(WS News) – Republican Donald Trump opened up a significant lead in the US presidential election on Wednesday, leaving supporters of Democrat Kamala Harris hoping for an 11th-hour turnabout.
Trump has won more than 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the White House, while Harris was hoping some late-counting states could turn the tide.
Here are some takeaways as votes are tabulated:
TOUGH SLEDDING
The national exit poll of voters conducted by Edison Research underscored what public opinion surveys had long shown: Voters are in a bad mood and have been for some time.
Three-fourths of voters surveyed by Edison said the country was going in a negative direction. Of those voters, 61% went for Trump. Of the voters who called themselves “angry,” 71% backed the Republican.
Voters who said the economy was their top concern broke 79%-20% for Trump, according the poll.
Voters who believe abortion should be a legal procedure in most instances surprisingly only backed Vice President Harris 51%-47%, suggesting Trump’s efforts to blur his position may have partially negated one of her largest advantages.
Trump opposed a federal abortion ban but said states are free to pass laws as restrictive as they choose. He also became a vocal advocate for having insurers cover the cost of in-vitro fertilization treatments.
Perhaps most notably for Harris, the three-fourths of voters who said U.S. democracy felt “threatened” split their vote evenly between the two candidates.
While Democrats have pointed to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as proof of his authoritarian tendencies, Trump has argued that he was a target for politically minded prosecutors in the Biden-Harris administration.
TREND LINES
As the evening progressed, Harris and Trump each prevailed in the early states they had been expected to win. Trump’s lead in electoral votes continued to build.
Edison Research projected Trump would win the battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina, and Fox News projected Trump would win Pennsylvania. Edison had not yet called Pennsylvania, perhaps the most coveted state by both sides.
While the winner remained uncertain, there were some emerging trends that could prove determinative.
Though many blocs of voters were supporting the Democratic or Republican candidate in similar numbers to 2020, according to the exit polls, Trump was showing greater strength with male voters of color and with voters under 45 compared to four years ago.
He also was possibly holding onto enough women supporters in America’s suburbs to prevail despite Harris’ best attempts to pull them away. The national exit poll showed Trump with a 51% to 47% edge with suburban white women voters.
VOTERS OF COLOR
The Trump campaign put a great deal of effort into persuading Black and Latino voters to defect from the Democratic Party – and there were some early indications those efforts were paying off.
In North Carolina, exit polls showed Trump boosting his share of the Black vote to 12%, from 5% in 2020. He garnered the support of 20% of Black male voters, the poll said.
According to the Edison national poll, Trump’s support among Latino male voters jumped 18 percentage points from four years ago.
Trump was up 11 percentage points with Latino voters in Nevada, according to the poll, and up 4 points in Arizona from four years ago.
He was projected to win in North Carolina despite exit polls showing a five-point slide in support among white voters compared to four years ago.
In Pennsylvania, Trump’s support among white voters dropped three percentage points compared to four years ago, Edison said – and his support was down four points among white male voters.
Even so, white voters were on pace to comprise a larger share of the electorate than four years ago.
According to preliminary results from the national exit poll conducted by Edison, 71% of voters nationwide were white, compared with 67% in Edison’s 2020 exit poll.
A GENDER GAP?
Harris’ campaign was looking to exploit a large gender gap in the electorate, with the hope that legions of women voters would flock to the vice president because of issues such as abortion rights.
But Trump seemed to be holding onto the support of at least white women voters, according to exit polls. Black women overwhelmingly supported Harris.
In Pennsylvania, Trump was maintaining close to the same level of support among white women voters that he enjoyed in 2020. That was also true in Georgia.
North Carolina, on the other hand, showed some real potential erosion for Trump. He dropped seven points among white women compared with four years ago, Edison said.
Trump’s campaign, conversely, paid significant attention to pulling in male voters, particularly young men, through social media, sports, podcasts and online gaming.
National exits showed Harris picking up less support among women – 54% – than Biden did in 2020 when he gained 57%.
AN AGE GAP
The national exit poll showed Trump slightly edging Harris among men between the ages of 18 and 44 and beating her solidly with men 45 and up.
In Michigan and Wisconsin, Trump was up five percentage points with overall voters under 45 compared with four years ago. In Nevada, he jumped six points with those voters.
Trump won new voters, a relatively small share of the electorate, by nine percentage points over Harris.
But at the same time, Trump appeared to be losing ground with older voters, according to the polls.
In Wisconsin, Trump’s share of voters 65 and older fell 11 points from 2020. In Michigan, he fell six points.
Trump won the 65-and-over vote over Biden in 2020 by three percentage points. In the Edison national poll for 2024, Harris and Trump were essentially tied.
