Beware of Easy A’s: Or What I Learned Studying, Teaching, and Talking about the 2024 Presidential Election

“Were you surprised?” As a political historian of the modern United States, a frequent expert in the media, and the teacher of a class called “2024 U.S. Presidential Election,” this is a question about the election that I have gotten many, many times in the last month. Before the election, I insisted to friends, colleagues, students, and journalists that it was a coin toss (but, full disclosure, I often added that I thought Vice President Kamala Harris had a slight edge over former President Donald Trump). In a coin toss, you’re seldom surprised if it’s heads. Nor are you surprised if it’s tails. Surprise is not the right word to describe it, but I do believe I learned some things studying, teaching, and talking about the election.

“It’s the economy perception, stupid.”

First and foremost, I learned, or was reminded of the fact, that perception often trumps reality (pardon the pun). How things seem, in other words, is as or even more important than how things actually are. The demise of Biden’s campaign was primarily due to perceptions of him as old and in mental decline (in reality both Biden and Trump are old and only a doctor examining them would be able to make conclusions about their mental capacity). Let me be clear: looking at Biden and feeling hesitant about his ability to serve four more years was not unreasonable. But it was an understanding based on how he appeared in public. This was perhaps the most obvious example of “vibes” mattering more than “facts.” But the same conflict between perception and reality was as stark regarding the most discussed issue in the election: “it’s the economy, stupid.”

Presidential approval used to correlate with views on the economy. In good times voters like the president, in bad times not so much. But that’s just not the case anymore. Improvements in the economy no longer correlate with higher approval for the president. Furthermore, sentiments about the economy today follow clear partisan patterns. When Barack Obama was still in the White House, just 32% of Republicans said the economy was good but two months later, in the earliest days of the first Trump administration, that number was over 60%. There was no explanation for this shift in the actual economy, only in partisan control of the presidency. When your own party is in control it’s good times, when not it’s bad times.

In the 2024 election, voters viewed the economy as the most important issue. Considering people’s experiences of high prices this came as no surprise. Nor is it surprising that people placed the blame with the incumbent president. More surprising, perhaps, is that voters viewed Trump as strong on the economy. The former businessman campaigned with slogans like “Trump low prices, Kamala high prices.” But he never actually explained what he, or any president, could do to lower the prices in grocery stores, restaurants, and department stores. In fact, economists concluded that Trump’s first term in office benefited the richest and that his current economic program would result in higher deficits than his opponent’s. Again, perceptions of reality seemed to matter more than actual reality. Some polling even suggested that correct understandings of current economic conditions drove support towards Harris. In any case, the result for the incumbent party was in line with global trends across developed countries. Maybe it was inevitable that the incumbents would suffer for the post-covid economy.

The “landslide” that wasn’t

But the distorted views of reality didn’t stop with the election. Let me be clear, Trump won and that, more than anything, is what matters in any election. But our understandings of an election also matter (the political science literature on mandates suggests the stories we tell about elections actually inform political reality). Trump’s campaign was quick to declare a “landslide” victory, perhaps because the results in the key battleground states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in particular) came in faster than many expected. Yet the idea of a “landslide” was never true; it was all sleight of hand. And many fell for it. In fact, Trump’s margin of victory (counted in actual votes, not in electoral votes) is remarkably small. While there are still some votes left to count, it now looks like his margin will be around 1.5 percentage points, making it the fourth smallest since the late 1800s (only 2000, 1968, and 1960 had smaller margins). Even Hillary Clinton received a larger popular vote margin in 2016, and she didn’t even win the White House. Still, the “landslide” lie is already taking hold, distorting the actual results and, more importantly, impacting political decisions in Washington.

An actual “landslide,” think Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election (his margin: 18 percentage points), or an actual “decisive win,” think Barack Obama’s 2008 election (his margin: over 7 percentage points), suggests a clear preference. A razor-thin victory, like Trump’s 2024 victory, means no single narrative can explain the results. Indeed, the results were not only remarkably close, but at times contradictory (especially when looking beyond the presidential race). Politicians, strategists, and pundits have already offered up an array of easy answers. Often, the story aligns with the storyteller’s own political interests (Bernie Sanders, for example, thinks the story should be about class).

“Really normal election with a really abnormal candidate”

To be honest, I don’t have any easy answers or any one story to tell about the election. I do know it was one of the closest elections in modern history, meaning anything could arguably have been decisive. And the campaign did include some remarkable twists and turns; a criminal conviction of a candidate; an attempt on a candidates life; and a candidate dropping out in the middle of the race. The results, however, were hardly remarkable: in an evenly divided political environment with voters worried about the state of the economy the incumbent party lost a close election. In fact, the best explanation I have come across is by political scientist Jonathan Bernstein who described it as a “really normal election with a really abnormal candidate.”

Oscar Winberg, Postdoctoral Fellow, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, John Morton Center, University of Turku

Picture: Tim Mossholder / Unsplash