5 Democratic assumptions shattered by the 2024 election: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the policy deskevening bulletin, bringing you the latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail from the NBC News Politics team.

In today’s edition, senior political reporter Alex Seitz-Wald breaks down long-held Democratic truths challenged by the 2024 election results. In addition, special counsel Jack Smith has filed to drop all federal charges against Donald Trump related to election interference and classified documents.

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5 Democratic assumptions shattered by the 2024 election

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Democrats have been eager to draw tactical lessons from their second loss to Donald Trump, but have been more reluctant to revisit some of the fundamental assumptions about the broader political landscape that have guided their strategy thus far.

The party has been slow to update its mythology The Political Realignment of the Trump Eramany Democrats continue to cling to truths that can no longer be true.

As the final votes are still being counted, it will take some time for the full story of the election to emerge. But exit polls and results from key regions across the country have already revealed new realities that Democrats will have to adapt to as they rebuild for the future.

Here are the party’s top five assumptions about the outcome of the 2024 election:

1. Higher turnout benefits Democrats: Democrats have long accepted it as a simple truth: the more people who vote, the better for the democrats. It may have been true once – though it is it is not clear — and that’s a welcome sentiment for a party that is adapting itself to democracy.

But under Trump, Democrats have become the party of more reliable voters (college-educated, high-income, and older voters), while Republicans often win by turning out low-propensity voters (no-college and blue-collar voters). collar voters) are largely apolitical, but like Trump.

This dynamic helps Democrats perform better recent midterm, annual and special elections and why have polls consistently underestimated Trump’s support? Non-presidential elections have lower turnout, so the advantage often goes to the party with the most reliable voters, which until recently was usually the Republicans.

2. The Democrats are the party of the working class: For more than a century, Democrats have seen themselves as the party of workers and the GOP as the party of bosses. Democrats, strongly aligned with labor unions, supported welfare programs and populist economic policies such as higher taxes for the wealthy.

In 2024, Democrats lost the working class on the two most common measures—income and education. NBC News exit poll Show that while Trump won voters without a college degree 56-42%, he narrowly won voters with household incomes between $30,000 and $100,000 a year. Kamala Harris won over voters with annual incomes over $200,000.

This is different from previous elections. Although she lost to Trump in 2016, Hillary Clinton still won low-income voters by double digits and kept the education gap close, while Barack Obama easily won voters without a college degree in 2012, according to NBC News exit polls.

3. Trump can’t expand his base: That’s one reason why some Democrats see Trump as beatable, especially after his 2020 loss. But in his third bid for the White House, Trump has broadened his base of support big citieson Native American reservations and to heavily Latino communities.

gained a place in the state cities that are war zones Philadelphia and DetroitWhile improving performance in popularly liberal areas such as Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles County and Chicago’s Cook County. And it has regained ground in affluent suburbs that have drifted away from the GOP in recent years, such as Loudoun County, Virginia.

4. Latinos and immigrants will vote against restrictive immigration policies: Democrats have built their Latino outreach and immigration policies on this tacit assumption.

But according to an NBC News exit poll, Trump was the best performance among Latinos for a Republican presidential candidate, winning clearly among Latinos while increasing support among Asian Americans and immigrant communities. Dearborn, Michigan for Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Trump almost swept heavily Latino states in Texas, along the border with Mexico, which have voted Democratic for several generations. And Manhattan precinct only For the Republican presidential candidate this decade, there is an apartment complex inhabited mostly by Chinese immigrants.

5. The Electoral College is biased against Democrats: So far this month, both Republicans elected president in the 21st century have lost the popular vote, and many Democrats have come to the conclusion that the Electoral College is structurally biased against them.

This idea has some merit since big blue states like California and New York are underrepresented compared to sparsely populated red states like Wyoming. But Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote this year as Harris’ performance slipped in those Democratic strongholds.

Jack Smith has filed to drop all federal charges against Trump

By Ryan J. Reilly and Ken Dilanian

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday filed a motion to dismiss all federal charges against President-elect Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents and trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election ahead of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on January 6. .

Hours later, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted Smith’s Jan. 6 motion to dismiss the indictment, formally ending the case alleging an illegal conspiracy to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden. put

In June 2023, Trump was indicted in federal court in Miami on 37 felony counts of mishandling classified documents he took from the White House to his Florida home. These include willful withholding of national defense information, perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice. A Florida judge dismissed the case, but Smith’s office appealed.

Trump was indicted in August 2023 on four separate counts of attempting to sway the 2020 election: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct official process, obstruction and attempted obstruction of official process, and conspiracy to violate rights.

Trump claimed that the charges were politically motivated. He has never publicly admitted that the election allegations were in fact false, and he has pleaded not guilty in both federal cases.

Trump’s federal indictments were an extraordinary moment in American history — the first indictment of a president for illegally trying to cling to power, mishandling classified information and attempting to obstruct a federal investigation.

Their dismissal is also a historical moment. Fifty years after lawmakers from both parties forced Richard Nixon to resign amid allegations of criminal misconduct in office, half of American voters chose to return Trump to the presidency.

Trump’s election means the Justice Department’s long-standing position that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime will apply once he takes office on Jan. 20.

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That’s all for the Policy Desk for now. If you have feedback – like it or not – send us an email politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com

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