WASHINGTON (AP) — Big shifts within small groups and small shifts within big groups helped propel Donald Trump's return to the White House.
The Republican candidate won by holding onto his traditional coalition — white voters, voters without a college degree and older voters — while making crucial gains among younger voters and Black and Hispanic men, according to AP VoteCast, a far-reaching survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide.
His Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, made small gains — most significantly with white men with a college degree living in urban areas — but it was not enough to offset her losses elsewhere.
Younger voters made up a bigger chunk of Trump’s coalition, compared with his voters four years ago.
That happened because Trump benefited from winning slightly more than half of voters over 45, while Harris won about the same share for voters under 45. But older voters make up a larger share of the electorate than younger ones do — and that worked to Trump’s advantage. Roughly 6 in 10 voters in the 2024 presidential election were older than 45.
He kept about the same share of older voters as he did in the 2020 presidential election against President Joe Biden, but he also made small but significant gains with younger voters. In the last election, he won 4 in 10 voters under 45 years old. In this election, he won nearly half.
Looking at the youngest voters — those between 18 to 29 — Trump increased his share of the youth vote significantly. Nearly half, 46%, voted for him over Harris, up from 36% in the last election.
About 6 in 10 Trump voters didn't have a college degree, compared with about half of Harris voters.
A majority of voters in this election did not have a college degree, and most of those non-college-educated voters backed Trump. He won 55% of voters without a college degree, compared with about 4 in 10 who chose Harris. That represented a decline for the Democrats — in 2020, Biden drew about even with Trump among voters without a college degree, earning 47% of their vote compared with Trump’s 51%.
Trump’s gains with non-college voters primarily came from non-white men without a college degree shifting right, as well as younger voters overall without a college degree. But he also won over more non-white women without a college degree compared with the last election.
Harris maintained Biden’s level of support among college graduates, who made up 44% of voters overall. A majority of college-educated voters backed Harris, and about 4 in 10 voted for Trump. But that wasn’t enough when she wasn’t able to capture the same share of voters without a college degree.
Trump's coalition this year was mostly white, just as it was in 2020. But it was more diverse than it was four years ago because of the gains he made with relatively small groups.
White voters made up about three-quarters of the electorate, and they did not shift significantly at the national level — about the same share voted for Trump as in 2020. He was able to make slight inroads with Black and Latino voters, and each group made up about 1 in 10 voters in this election.
Nationally, about 8 in 10 Black voters supported Harris. But that was down from about 9 in 10 in the last presidential election who went for Biden. And while Harris won more than half of Hispanic voters, that was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 Biden won.
Trump increased his share of young Black men — something that helped cut into a key Democratic voting group. About 3 in 10 Black men under the age of 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020. Young Latinos — particularly young Latino men — were more open to Trump than they were in 2020. Roughly half of Latino men under 45 voted for Harris, down from about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.
Just like four years ago, Trump drew more strength from rural areas than his Democratic opponent did.
Nearly half of voters, 45%, say they live in the suburbs. About half of those voters went for Harris, while 46% chose Trump. Trump won about 6 in 10 voters who live in small towns or rural communities, while Harris won about 6 in 10 urban voters. Those numbers were roughly in line with support during the 2020 election.
Education was a factor here, too. Trump made slight gains with urban voters without a college degree, as well as non-white voters in urban communities and rural areas. He also drew in slightly more white men without a college degree in urban areas: about 6 in 10 supported him, compared with about half in 2020.
Those gains for Trump among urban voters were offset, however, by Harris' improvement over Biden with white men with college degrees living in urban areas. She won about two-thirds of this group, up from about half for Biden in 2020.
AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox News, PBS NewsHour, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. The survey of more than 120,000 voters was conducted for eight days, concluding as polls closed. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The survey combines a random sample of registered voters drawn from state voter files; self-identified registered voters using NORC’s probability based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population; and self-identified registered voters selected from nonprobability online panels. The margin of sampling error for voters overall is estimated to be plus or minus 0.4 percentage points. Find more details about AP VoteCast’s methodology at https://ap.org/votecast.
FILE - Michael Mayen, right, originally from South Sudan, registers to vote for the first time with cousin Awoul Ayom, left, at the King County Elections headquarters on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)
FILE - Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at Scranton High School in Scranton, Pa., on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - A voter deposits his voting machine activation card into a box after casting his ballot at a polling site at Henderson City Hall Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Henderson, Nev. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. presidents usually at least pay lip service to being leaders of the free world, at the helm of a mighty democracy and military that allies worldwide can rally around and reasonably depend on for support in return.
