deport undocumented immigrants.

This shows it takes more than political rhetoric to bake people into voting blocs.

Those of us who fixate on politics and the news media tend to overread the ability of public debate to set political agendas, especially during election campaigns. In fact, few voters pay much attention to politics. They rarely watch, listen to or read mainstream media and have little political content in their social media newsfeeds. Exit polls indicate Trump led with these kinds of voters.

Donald Trump’s ‘words of blood and thunder’ seem to have hit the spot with many working-class voters.
Evan Vucci/AAP

Is populism the new class?

In much of the Western world, class has receded from the political vocabulary. As manufacturing industries declined, so did the old trade unions whose base was among blue-collar workers.

In 1983, 20.1% of Americans were union members. In 2023, membership had halved to 10%. Few of those in service jobs join unions, largely because many are precariously employed.

These days, politicians in the old social democratic parties, like the Democrats in the US and Labor here in Australia, are much more likely to have come up through law and business than the union movement. In the US, ex-teacher Tim Walz was the first candidate on a Democratic Party presidential ticket without law school experience since Jimmy Carter.

Ex-teacher Tim Walz is unusual as a politician without a law or business bavkground.
Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune/AAP

The language of populism – the people versus the elites – is a smokescreen that obscures real structures of power and inequality. But it comes much more easily to the lips of Americans than that of class.

Trump’s political cunning rests in his ability to identify as one of the people, even to paint the left as the enemy of disenfranchised so-called patriots. “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” he told a Veteran’s Day rally last year.

He conjures up (an illusory) golden age of prosperity in a once-great monocultural America, where jobs were protected by tariffs and crime was low, helped by the reality of rising cost of living and falling real wages. There is plenty of room on this nostalgic landscape for Mister Moneybags, an old-fashioned tycoon, even one with the “morals of an alley cat”, as Joe Biden said in the debate that finished his 2024 candidacy.

The elite, by contrast, are faceless: politicians, bureaucrats, the “laptop class”, as Elon Musk calls knowledge workers, and the grey cardinals of the “deep state” (a conspiratorial term for the American federal bureaucracy).

According to Trump’s narrative, they conspire in the shadows to rob decent, hardworking folk of their livelihoods. This accords with a real geographical divide: people in cities with high incomes and valuable real estate, and those in the rust-belt with neither.

Trump voters speak the language of populism.
Brandon Dill/EPA

Australian populism

In Australia, the language of populism has deeper roots than that of class. Students of Australian history learn that national identity was based on distinguishing ourselves from the crusty traditions of the motherland: the belief that, as historian Russel Ward wrote, all Australians should be treated equally, that “Jack is as not only as good as his master … but probably a good deal better”.

The Australian Labor Party was there when this egalitarian myth was born. But as the gap between rich and poor grows here, as elsewhere, it has become less plausible than once it was.

It remains to be seen whether Anthony Albanese – whose life journey has taken him from social housing to waterfront mansion – is prepared to bring the sharp elbows of class politics, in both policy and language, to next year’s election campaign. The experience of Kamala Harris suggests he would be well advised to do so. More

Voters from Latino (immigrants from Latin America and their descendants) and Hispanic (people whose heritage is from Spanish-speaking countries) backgrounds contributed significantly to Donald Trump’s resounding victory over Kamala Harris in the US presidential election.

Overall, Trump increased his share of the Latino vote to 45% nationwide, up substantially from 32% in his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

About 53% of the voters in this group supported Harris, down from the estimated 60% who voted for Biden in 2020. The shift is an outstanding political feat for the Republican candidate, especially considering Trump’s uneasy and frequently antagonistic relationship with Latino and Hispanic communities.

So why did so many Latino and Hispanic voters back Trump?

Nightmares and dreams

It might seem illogical that Trump strengthened his backing among Latino and Hispanic voters, given his anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, his threat to enact mass deportations of illegal immigrants, and his frequently blatant racist remarks.

Politics, however, is not a realm of pure reason. Emotion and narrative play a role, too.

