Thoughts on the 2024 Presidential Election

Democrats lost despite having many advantages: raising $1.652 billion vs. $1.093 billion for Trump (51.2% more), reportedly a much better ground organization, popular abortion issues on the ballot, a disliked Republican candidate (many never-Trump Republicans voted for Harris and many of Trump’s first term staff campaigned against him), and many incumbent candidates down-ticket.  Yet Trump got 2.5 million more votes nationally.  In 2020 , he had 7.1 million fewer votes and in 2016, 2.6 million fewer votes.  153.7 million votes were cast, compared to 158.5 million in 2020 and 136.7 million in 2016; I’ll discuss turn-out below.  While this is a victory for Trump, I see it as more of a significant repudiation of the Democrats.  Trump got 2.6 million more votes than in 2020 and he swept the swing states, but he got only 49.99% of the total vote; that’s not a mandate in my opinion.

In 8 of 10 states, a majority voted to protect abortion.  SD voted against the right to abortion and NE voted to cement its 12-week ban into the state constitution while voting against an extension until fetal viability.  In Florida, the abortion bill was defeated despite a 57% vote, because state law requires 60%.  Despite the advantage of an abortion vote, Harris won only 3 of these 8 states.  According to CNN, 13 states ban abortion and 8 limit it to the first 8-18 weeks, leaving 29 states and DC protecting abortion.

Minimum wage laws passed in 3 of 5 states.  CA didn’t raise its minimum wage to $18, and MA didn’t increase minimum wage for tipped waiters.  Ironically, Harris won in both states where minimum wage laws were defeated but lost the three states where such laws passed (AK and MO to $15 and AZ did not lower the minimum wage for tipped workers).

All 10 states with education propositions voted for the teachers’ union preference.  Harris won only 4 of those states.  Five states (AR, CA, RI, NM, UT) increased school funding.  CO and KY rejected school choice.  NE overturned a state law that allows scholarships to private schools for low-income students.  FL kept school board races non-partisan.  MA stopped requiring high school graduates to pass a test.

Medical marijuana use passed in NE, but medical psychedelic drugs use lost in MA.  Recreational marijuana use lost in all 3 states (ND, SD, FL, although 56% approved in FL).   Trump and Harris both supported legalization.

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) won in 5 of 5 cities but lost in 5 of 6 states (being hampered in most situations).  AK retained RCV.  In 3 states (CO, ID and NV), RCV was packaged with a multi-party primary that would advance the top 4 or 5 vote-getters (without using RCV) to a general election that would use RCV.  In NV, the initiative had passed (53%) in 2022 but must pass twice in a row to go into effect; this time the vote flipped to 53% against.  I’d prefer to implement RCV without a multi-party primary and believe that packaging RCV with open primaries makes RCV harder to pass.   OR rejected a straight RCV bill.  In MO, the proposition to ban RCV included banning illegal aliens from voting; that’s already illegal but was used to distract people from the real issue.  The two major parties continue to collaborate to thwart democracy.  The cities voted on straight RCV laws.  Washington DC, Oak Park IL, and Richmond CA all adopted RCV.  Bloomington MN rejected a repeal, and Peoria voted to encourage the state of Illinois to adopt RCV.  Three states use RCV statewide (AK and ME; and HI in some statewide elections).  Another 14 states have localities that have adopted RCV, but 11 states have outlawed RCV.

The dissatisfaction with incumbent progressive district attorneys was huge.  Nathan Hochman routed George Gascon in LA (61% to 39%), even though the LA Times endorsed Gascon. Pamela Price was recalled in Oakland (30% margin).   Kim Foxx chose not to run for re-election in Chicago.  Earlier, Marilyn Mosby (Baltimore) lost the Democratic primary by 12%.  California also passed Proposition 36 partly reversing a 2014 proposition; Prop 36 increases penalties for repeated theft offenses and certain drug crimes.

The flap over the improperly dated or undated votes in PA demonstrates our wasteful, litigious society.  If you want to read about the conflicting lawsuits and rulings, see my separate blog on that issue.   

