Markin Report

On the right side of history, the left side of politics, making sense of a world turned upside down

2024 election 2028 election

Why Trump Wouldn’t Win Today

Sheila Markin

Hi Everyone, this is a longer than usual post but I hope you will read it and share it with your networks because Trump’s big ugly bill is about to pass and it is going to wreck the lives of Trump’s own voters but that will not happen overnight. More Americans need to understand what Trump and the MAGAs are doing to them.

Why Trump Would Lose if the Election Were Held Today Especially if the Democrats Had a Stronger Candidate (yeah, that probably means a strong, sane man instead of a woman)

Some Democrats cling to the belief that Kamala Harris really won the 2024 election and that somehow there was hanky panky by the MAGAs that swung the outcome to Trump. I want to end that idea here and now. Trump won the 2024 election by incrementally doing better across almost every district in this country. Full stop. Stop dreaming and start gearing up for a Democratic come back.

Many of the people who voted for Trump were not well informed. He won over way more of the low information voters. Many of them voted for the hope that he would make their economic circumstances better or, if they were men, they voted for a MAN who would do more to help them get ahead. Trump promised a lot. But Trump is a con man. Millions of Americans fell for his schtick. But from the start of his term, he has been all in for the billionaires, not for working Americans. Americans who are not in Trump’s cult (independent voters and NPA -nonparty affiliate voters) are getting more savvy about what Trump is really all about- the billionaires. Would that coalition of voters who helped him over the finish line in 2024 vote for him again knowing what they know now?

Read the report from Cook Political and see what you think.

Here are the findings from Cook Political based on Pew data deep dive research about the 2024 election:

For most of modern American political history, one thing about presidential elections was gospel: When more people vote, the Democratic Party benefits.

But in 2024, President Donald Trump’s dramatic gains among typically lower-propensity and Democratic-leaning voters — notably voters of color and young people — turned that truism upside-down.

A comprehensive new analysis of voter data from the Pew Research Center estimates that if every eligible voter in America had shown up to the polls in November, Trump still would have won the popular vote.

In fact, his overall margin of victory may even have been slightly higher.

Pew’s analysis, which verifies whether or not participants in its nationally representative panel survey voted in the 2024 presidential election by matching them against three commercial voter files, yields new insights about how Trump defeated Kamala Harris. This study of “validated voters” also allows its researchers to examine the political preferences of nonvoters.

The validated voter survey reflects that 50% of voters overall pulled the lever for Trump, while 48% chose Harris. (The Cook Political Report National Popular Vote Tracker shows that the popular vote was 49.80% for Trump and 48.33% for Harris. )

But, in a major departure from previous cycles, nonvoters surveyed by Pew did not have a clear preference for the Democratic candidate, with 44% saying they would have voted for Trump, 40% saying they would have chosen Harris, and 13% suggesting they would have voted for a third-party candidate. (In 2020, nonvoters said they would have voted for Biden over Trump by an 11-point margin, and in 2016, they preferred Hillary Clinton over Trump by a 7-point margin.)

Had every eligible voter in the country turned out in 2024, Pew calculates that Trump’s hypothetical margin of victory may have even expanded slightly, from 2 points (50%-48%) to 3 points (48%-45%), with third-party candidates taking another 6%.

What’s more, voters with more sporadic participation in presidential elections also generally tended to favor Trump over Harris in 2024. Pew found that eligible voters who showed up to the polls in 2024 after sitting out the 2020 election supported Trump over Harris by a 54%-42% point margin. In 2020, those who voted after staying home in 2016 backed Biden over Trump, 51%-46%.

And while frequent voters — those who participated in the 2020, 2022 and 2024 elections, comprising about two-thirds of voters last year — were about evenly divided between Harris (48%) and Trump (50%), the small amount of eligible voters who only participated in the 2022 and 2024 elections favored Trump by seven points. Even more strikingly, the 12% of voters who skipped 2020 and 2022 but showed up in 2024 favored Trump by a 14-point margin.

Trump’s coalition was more diverse in 2024 than in 2016

Pew’s analysis confirms in detail what exit polls and other post-election deep dives have found — that Trump won in part by assembling a coalition that was significantly more diverse than the GOP’s in previous election cycles.

In the presidential and midterm elections from 2016 to 2022, Pew found, white voters made up between 85% to 88% of the total GOP vote share, while in 2024 that percentage dropped sharply to 78%.

The opposite was true of Democrats, whose presidential coalition has become whiter. In 2016 and 2020, white voters made up 60% and 61% of the Democratic vote share, respectively, while that percentage rose to 64% in 2024.