Trump’s surge among Latino and Hispanic voters can be traced back to nightmares and dreams never far from voters’ minds.

Many of these voters left the nightmare of poverty behind in their countries of origin. Their dreams are rooted in traditional (mainly masculine) stories about prosperity in the “land of the free”.

President Donald Trump, front centre, participates in a roundtable with Latino leaders.
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

‘Love’, insults and slander

Trump has boasted about how much he “loves” Latinos and Hispanics. His actions, however, mostly disprove his words.

When Trump launched his first presidential campaign in 2015, he called Mexicans “rapists” who were “bringing drugs” and “crime” into the US.

He claimed this problem was “coming from all over South and Latin America”.

He also promised to build “a great, great wall” on the US southern border, for which Mexico was meant to pay, to stop undocumented immigrants.

In the third and last 2016 presidential debate, he labelled Latino and Hispanic men, without any nuance or evidence, as “bad hombres” who constantly smuggle drugs into the US.

During his first term in office, the Trump administration then implemented policies that specifically hurt Latino and Hispanic communities.

These included a “zero tolerance” illegal immigration approach, which separated parents from their children.

In November 2023, he argued this served as an effective deterrent, foreshadowing that this policy may return if he was re-elected.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump claimed immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the US.

He again vowed to crack down on immigration, promising mass deportations of some 11 million undocumented people.

At a Trump rally a week ago, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe then likened Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage.” Trump told ABC News he had not heard the remark and stopped short of denouncing it.

The rainbow of Latino and Hispanic pluralism

Why would Latino and Hispanic voters support a candidate who so candidly has shown his contempt for them?

A recent Siena poll for the New York Times provides some clues.

Over 40% among these Latino and Hispanic voters supported both Trump’s pledge to continue building a wall along the Mexico border and his deportation plans.

About 63% said they do not “feel like he is talking about me” when Trump discusses immigration.

Many Latino and Hispanic voters do not ‘feel like he is talking about me’ when Trump discusses immigration.
EPA/ALLISON DINNER

Latino and Hispanic voters are frequently clustered as a distinct ethnic and cultural group in US political surveys.

They are contrasted, for example, against “white”, “Black” or “Asian” voters.

Latinos and Hispanics, however, are diverse in national origin, class, ethnic and gender characteristics. They are not a monolith, but rather a rainbow.

There were 62.5 million Latinos and Hispanics living in the US in 2021, about 19% of the total population.

An estimated 36.2 million were eligible to vote this year, representing 15% of potential voters.

Latinos and Hispanics also make up a large share of voters in swing states such as Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Their wide variety of backgrounds, however, underscores why grouping them as a uniform bloc is flawed.

In 2021, the five largest populations in the US by national origin were:

Mexicans (37.2 million)
Puerto Ricans (5.8 million)
Salvadorans (2.5 million)
Dominicans (2.4 million)
Cubans (2.4 million).

The experience of immigration and life in the US is different for each of these groups. Their response to the political campaigns would also be different.

The myth of ‘Comrade Kamala’

It’s too early to say for sure what drove voter patterns in each community. But we can venture a few hypotheses.

Trump, for example, falsely portrayed Harris as a committed communist, such as in this post on X (which garnered over 81 million views):

For Latino immigrants coming from countries under authoritarian regimes, such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, this messaging recalls memories of the situation they fled.

“I will deliver the best future for Puerto Ricans and Hispanic Americans. Kamala will deliver you poverty and crime,” Trump told his supporters at a recent rally.

Playing on the fears of a “communist” system under Harris was likely a successful strategy. The leftist regimes in many Latinos’ countries of origin are seen as a threat to their economic security.

Kamala, ‘evil woman’

Gender also played a major role in Trump’s victory. Trump appealed to young men, who fear women’s gains in equality. Latino and Hispanic men were no exception.

A viral campaign video showed Trump dancing to the famous salsa theme “Juliana”. The lyrics were modified though, simply describing Harris as “mala” (evil).

A September NBC poll showed a vast gender gap between Trump and Harris voters. While women backed the Democrats 58% to 37%, men supported Republicans 52% to 40%.