Some good things about this election:

• Many people voted for a party they had never voted for before.  This is healthy.  The Democrats have promoted “identity” politics and have taken minority voters for granted.
• People split ballots as indicated in the propositions discussed above and some legislative elections.
• I reviewed the election results for the 59 members of the “Problem Solvers”, Congress people who get together with peers across the aisle to discuss how they can govern more effectively.  The “No Labels” organization stimulated this movement.  Of the 46 running for re-election in November 2024, 90.2% won.  (Actually, that is not as good as I originally thought.  From Ballotpedia, I calculated that 97.7% of incumbents won re-election.
• I understand, of course, that many of you think it is good that President Trump won.  While I don’t agree on that point, I know we agree on many things.  When I congratulated a strong Trump voter, he asked me what I’d like to see in Trump’s second administration.  I chose to also tell him what I did not want to see.  We largely agreed as you can see below my signature block.

Why did Trump have such a decisive win? 

• Probably a lot has to do with the economy.  I am disappointed that people focus on the short-term economy and secondarily that they vote to benefit themselves rather than what they think is best for the country.  (I’m not taking a position here on which Presidential candidate was better for the country, I’m simply saying that patriotism should outweigh personal benefits, at least for those who can afford to feed their families.)  Both parties encourage short-sighted voting, rather than educating us (actually mis-educating us).
• Voters rejected the Biden administration with which Harris aligned.  President Biden promised to bring us together then veered left.  No wonder people did not believe that Harris, a more leftist politician than Biden historically, would tack toward the center.  In addition to Biden’s broken promise and the economy, there were crime, the border, energy, electric car mandates, the international crises, education, etc.; each of which cost Harris significant votes.  The Trump ad that “Biden/Harris broke it and he’ll fix it” was probably effective.
• The Democrats have foisted hoaxes on voters for 3 straight Presidential elections.  In 2024, they covered up President Biden’s diminished cognition, but that hoax backfired.  In 2020, the White House orchestrated 51 former intelligence officials falsely suggesting that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation.  In 2016, Hillary Clinton commissioned the Steele dossier.  In each case, the mainstream media helped the Democrats.  For example, in 2020, the mainstream media failed to report that the FBI knew that Hunter Biden’s laptop was real; they did not report that many former intelligence officials refused to sign the misleading statement; and they did not expose the White House staff involvement.
• The public rejects wokeness when given a private vote.  The lack of courage in public is disheartening.  When I hear the media talk about “birthing people” and “assigned gender”, I think they are cowards to accept such censorship and rejection of science.  There are many sub-issues here, including LBGTQ+ issues; oppressive DEI; “intersectionality” postures that broaden non-profit entities’ missions and ostracize supporters who don’t agree on a tangential issue; rejection of “merit” and grades; etc.

Likely lesser issues:

• 3.0% fewer people voted than in 2020 (despite presumably more eligible voters).  If these people had voted, Harris would have needed 76% of them just to tie the popular vote.  In 2020, ballots were sent to 21.3% of voters; even if 2% of those mailed ballots were fraudulently returned “on behalf” of people who were dead, in prison, or in nursing homes, that’s only 0.4% of the total vote, so it couldn’t have made much difference.  I’ve seen no claim or evidence of “voter suppression”.  Lack of turn-out, voter suppression, and fraudulent voting do not appear to have been consequential in either 2020 or 2024.
• Third parties: Jill Stein, Robert Kennedy and Chase Oliver each got 600,000-800,000 votes and there were 388,000 other write-ins.  Overall, there fewer other choices than in 2016 or 2020; they probably harmed Trump.
• Actions against Trump were seen as partisan. 
• Some Democratic voters abandoned Kamala Harris due to the war in the Middle East.  That does not seem to have altered the effect because the lower turnout was small and the third-party votes seemed to cost Trump more than Harris. 

The Democrats are blaming the loss (sometimes claiming that “accountability” is different than “blame”), on Biden, Harris, Harris’s campaign strategists, and voters.  Few accept personal responsibility or that the party’s platform is responsible.  (Nor do they mention that if they really feared a Trump presidency, they could have partnered with No Labels.)  Sure, Biden’s attempt to get re-elected and his terrible performance as President were critical, but his critics (such as Nancy Pelosi) pushed him to take those positions and actively participated in the hoax (for example, criticizing Robert Hur for accurately reporting the President’s condition).  Only Dean Phillips challenged Biden in the Democratic party and when he did, his peers said he was destroying his promising career and helping Trump.  (Phillips decided a year ago not to run for re-election.  Might that have been related to the criticism?)  Now those same people who caused Biden’s failure or aided and abetted it, point fingers at him.

Voters are criticized as racist, misogynist, religious zealots, ignorant, etc.  The below exit poll data shows that Trump’s support among White males has been significantly decreasing.  His support among minorities has steadily increased, probably because minorities did unusually well economically in his presidency (until COVID), because of education issues, etc.  Although he did worse with Whites than in the past and better with minorities, there still is some bias against voting for a Black female, but it does not seem to be the major reason for Harris’s loss.

