By Jonathan Dorner, graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science at Vienna University and now member of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and city council

After losing the 2012 presidential election, republicans set out to open their voting coalition for groups that moved away in big numbers from the Grand old Party (also known as Republicans) When Donald Trump (R-NY/FL) emerged on the scene in 2015, many pundits (including republicans) warned that he would lead to the party to losing even more support. However, after the 2024 election, quite the opposite proved to be true. Not only was he able to win the popular vote as the first after republican nominee since 2004 and only second after 1988, but he also managed to win the highest number of electoral votes any republican was able to garner since George H. W. Bush’s (R-TX) landslide victory in 1988. This comes after Trump was ousted from the presidency just four years earlier, a lot of dissatisfaction with the GOP thanks to the Dobbs supreme court decision which overturned Roe v. Wade, the failed insurrection on January 6th and many Trump-backed candidates losing in the 2022 midterms. How was he able to win such a demanding victory by also winning over certain voter groups as the first republican in modern American history and building one of the most unique coalitions in the past years?

In addition to that, Trump was able to win over many voters from groups that typically were part of democratic voting blocs, like members of the blue-collar working class, especially those who are part of a union and minorities.

Who the Democrats lost

Probably the most notable group in that regard are minorities. They have been seen as a solid democratic voting block ever since the 1930s. Despite the Democrats still being the party of every prominent southern segregationist at that time, the new deal policies of the Roosevelt administration led to great economic opportunities for many working-class and low-income households. Black people, to this point voting predominantly Republican, moved in big numbers towards the Democrats, and after the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 under southern democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX), they formed a solid blue voting block that backed democratic candidates often by a margin bigger than nine to one. Trump, in 2024, garnering 13 percentage points among them compared to Harris with 86 percent, was able to win the highest share of black voters any Republican nominee was able to win since the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Harris was only able to reach 90 percent with blacks over 65 years of age and especially lost among male black voters.

In 2012, Hispanics gave Obama a whopping 71 percent of their vote, forming a strong voting block behind him that played a crucial role in delivering important states like Florida, Nevada, and Colorado on his way to reelection. Such numbers are far out of sight for Democrats nowadays, as Trump was able to run almost even with Harris in that group, winning 46 percent of the Hispanic vote and even coming out on top with them in formerly competitive states like Texas and Florida, which gave Trump victories with double-digit margins.

How the Democrats lost them

How was this possible? Compared to prior Republicans, Trump hardly pandered to certain demographic groups. Nonetheless, he was able to make massive gains within those groups, despite many democratic leaders and media figures painting him as a racist and xenophobic. One truth might lie right there, as he did not try to attract people based on their race but treated them just as any other voter. And just as Democrats were able to win black voters in the 1930s because they created economic opportunities for them, Trump was able to profit from black unemployment reaching a record low during his first term. After four difficult years under Biden and a democratic party unwilling to acknowledge the hardship many families are going through, just talking about how great the economy is led many people to see the Democrats as being out of touch and nostalgia for the Trump years increased. And that leads us to another point. Dissatisfaction with the current Democrats played a fundamental role in parts of their long-time voting base being willing to break away.

Democrats often focus on being the party with the moral high ground, while they fail to talk about issues that matter most to voters. To add insult to injury, Democrats were very often not able to keep the purity tests they set up for their opponents. Very famously, Elizabeth Warren in 2020 asked all Democratic candidates to not use super-pacs, not long before using one herself. Super-Pacs are so-called “Political Action Committees” that raise money from party members and then funnel it towards political campaigns.

More prominently, the whole saga surrounding children in cages stands as a strong example. While the cages were introduced during and by the Obama administration, and Joe Biden policies led to a record number of children separated from their parents locked away in cages. Democrats and liberal media only seemed to care during the Trump presidency, crying crocodile tears, comparing the cages to concentration camps and crying openly on television. Trump, on the other hand, went on Univision, a Spanish-speaking TV-station and talked about the importance of immigration. In the past years, he has repeatedly declared his support for legal immigration and its necessity for the workforce and it seems to have paid off.

Generally, Democrats especially lost with people from low-income households while only being able to gain votes with the super-rich. This development is quite detached from voting patterns based on race, as the white working class too has shifted significantly to the Republicans since Trump appeared as their leader. You could point to several reasons and moments the Democrats abandoned the working class, especially Bill Clinton (D-AR) abandoning the new deal approach to politics. Obama, who campaigned on bringing change and hope, failed to deliver on that front despite a supermajority in the Senate. Trump stepped on fertile ground he could win with certain economically populist messages, like support for tariffs and opposition to trade deals, which arguably were the main reason for a lot of job losses in the industrialised Midwest. Democrats in 2024 also made the mistake of talking about how great the economy was, while many people were still struggling with the effects of inflation, which was worse than four years ago. Trying to get the endorsement of many celebrities, even paying for them, cemented the public perception of the Democrats being the party of coastal elites even further. Furthermore, they let big donors influence their campaign and walked back on very popular positions Harris held early in her campaign, such as support for price-gouging legislation. Her economic message was set out to paint her as Wall Street-friendly and was strongly influenced by Silicon Valley and other big money interests. The strong connection of such groups with politics is very unpopular, especially among traditional democratic working-class voters. This led to several prominent labour unions withholding their support for Harris, despite having a longstanding tradition of endorsing democratic candidates. Union leader Sean O’Brian of the Teamsters union even spoke at the RNC (Republican National Convention) while not even receiving an invitation to the DNC (Democratic National Convention). While there were labor leaders, like Shawn Fain at the DNC, the main focus of the Democrats was winning wealthy celebrity endorsements, while Republicans for the first time welcomed a more economic populist message and unions into their convention.

How the Democrats can regain their footing

Going forward, it will be very interesting to see how the Democrats will react and adjust. They have a lot of soul-searching to do and will have to face many uncomfortable truths that arose from this devastating election loss. Republicans, on the other hand, would not be very well instructed in counting on the shifts we saw to be permanent. Trump was able to win elections by himself but has failed to get other Republicans over the finish line with him. This is quite similar to Obama, who also got certain groups to vote for him but no other Democrats, often leaving the rest of the ballot blank. Nonetheless, the Democrats have to return to the people, acknowledge their traditional bread and butter issues and invite them back into their coalition going forward. That will not be easy and a lot of trust has been lost, but it is possible.

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