This played out specifically among Latinos in the election, too. According to exit polls by the Associated Press, 47% of Latino men supported Trump in the election, compared to 38% of Latino women.

Trump tapped into ideals of masculinity and hierarchy that, while not exclusive to Latino and Hispanic men, uphold the promise of a return to traditional gender models.

Many men are angry about losing their former privileges. They expressed their nostalgia for stereotypical male traits (and corresponding female submission) in the polls. More

As the nation prepares for a second Donald Trump presidency, some history-minded people may seek understanding in the idea that it wasn’t until Richard Nixon’s second presidential term that the serious consequences arrived.

But as a scholar of American politics, I don’t think that’s the right parallel.

Trump has already faced most of the situations that brought down Nixon – a congressional investigation and federal prosecutors’ inquiries.

Trump has survived by – consciously or not – following the example of another American president who created a political party in his own image and used it to rule almost unchecked: Andrew Jackson, whose portrait Trump hung in the Oval Office during his first term.

Unlike Nixon, Trump outlasted investigations

Richard Nixon was reelected by an Electoral College landslide in 1972 in the midst of the Watergate scandal, in which people affiliated with Nixon’s reelection campaign broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and then sought to cover up their actions. Although Nixon started off his second term with sky-high approval, his demise soon followed.

A Senate special committee investigating the Watergate break-in was established just 18 days after his inauguration in January 1973. By the summer of 1974, evidence of Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate crimes had become overwhelming. In an Aug. 7, 1974, visit to the White House, Republican congressional leaders asked the president to step down. He announced his decision to resign the following day, Aug. 8, 1974.

Trump, however, has already weathered numerous legal battles, investigations and controversies. From the Jan. 6 committee to special prosecutor Jack Smith’s probes and the Mar-a-Lago documents case, Trump’s political career has been marked by repeated confrontations with legal and political institutions – including two impeachments by the House, though both were rejected by the Senate.

The House Jan. 6 committee announced four recommended charges against Donald Trump, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

After the Republican Party’s loss in 2020 and an underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms, many within the GOP urged Trump to step aside to allow for a new generation of leaders. But Trump held firm.

Investigations stalled or were delayed, giving him breathing room through to the 2024 election. Now, with his his return to the White House, Trump will almost certainly end the federal investigations, and there’s little sign that state cases will press forward soon.

In recent years, historical revisionism – popularized by Tucker Carlson – has taken place within segments of the Republican Party. Under this view, Nixon wasn’t ousted for his involvement in Watergate but rather was the victim of a system aligned against him. But where Nixon stepped aside, Trump has fought back.

Like Jackson, Trump reshaped his party

In many ways, though, Trump more closely resembles Jackson than the scandal-plagued Nixon.

Following his narrow defeat in the controversial 1824 election, Jackson, much like Trump would two centuries later, claimed the election had been stolen.

Jackson seized on his supporters’ frustrations, reorganizing the Democratic-Republican Party, which ultimately rebranded itself as the Democratic Party, in his own image. His followers championed his cause, creating state and local Democratic parties and building a powerful grassroots movement.

As a result, the Democratic Party democratized its nomination process, moving from elite-driven congressional caucuses that chose candidates behind closed doors to well-attended party conventions. This shift allowed voters to participate directly in the candidate selection process.

The new Jacksonian Democratic Party not only aligned with his views but also introduced a wave of increased political participation. Through what became known as the “spoils system,” Jackson rewarded loyalists by appointing them to government positions, ensuring that his allies held key roles in federal and state institutions. This approach allowed Jackson to implement his agenda more effectively, while also mobilizing his supporters at all levels of government, integrating them into the workings of American politics in unprecedented numbers.

When he won election in 1828, Jackson’s efforts created a political landscape that gave him broad power, including actions that bypassed institutional checks.

For instance, Jackson’s forced removal and relocation of Native American communities from their ancestral lands – the “Trail of Tears” – illustrated the dangers inherent when a president holds extensive unilateral power.