2016 Margin       2020 Margin       2024 Margin

               White Males                                                    +31                       +23                       +20                       Trump did worst with White men when running against Harris

               White Females                                                +9                          +11                       +5                          White women liked Biden best and Harris least.

               Black Males                                                     -69                        -60                        -58                        Trump has been gaining support among Black men, albeit is still far behind.

               Black Females                                                 -90                        -81                        -85                        Black women overwhelmingly vote against Trump and exhibit the most pro-gender voting.

               Latino Males                                                    -31                        -23                        10                          Trump has been gaining support among Latino men and actually had a majority among them.

               Latino Females                                                -44                        -39                        -24                        Trump has been gaining support among Latino women.

See below my signature block for what I’d like to see and not see during Trump’s second administration.  These are numbered to make it easier for you to refer to them; they are not prioritized.

 

Claude Thau

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I continue to believe that if people spoke with each other rather than ignoring each other or yelling at each other, we’d learn that there is a lot we agree on!  For example, the strong Trump voter with whom I corresponded agreed on #1-17 and #21-25.   On #18 (Speaker’s Project) and #19 (Ranked-Choice Voting), he’d need more info.  We have at least some overlap on #26-27 and would need more discussion to ferret out disagreement.  On #29, he is a strong supporter of school choice because of the teachers’ union’s far left agenda that forces two teachers in his family to teach things they don’t believe in; I’d want to learn more about those issues. We disagreed on #20 (abortion somewhat); #28 (agreed relative to tips and overtime, but not on other issues).  On #30, he is open to considering my position.  That’s a lot of agreement and potential agreement!

Things I expect to see in a second Trump administration:

1. Ukraine:  I’m hoping that Trump and Biden agreed that Biden would remove restrictions on Ukraine to put Trump in a stronger bargaining position with Putin.  Now Trump can say “Biden removed restraints.  We can end this thing, or those restraints will stay off and I’ll help Ukraine even more.  It is a much stronger position when the restraints have been removed than simply threatening to remove the restraints would be.  Hopefully, Trump can threaten Putin into an acceptable peace settlement.  Ukraine will lose some territory but remain independent.  Ukraine’s loss is clearly Biden’s fault.  As I’ve indicated in my blogs, Biden triggered Putin’s invasion and kept Ukraine from winning by putting crazy restrictions on Ukraine’s actions.
2. Environmental progress: We’ll continue to make environmental progress because it makes sense economically.  I hope we internalize more of the cost of environmental impact.  (Art Laffer, a contender to Chair the Federal Reserve, is pro-carbon tax, so maybe Trump will support a carbon tax.)  The automobile manufacturer EV mandates (50% by 2032) seem likely to go away, which I think is a good idea because it is not even clear that EV are better than hybrids; we don’t have good enough batteries yet; we rely on China for rare earth minerals; and the EV cars may be less safe and bad for our infrastructure.
3. Energy: We’ll have a more intelligent energy program which will help other countries be able to depend on us for energy, rather than being dependent on our enemies.  More energy production in the USA is good for the environment because our production is much cleaner than production in Venezuela, Iran, Russia and the Arab countries.  The energy policy will increase jobs and income and may help reduce our debt.
4. Israel: Both Trump and Biden have claimed to be Israel’s greatest friend.  We’re still benefiting from Trump’s past impact, such as the Abraham Accords.  Unfortunately, although Trump is more supportive of Israel, he may want to punish Netanyahu for past slights.  If Trump threatens to support Israel more strongly, Hamas might be more motivated to negotiate or at least release US hostages.  I continue to fear a third World War.  If we appease Russia and Iran, we make such a war more likely.  We need Teddy Roosevelt’s “Speak softly but carry a big stick.”  In the context of Ukraine, this could mean threatening Putin privately, so as not to embarrass him.  Perhaps such behind-the-scenes threats might be attractive to Trump relative to Israel because he might avoid seemingly supporting Netanyahu.
5. Supreme Court:  Reform is probably dead.  I’d support term limits, but the Democrats’ plan to move existing judges to non-voting jobs and to end the filibuster and pack the Court was a disaster.
6. The filibuster and electoral college will continue.  I support both.  The Democrats who were so critical of the filibuster may be using it a lot.
7. Border: Trump will strengthen the border, and I would support no longer bestowing citizenship automatically to people born on USA turf.
8. Anti-business bias of the Biden administration: Trump will temper this.
9. Separation of powers may improve, despite Trump’s lust for power.  The Supreme Court strongly supports separation of powers and will thwart Trump if he tries to grab too much power.  I’m open to reducing the Federal Education Department because it seems that education should be managed at the state and local level.
10. Election fraud: Our elections will at least temporarily be protected against unlimited ballot harvesting and banning of photo voter ID for federal elections, both of which the Democrats have repeatedly tried to push through.
11. Federal administrative and college due process improved during Trump’s first term but, under Biden, federal agencies once again became prosecutor, judge, and jury.  I expect that to improve again.
12. Military strength is like to improve, and the USA will be better respected militarily.
13. The private ballot will likely be protected in labor union elections.
14. Public charter schools/open enrollment in public schools: Trump may support these, which would be great.  We must give inner city children a way to escape the terrible education we’ve been providing to them.
15. Improved free speech, for example, on college campuses (which have selectively protected for liberals but not conservatives).  I hope the media will have the courage to abandon language such as “birthing people” and “assigned gender”.
16. People competing in sports based on birth gender.