In fact, the racial makeup of Harris’ 2024 supporters looked more like the Democratic coalition of the 2018 and 2022 midterm cycles than the past two presidential elections. That may somewhat cheer Democrats who are banking on the idea that Trump’s absence from the ballot in 2026 may mean that more non-white voters who supported Trump, as well as GOP-leaning white lower-propensity voters, will stay home next fall.

Trump’s support among Hispanics was crucial for his win

One all-consuming question about the outcome of the 2026 election is whether Republicans will be able to reassemble Trump’s diverse coalition when he’s not at the top of the ticket.

No group is more essential to that effort than Hispanic voters. Not only did they move more dramatically towards Trump in 2024 than any other demographic group, but they will also be key voters in some of the races that will determine control of the House. Of the 40 House races The Cook Political Report currently rates as Toss Up or Lean, 10 have a Hispanic voting-age population of 30% or more.

Pew’s data demonstrates that Trump’s success with Hispanics — his support among them grew from 36% in 2020 to 48% in 2024 — was primarily due to changes in turnout rather than voters changing their preferences. Nine percent of eligible Hispanic voters voted in 2020 but stayed home in 2024; that group backed Biden by a 2-1 margin. But of the 9% of Hispanic voters who did not turn out in 2020 but did in 2024, Trump won 60-37%.

The analysis also shows that, out of every demographic group, the most significant partisan gap in turnout from 2020 to 2024 came among Hispanic voters. Overall, 85% of Biden’s 2020 voters participated in the 2024 election, while 89% of Trump’s 2020 voters did the same. But among Hispanics who voted for Biden in 2020, just 77% showed up four years later, while 86% of those who voted for Trump did.

How Groups in the Trump 2024 Coalition View Him Now

While it’s too soon to draw sweeping conclusions about what this deep dive into the last election means for the next one, all of this data underscore that Trump’s success was largely due to mobilizing a unique constituency of voters who look very different from those who religiously go to the polls cycle after cycle.

The tough news for Republicans in 2026 is that some of the groups most key to Trump’s winning coalition — particularly Latinos and independents — have soured on him in his first five months in office. And while it’s hard to reconstitute a coalition without the main character present, it’s even harder to do so when many of the people once in that coalition have decided that the main character stinks.

The CPR PollTracker, which aggregates public polling of the president’s approval rating, allows us to compare Pew’s 2024 validated voter data to his standing among various groups in public opinion polls now. (While comparing validated voter support in 2024 to adults polled in 2025 isn’t an apples to apples comparison, it’s still useful to keep tabs on overall levels of support from these key demographic groups.)

Overall, Trump received 50% of the popular vote, while his current approval rating stands at about 43%, according to the PollTracker.

But among Hispanics, the gap between those two figures is far greater. According to Pew’s verified voter study, 48% of Hispanic voters voted for Trump, but his approval rating among Hispanic adults has sunk to just 33%.

The same is true among independents. Pew’s data shows that 48% of independents backed him, but just 34% of independent adults give him a thumbs up now.

The 2026 cycle will be the first real test of whether the more diverse, less politically engaged Trump coalition is transferable to GOP down ballot candidates. [Cook Political]

HOW TRUMP IS LOSING THE VOTERS WHO GOT HIM OVER THE FINISH LINE IN 2024

Trump won in the final analysis because
  • 1) the Obama coalition of younger voters and Hispanic and Black voters that were thought to be shoe ins for the Dems went for Trump instead and
  • 2) too many Dems stayed home instead of voting for Harris even though they had voted for Biden.
The most relevant group that abandoned the Dems for the Republicans were the Hispanic voters. Across the board they went for Trump significantly more. But that was before Trump cratered the government, including the VA, with DOGE, slapped huge tariffs on countries that sell goods to Americans which results in price increases, and brutally went after Hispanics across the country- rounding them up whether or not they had committed crimes, and expelled them to foreign gulags without due process. Now he is about to get passage of his so-called big beautiful reconciliation bill that will severely damage the lives and the prospect of working Americans- many of them in rural areas who voted for him hoping for the opposite outcome.
If the election were held today would they vote for him knowing what they know now?
DEMOCRATS NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHY THEY LOST
If Harris were the choice again too many Dems and Independent voters might stay home again, giving Trump an edge again. I think the Dems erred by offering a woman instead of a man as president in a country that clearly wanted a strong man leader to help them have a better economic situation. 2024 was all about voters’ wallets and immigration in the final analysis.
Harris’ brand was all about reproductive rights and women’s issues. On her website there was something for many niche coalitions in America: LGBTQ, trans, native Americans, women, but nothing at all for white men. In short she alienated many men. She was a woman in a country looking for a powerful male leader they thought would get them what they wanted economically. Trump, however, is all in on the billionaires and could care less about working Americans. Millions of voters got conned. They are beginning to understand that.
 