Jackson disregarded judicial decisions and public outcry, acting with executive authority that appeared unconstrained. An 1832 Supreme Court ruling – Worcester v. Georgia – established tribal sovereignty, yet Jackson refused to enforce the ruling and the displacement of the Cherokee people continued.

His restructured party and control over appointments allowed him to act with what seemed near-total impunity. Jackson demonstrated his power by vetoing the renewal of the charter for the Second Bank of the United States, then unilaterally directing the removal of federal deposits despite congressional support for the bank.

A short film made by the Cherokee Nation with the National Park Service tells the tale of the Trail of Tears.

Likewise, Trump has reshaped the Republican Party. His influence has been evident in Republican primary contests, where candidates aligned with Trump’s vision succeeded, and opponents – the so-called “Never Trumpers” and “RINOs” – found themselves pushed to the margins.

This transformation has not been confined to rhetoric but is visible in the composition of state legislatures and in Congress, solidifying a pro-Trump ideology that extends to party policies and priorities. This shift gives Trump a firm foundation from which he can pursue his agenda.

Furthermore, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has, in effect, become a guardian of the political revolution Trump has spearheaded, granting the executive substantial powers and legal protection.

What to look for next

But there are limits to what Trump can achieve, even with his strengthened position.

Unlike in Jackson’s era, today’s federal bureaucracy is a vast, entrenched institution, with checks in place that may challenge or obstruct executive overreach. Some of Trump’s promises – particularly around immigration policy, social welfare reform and trade – are likely to encounter resistance, not only from Democratic opposition but also from civil servants and legal processes embedded within federal agencies.

However, Trump has said he wants to substantially remake that federal bureaucracy, replacing experienced career public servants with political appointees aligned with Trump himself.

Donald Trump’s return to office likely signals an end to at least some of the yearslong investigations into his past actions and ensures his hold over the Republican Party remains intact. With a loyal base of voters and supportive institutions, Trump is positioned to further reshape the American political system. More

Like many women, I’m having a horrible flashback. It’s 6 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2016 — the day after the United States presidential election that pitted Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. I went to bed assuming Clinton had won.

I remember thinking to myself on the night of that election that there was nothing to be worried about. Americans would do the right thing and vote for the most qualified person, not the reality TV star. I came into the dining room where my partner was sitting reading the news and looked at him hopefully when he told me, still in shock: “Trump won.”

Read more:
The real reason Trump won: White fright

I was wrong eight years ago and I was wrong today about Vice President Kamala Harris’s chances of beating Trump.

I hoped the polls were wrong and the race was not as close as it appeared to be in the swing states. I believed women would come out in droves to protect their reproductive rights. I hoped and assumed that white women, in particular, would turn out for Harris en masse. That was a false hope.

Trump has been declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election after handily winning several swing states. He’s also on track to win the popular vote, something he failed to do in ’16. In fact, he has done better with almost all demographics in 2024 than he did in 2020.

Voters cast their ballots in Indianapolis on Nov. 5, 2024 in the heavily Republican state of Indiana.
(AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Tight race

It was a hard-fought battle and, according to the polls, neck and neck right up until the final days of the campaign.

In hindsight, several questions have been answered that were not so clear just a day ago. Will America vote for a Black woman? No. Will Harris be able to do what Clinton couldn’t do eight years ago? No. Will she break the Oval Office glass ceiling? No.

The fact that these questions were still in play in 2024, as Harris waged a disciplined campaign against an opponent as flawed and felonious as Trump, seems revelatory about the misogyny and racism that bedevils America.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Nov. 4, 2024, in Philadelphia.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Gender played an outsized role in the election for several reasons. The overturning of Roe v Wade in June 2022 galvanized women across the U.S., especially when the deaths of several women after being refused pregnancy or miscarriage-related health care illustrated the consequences of these extreme anti-choice positions.

Concerns about women’s reproductive rights and Trump’s casual dismissal of sexualized violence seemingly gave women, young and old, a cause to embrace.

A survey in Iowa conducted by vaunted pollster Ann Selzer showed women 65 and older were voting for Harris by a two to one margin, though Trump ended up winning the state.