Things I’d like to see but don’t expect Trump to support:

17. Progress in implementing the “No Labels” “Speaker’s Project” and similar Congressional reforms.
18. Ranked-Choice voting: both parties oppose it because it threatens their grip on power.
19. Abortion: more states protecting abortion.
20. Reducing the Debt: Trump wants to save a lot of government expenses, but that won’t have a big impact on the deficit.  His rhetoric during the campaign was not encouraging in this regard.

Things I don’t want to see in a second Trump administration:

21. Pursuit of internal political “enemies”: I hope he ditches his idea of revenge.  (Some people say he should pardon Hunter Biden.  I wouldn’t push for that, but I would not object; it’s such a minor issue.)
22. Taiwan taken by China: Trump says he’ll threaten China with 200% tariffs if they invade Taiwan.  I’m not comfortable that such a threat is sufficient, but increasing tariffs on China makes that threat more realistic.  However, the more tariffs are raised, the less of a threat 200% tariffs are.  Beyond tariffs, our enemies will be much more wary of us with Trump at the helm.  Biden’s weakness lit the world on fire.  Now that the world is on fire, I’m not confident that Trump can put out the blaze.
23. The Environmental Protection Agency closed down: this agency needs to operate at the national level.
24. Rudeness, lies, misrepresentations (from either party).
25. More new executive orders that encroach on Congress’s authority.  However, executive orders cancelling prior executive orders are fair game (e. g., student loans)
26. Mass deportation: I’ve written a paper on this topic.  I hope Trump does not expel illegal immigrants who have lived here peacefully a long time.  In addition to sympathy and appreciation of their contributions, deporting them is harmful to their families and employers, thereby having a meaningfully bad impact on our economy.  I have been opposed to sanctuary cities but may change my position if Trump is too extreme.
27. Rampant Tariffs: Targeted tariffs (to induce fair trade, for security reasons, etc.) are appropriate, but Trump went too far in his first administration and says he’ll go further this time.  I’m concerned about the impact of tariffs on our economy, inflation, and foreign relationships.
28. Unwise tax give-aways: As a high tax guy in general, I wouldn’t have voted for Trump’s tax cuts.  However, in fairness I note that revenue from income taxes has increased well since his tax cuts were adopted.  Of the tax cuts scheduled to be cancelled, I’d most favor reducing the tax-free threshold for estates, but that won’t happen.  I hope he backs away from ending income taxes on tips, overtime and social security benefits and resurrecting the state and local tax deduction.  Those would all be bad decisions.
29. Private/Religious school choice with public funds: I’m a strong believer in public charter schools and open enrollment in public schools to allow inner-city children to escape their poor educational environments.  I have not supported school choice (letting students use public money to attend private school; whether or not denominational).  However, the Left can push me into the arms of the Right on this issue if it is the only way to help inner-city students.
30. Re: Trump trials.  I’d rather have seen the Trump election obstruction legal action continue, but that won’t happen.  Improper handling of classified information clearly seems to be a problem that we are not addressing.  Hillary Clinton was treated more laxly than other people when she endangered national secrets with her computer.  Vice President Biden knowingly kept information that he shouldn’t have had and told his biographer to be careful with the related documents because they weren’t supposed to have them; that was not pursued.  President Trump had authority, as President, to de-classify documents, but not when he was no longer President.