Trump's three elections exit polls
Trends that should worry team D
There are more than enough postmortem articles about the presidential election, but what I’m finding is that when looking at exit polls, people are only comparing the 2024 and 2020 elections. It makes more sense to look at all three presidential elections where Trump was on the ballot. In doing so, we can see some clear trends and instances where the changes are more noise or sampling variation. The data is all from CNN exit polling, and I’ve chosen a selection of demographic comparisons that seem relevant or interesting. Let’s go to the data and let me know what I missed or got wrong in the comments.
Race
Figure 1 is more than a little surprising. The White population has been essential stable in their support of Trump over three elections. I wouldn’t say their support went down from 2020, as this seems more like noise.
On the other hand, Trump support from all other categories, the non-White groups, went up over all three elections. There were bigger jumps this time around for Latino and Other, but we still had increases from 2016 to 2020. We might consider the Black increase from 12% to 13% from 2020 to 2024 as noise, but given the increases in the other groups, I’m not sure I would dismiss this. This is a big issue for Team D.
There has been this narrative that as we become a minority majority nation (which itself is misleading, as I wrote about in The race ethnicity confusion on 9/24/2024), team D will easily win elections. Well, it turns out that their support amongst minorities has decreased for three elections against a candidate they deem racist. Team D has some soul-searching to do.
The exit polls break Figure 1 down by gender, except for Asians, as I assume the sample size was too small, which is shown in Figure 2. We see three years of increases for Black men, Latino men, and Latino women. Black women went down from 2020 to 2024 but are still up over 2016. Similar for White women in that they are down 2 points over 2020 while still up from 2016. More noise than anything, meaning support for Trump from White women overall is still a majority. White men are the only group we have going down for three elections, but only by 1 point each election, and this may also be more noise than anything.
Income
Votes for Trump by income are a little messier but no less interesting. The $30k to $49.9k group increased over all three elections, and under $30k went up from 2016 to 2020 but then held steady.
What is interesting is the opposite trend for the $50k-$99.9k and $100k-$199.9k groups. The first went back up in 2024, higher than in 2016, while the second group went down in 2024 to below 2016.
The $30k group and the $50k group were big losses for team D that again they are going to have to deal with. Meanwhile, there was little change in the $200k+ group.
Age
There were some surprises by age in Figure 3. Seeing the 18-24 group go down from 2016 to 2024, one might have anticipated in going down more, yet there were large gains for Trump in this group for 2024 Trump held steady or improved in all age groups from 2020 to 2024, except for the 65+ crowd. There was some up and down, or really down and up, in the 40-49 group while ending up ahead in 2024 as compared to 2016.
Marriage
Despite the single-cat lady rhetoric, Trump gained in the unmarried women group over all elections, as seen in Figure 5. Unmarried men also increased for three elections in a row. Married women went up from 2016 to 2020 and then held steady. Married men went down, then up, ending up higher in 2024, then in 2016. Still, unmarried women are the one group here that kept Kamala afloat. They are an outlier group in Figure 5, even though then went up, and this is worth keeping track of as a cultural issue.
Education
There was a large jump for Trump in the No College group and increases over all three elections. Not really a surprise. I do wonder how much the student loan forgiveness idea from Biden caused part of this move.
The Some College group returned to 2016 levels. There wasn’t data for the Associate’s degree group for 2016. I guess CNN didn’t think they were important in 2016. Still a nice increase for Trump. In the end, only one group went down from 2020 to 2024, the Bachelor's Degree group, but was still higher than in 2016. Even the advanced degree group went up a point, although this is probably noise.
Conclusions
In the end, Trump made gains in almost all groups, and in many cases he gained for three straight elections. Much of the rhetoric I’m hearing to explain Kamala’s loss doesn’t hold up well.
For example, Latino’s are racist too. Ok, maybe the large jump this year is partly because they wouldn’t support a woman of color, but they moved to Trump from 2016 to 2020 when the challenger changed from a white woman, Clinton, to a white male, Biden.
Do unmarried women find Trump despicable? On one hand, maybe, as he had little support from them, yet he did gain in that group for three elections. The "uneducated,” known as the no college group, moved strongly to Trump. Is anyone surprised given the way the liberal educated set acts as if not going to college is the worst thing ever?
If this election and the trend over the last three presidential elections don’t wake up the Democrats, I don’t know what will, and based on what I see and hear on a college campus, I’m not sure they got the wake-up call.
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Please point out if you think something was expressed wrongly or misinterpreted. I'd rather know the truth and understand the world than be correct. I welcome comments and disagreement. We should all be forced to express our opinions and change our minds, but we should also know how to respectfully disagree and move on. Send me article ideas, feedback, or other thoughts at briefedbydata@substack.com.
Bio
I am a tenured mathematics professor at Ithaca College (PhD Math: Stochastic Processes, MS Applied Statistics, MS Math, BS Math, BS Exercise Science), and I consider myself an accidental academic (opinions are my own). I'm a gardener, drummer, rower, runner, inline skater, 46er, and R user. I’ve written the textbooks R for College Mathematics and Statistics and Applied Calculus with R. I welcome any collaborations.
This is a useful and interesting way to look at the Trump phenomenon. I'm surprised these bar graphs aren't shown all over the main stream media.