TikTok videos showing Trump’s infamous “grab them by the pussy” comments went viral among young TikTokers who weren’t old enough to remember when the remarks originally surfaced in 2016. They spoke of their astonishment that their fathers and anyone with daughters, sisters or mothers could vote for such a person.

But it was not enough, even though exit polls suggested a majority of women cast their ballots for Harris. Women apparently preferred Harris, but not by the margins her campaign had hoped.

Trump’s allure to men

On the other side of the gender equation are men. Trump’s appeal to young men increased as their apparent fears of being overtaken by women’s gains in equality were exploited.

This is a disturbing trend. According to a September NBC poll, women backed the Democrats 58 per cent to 37 per cent, while men supported Republicans 52 per cent to 40 per cent. Research has shown that young women have become more liberal while young men have become more conservative, perhaps because they are angry at falling behind and losing their former advantages.

The candidates themselves recognized the differences in support with their choices of podcasts and media appearances. Trump spent three hours with Joe Rogan — who subsequently endorsed him — for his podcast that skews heavily towards young men while Harris went on Call Her Daddy, a podcast directed at women under 35.

In the end, the U.S. voted for what is called “hegemonic masculinity,” a cultural valorization of stereotypical male traits, and Trump’s endless and regressive belittling of women and “feminine” men won the day.

Donald Trump waves to the crowd after speaking at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Nov. 5, 2024.
(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

The impact of white women

Another key factor in the campaign was race.

Exit polls suggested white women without college educations overwhelmingly voted for Trump, while white college-educated women cast their ballots for Harris.

Prior to the election, most white women said they backed the Republican Party, but suggestions their support for Trump was wavering now seem unfounded. Exit polls suggest Harris didn’t perform as well with women voters as Joe Biden did in 2020.

We don’t have the final numbers yet in terms of how white women in swing states ultimately cast their ballots, but they probably weren’t good. Democrats ran videos, one narrated by actress Julia Roberts, pointing out the obvious constitutional guarantee that women have the right to vote any way they wanted to — and that what happens in the ballot box should stay in the ballot box.

The backlash against these ads was illuminating, suggesting there are still many men who think their wives should vote the way their husbands do and that it’s a betrayal if they don’t — and perhaps Trump’s win suggests their wives agreed.

The loss of reproductive freedom was evidently not enough for white women to go against their race, their class interests — or possibly their husbands.

Black, Latino men

The other racial factor in the campaign was the perception of the dwindling support for Harris from Black and Latino men. Trump also increased his share of the Latino vote.

And according to a New York Times poll, while Obama was supported by 93 per cent of Black Americans in 2008 and Biden was supported by 90 per cent in 2020, support had fallen to 73 per cent for Harris in 2024.

Is this the result of sexism or internalized misogyny? Could Black men not bring themselves to vote for a Black woman?

Barack Obama’s plea to Black men certainly seems to suggest a problem with sexism within that cohort of voters.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama speaks at a campaign rally in support of Kamala Harris on Oct. 28, 2024, in Philadelphia.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

After the 2016 election, the American Psychological Association coined the anxiety around the election results as election stress disorder.

That stress has returned as the world now watches what will happen as Trump, with no guardrails, no checks and balances in place and billionaires by his side, attempts to remake America in his own authoritarian image. More

Trying to predict what Donald Trump will do during a second term in office is a fool’s errand.

It is all the more challenging considering Trump has prioritised winning re-election far more than discussing a detailed policy agenda. In many ways, Kamala Harris had the same strategy of maintaining an ambiguous policy agenda, though to obviously lesser success.

With that said, Trump comes back to the White House after not only four years of a prior tenure in the Oval Office, but also an additional four years since leaving office. These many years in the public eye may not tell us exactly what he will do, but they do give us an indication of his priorities.

Trump’s ambiguous policy agenda

Many point to Trump’s policy agenda as lacking both consistency and coherence.