Another missing element in the electorate for the Dems has also been younger voters. They have been uninspired by the Dems. That’s why the mayoral race in NY is interesting. Momdani really engaged the younger voters there.  There is a fight going on between the old guard and the new in the Democratic Party – social democrats like AOC and Bernie really appeal to people who understand that they are the true populists who are serious about helping working Americans. Younger Americans are excited about their ideas and rose up in huge numbers to vote for Momdani in New York. Working Americans should be interested in democratic socialism, but first they need to understand what that term really means.
In the United States, the policies that self-described democratic socialists advocate for generally do not involve the complete abolition of capitalism, but rather working within the system to enact left-wing priorities, such as raising the minimum wage. That makes them closer to social democrats — a common ideology in Europe that emphasizes strong social safety nets and government involvement in areas like health care [NYT]
The rightwing Republicans and some older school Democrats will try to prevent accurate information about democratic socialism from breaking through. Democratic socialism is not right for every district in this country. It might only be an exciting idea for New York or a handful of other cities or districts. Democrats need to encourage good candidates to run in each district- candidates that understand the specific needs of the constituents in their particular districts.
WHERE DO THE DEMS GO FROM HERE?
 
Many people are asking where are the Democratic leaders and what is the message for Democrats?  The answer is that people only trust their friends these days which includes chosen social media influencers who have become almost like best friends of theirs. Most people are getting their news and other information on social media.
What has to happen across the country is what happened in NY but it needs to be a response to the particular district. Not every district is New York.  If there is an authentic, empathic, inspirational candidate who has the right message for his or her district, someone who can be believed that s/he will abide by the things he or she is saying to help working Americans, that person can and will rise up from the “soup” out there, the messy political world, creating an organic excitement that motivates that local electorate. It won’t work to try to dictate to or spoon feed anything to people. They won’t believe it if it does not come from their own trusted sources. 
 
The organic process is powerful. And I think it’s the only way forward. 
 
HOW TRUMP IS HELPING TO DEFEAT THE MAGA MOVEMENT
The good news for the Dems is that Trump is helping to defeat himself and his own MAGA movement. You might not believe it from the mainstream media, but lots of Americans are getting mad at Trump. That includes people who voted for him. If you watch The Bulwark- especially Sara Longwell’s groups on The Bulwark, you can hear how many people who voted for Trump are getting fed up with him now. They tried to give him the benefit of the doubt but they are losing patience.
There are many Trump voters who got fired by DOGE or some relative did, their VA no longer functions to help them- they can’t get through to anyone if they have a problem, the tariffs are just starting to bite, their small businesses are getting hurt because they sell imports from China, they can see how well the billionaires are doing, they don’t know for sure what is in the big beautiful shitty bill but they don’t like what they have heard so far and are afraid of losing their Medicaid, their local rural hospital etc. Bottom line- the rich keep getting richer and working Americans keep getting shat on. That wasn’t what they voted for. Even immigration is turning out to be too ugly for most decent Americans. 
COUNTER MOVEMENT ENERGY
 
What I am watching for is the energy that is rising up organically in response to Trump and the MAGAs. The Dems need to embrace that as it happens. They need to embrace the idea of a sort of “third party” within the Democratic Party (maybe the democratic socialists?) and stop subjecting people in the Democratic party to their pronoun tests and other litmus purity tests of acceptability.
To be successful against the MAGA movement, the Dems need to embrace a big tent in which people have different ideas and we work things out by compromising just like other democracies do. Candidates must learn use social media more effectively (people like Pete Buttigieg are showing the way). Democrats must let go of old consultants who are out of touch with the way Americans get their information and gain trust. They have to stop spending tons of money on ads shown on legacy media that no one watches except old people who already know who they are voting for.
The Dems also need to stop texting supporters 500 times a day and thinking that’s effective. It’s turning everyone off who is a Democrat! This is stupid and ineffective. OMG!!! STOP IT!!!
The bottom line is that Trump and his administration are not doing what Americans expected or wanted. The more extreme and cruel he is, the more he takes from the poor and gives to the rich, the more Americans will look for other options.

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