The political potential of his conservative populism is greater than Donald Trump’s victory.
While much of the post-election focus has been on areas where Trump excelled, there were also significant areas where he underperformed. And if Republicans can secure some of the votes Trump left on the table, they could greatly exceed Trump’s impressive 2024 victory margin in the future.
Trump’s Election Day victory was surprising. Despite the establishment media’s fawning coverage of Harris and her enormous financial advantage, Trump won the popular vote. This was the first win for Republicans in 20 years. He also swept all seven swing states (Trump in 2016 and Biden won only six of the seven in 2020) and won a landslide 312-226 electoral vote.
Not only did Trump decisively beat Harris, but he once again defied expectations. Real Clear Politics’ average of the last national polls showed Harris trailing by 0.1 percentage points. In three consecutive presidential elections, Trump’s popular vote rate increased from 46.1% in 2016 to 46.9% in 2020 and to 50% this time. He also beat poll predictions in each of the last two races by 2.1 percentage points in 2024 and 2.7 percentage points in 2020.
Exit polls also showed that Trump overturned the ‘gender gap’. The Democratic Party won women by 8 percentage points, but lost men by 13 points. He won 13% of the black vote and 46% of the Hispanic vote. He effectively neutralized Rep. Harris on the abortion issue, scoring a 49-49% tie among voters who said abortion should be legal in most cases.
But if anyone says Trump couldn’t have done better, they’re simply wrong.
Trump performed poorly among the two largest groups of ideological voters: conservatives and moderates. The Conservatives made up 34% of the 2024 electorate. Trump won 90% of the voters but lost 9%.
This should be his ideological base and this loss probably seems small until you consider its impact on the overall vote tally. Conservative populists should beat almost all conservatives. Conservative votes left on the table are a missed opportunity. If they go to the other side, it’s a double loss and a vote that has to be made up somewhere else.
To measure the political impact of Trump losing 9% of conservatives, simply multiply by the percentage of voters who are conservatives. The impact is 3.1% of the referendum. Considering that Trump only has 2% of the popular vote, if he sweeps the Conservatives, his total vote share would be 53.1%..
The political impact of Trump’s poor performance among moderates is much greater. Moderates made up 42% of the 2024 electorate. Trump lost 42-57%. Harris’ lead among moderates amounted to about 7.1% of the popular vote.
There is no reason why conservative populism cannot be at least equally appealing to moderates. Ultimately, Trump was able to rally Harris among voters who say abortion should be legal in most cases.
The political impact of simply splitting the moderate vote would be astounding. At 42% of the electorate in 2024, if Trump had 8.5% of moderates entrusted to him, that would be 3.6% of the total popular vote.
Stripping away Trump’s poor performance among conservatives and moderates would have given him an additional 6.6% of the popular vote. This would have given Trump a popular vote victory of around 57% to 42%. This is a real landslide victory. That would place Harris below where Bill Clinton won his three-way victory in 1992 and put Trump in the same stratosphere as Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984.
As the numbers show, the potential of Trump’s conservative populism was on display this November, but is still far from being fully realized. This will result in complete and lasting political alignment.
Trump’s victory was great, but it did not fully exploit the potential of conservative populism. His relatively poor net preference (minus 7 points in exit polls) undermined the potential for conservative populism. Far from undermining Trump’s victory, this actually strengthens his accomplishments. But it also puts these victories into context.
Trump’s political victory was a personal victory. It was a victory for common sense over the Democratic Party’s insistence on emphasizing positions that Americans either did not care about or were opposed to.
Since the Bush era, Democrats have experienced a mass migration from the American public to the elite. As a result, a vacuum was created in the race for public support. Eight years ago, Trump intuitively understood this and stepped into that void. He held his ground firmly in three consecutive elections, increasing his popular vote share and total vote share each time. He did so despite amassing political baggage that would have seemingly brought down any other candidate.
All of this proves Trump’s political innovation. This also demonstrates the enormous political potential of conservative populism beyond 2028.
JT Young has more than 30 years of experience working in Congress, the Treasury Department, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and representing Fortune 20 companies. He is the author of a new book. “An Unprecedented Attack: How Big Government Liberated America’s Socialist Left”.”