On one hand, he has touted his Supreme Court nominees for overturning Roe v Wade. On the other, he shied away from talking about abortion on the campaign trail and encouraged fellow Republicans not to legislate conservative restrictions.

On one hand, many of his top advisors from his first term in office wrote the exceedingly conservative and controversial Project 2025 manifesto. On the other, he has distanced himself from it and the people who wrote it, saying he had never even read the document.

And on one hand, Elon Musk, one of Trump’s biggest supporters and financial backers, has claimed he could cut the size of government, government spending and even a number of federal agencies. On the other hand, most economists have said the Trump campaign’s economic agenda would dramatically expand the federal deficit more than Harris’ proposed policies.

It should be noted, however, there definitely is one area where Trump has never wavered: trade.

Trump has maintained a protectionist stance for many decades, so we can expect
consistency here. However, it remains unclear how much his Republican colleagues from rural parts of America will support such protectionist policies.

The agenda for a ‘dictator on day one’

The most well-known – and probably the most infamous – of Trump’s promises for his return to the White House was his statement about being a dictator “only on day one”.

This quote became a well-known part of the Biden and Harris campaigns’ stump speeches against Trump. It’s perhaps less well-known what exactly he would do.

He initially pledged to immediately close the border with Mexico and expand drilling for fossil fuels. On the campaign trail, he broadened his first-day priorities to also include:

firing Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has charged Trump in two federal cases

pardoning some of the rioters imprisoned after the January 6 2021 riots

beginning mass deportations for the estimated 11 million people living in the United States without legal immigration status
and ending what he has called “Green New Deal atrocities” within President Joe Biden’s framework for tackling climate change.

Trump also, in a surprise to immigration activists, said he would also “automatically” give non-citizens in the country permanent residency when they graduate from college.

What about his Cabinet?

The old adage that “personnel is policy” applies to Republican and Democratic administrations alike.

When Biden appointed Kurt Campbell to lead the White House’s Indo-Pacific efforts on the National Security Council, the move made clear that an “allies and partners” approach would define his administration’s policy in Asia.

And when Trump appointed Mike Pence to be his running mate in 2016, it made clear to traditional Republicans that Trump would have a “Republican insider” in an influential position in his administration.

Trump has made clear that Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will play sizeable roles in his administration, but it remains unclear exactly what they will do.

Musk has promised to cut government regulation and red tape and Kennedy has pledged to “Make America Healthy Again”. On a practical level, however, it’s still too early to tell what type of role the two celebrities will have – particularly given Trump cabinet appointees will require Senate confirmation.

Trump and Kennedy have grown closer in recent months.
Evan Vucci/AP

While the Republicans are going to control the Senate again, this doesn’t guarantee it will support his appointees. A slim Republican majority in the Senate in 2017 did not support all of Trump’s agenda.

The high staff turnover that defined Trump’s first term of office may once again define his second term. There was also sometimes little coherence between his appointments. For example, Trump national security advisors Michael Flynn and John Bolton had little in common beyond a shared antagonism for the Obama administration’s policies.

At the same time, deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger ultimately stayed for nearly the entirety of the Trump administration. He not only led much of Trump’s strategic policies toward Asia, but also defined the term “strategic competition”, which will likely outlast both the Biden and Trump administrations.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Ultimately, if Trump’s second term in office is anything like his first term, then the prognostication about his policy agenda and personnel appointments will continue for some time.

It’s therefore less valuable to guess what Trump will do than to focus on the long-term structural trends that would have continued regardless of who is in the White House.

After all, the Biden administration maintained or sought to expand man of the Trump administration’s efforts abroad, including his “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” policy, tariffs, and the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between Israel and several Arab states.

At home, the Biden administration built on Trump policies that included government support for domestic manufacturing, expansion of the Child Tax Credit and increasing restrictions on large technology firms.

And furthermore, even a Harris administration would have been unlikely to view China as a fair economic partner, deploy US troops to the Middle East, or oppose NATO allies increasing their defence spending.

Trump will undoubtedly remain unpredictable and unconventional, but it would be a mistake to think there are not clear areas of continuity that began before Trump and will continue long after him. More