Not so under President-elect Donald Trump, a critic of many existing U.S. alliances, whose win of a second term this week had close European partners calling for a new era of self-reliance not dependent on American goodwill.
“We must not delegate forever our security to America,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at a European summit Thursday.
Based on Trump’s first term and campaign statements, the U.S. will become less predictable, more chaotic, colder to allies and warmer to some strongmen, and much more transactional in picking friends globally than before. America’s place in world affairs and security will fundamentally change, both critics and supporters of Trump say.
His backers say he simply will be choosier about U.S. alliances and battles than previous presidents.
When it comes to the U.S. role on the world stage, no more talk of the country as leader of the free world, said Fiona Hill, a former Russia adviser to Trump and preceding U.S. presidents.
Maybe “the free-for-all world, his leadership?” Hill suggested in a recent European Council for Foreign Relations podcast. “I mean, what exactly is it that we’re going to be leading here?”
Trump, with varying degrees of consistency, has been critical of NATO and support for Ukraine and Taiwan, two democracies under threat that depend on U.S. military support to counter Russia and China.
Trump has shown little interest in the longstanding U.S. role as anchor of strategic alliances with European and Indo-Pacific democracies. Before the election, partners and adversaries already were reevaluating their security arrangements in preparation for Trump's possible return.
European allies in particular bolstered efforts to build up their own and regional defenses, rather than rely on the U.S. as the anchor of NATO, the mutual-defense pact both Trump and running mate JD Vance have spoken of scathingly. Within hours of Trump’s win over Vice President Kamala Harris, defense chiefs of France and Germany scheduled talks to address the impact.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revived a special Cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations to address concerns about another Trump presidency. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, now ambassador to the U.S., whose government is investing in an American defense partnership, deleted old tweets that included calling Trump “the most destructive president in U.S. history.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin have appeared to shape war strategies with hopes that Trump could allow them freer rein.
Victoria Coates, a security adviser to Trump in his first term, rejects any portrayal of him as isolationist.
“I think he is extremely judicious about the application of the American military, and about potentially getting embroiled in conflicts we can’t resolve,” she said recently on a security podcast.
As evidence of his engagement globally, Coates pointed to Trump's support of Israel as it wages wars against Iranian-backed militant groups in Gaza and Lebanon.
She called Iran's nuclear program the “greatest concern” abroad and suggested its progress toward the possibility of nuclear weapons meant Trump might have to act more forcefully than in his first term, when he surged sanctions on Iran in what he called a “maximum pressure” campaign.
Trump, long an open admirer of Putin, has been most consistent in pointing to support for Ukraine as a possible policy change.
Philip Breedlove, a former Air Force general and top NATO commander, said he can see both positive expectations and deep concerns for Ukraine and NATO in the next four years under Trump.
While Trump’s NATO rhetoric during his first administration was often harsh, it didn’t lead to any actual U.S. troop reductions in Europe or decreased support for the alliance, Breedlove said. And 23 NATO nations are spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense, compared with 10 in 2020 — helping counter a persistent Trump complaint.
More concerning, Breedlove said, is Trump’s vow to end the war in Ukraine right away.
While that goal is noble, “ending wars on terms that are appropriate is one thing. Capitulating to an enemy in order to stop a conflict is a different thing. And that’s what worries me,” Breedlove said.
He and others have warned that an end to the war that gives Russia additional territory in Ukraine will set a bad precedent. European nations fear it will embolden Putin to come after them.
So do supporters of Taiwan, a democratically run island that China has said it will one day annex, by force if necessary. Trump has ranged from saying Taiwan should pay the U.S. for its defense support to claiming he could charm Chinese President Xi Jinping out of threatening Taiwan.
“One thing that does make me nervous about Trump vis-à-vis the Taiwan Strait is his reliance on unpredictability, his reliance on being something of a chaotic actor in a situation that is finely balanced," said Paul Nadeau, an assistant professor of international affairs and political science at Temple University's Japan campus.
The world that Trump will face has changed, too, with Russia, North Korea, Iran and China further consolidating in a loose, opportunistic alliance to counter the West, and particularly the U.S.
In places where the U.S. has withdrawn, Russia, China and at times Iran have been quick to extend their influence, including in the Middle East.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly vowed to pull all U.S. forces out of Iraq and Syria, at times blindsiding Pentagon officials with sudden statements and tweets that left officials fumbling for answers.
A backlash from some Republican lawmakers and counterproposals by U.S. military leaders slowed those plans, including suggestions that some U.S. troops should remain in Syria to protect oil sites. The U.S. still has about 900 troops in Syria, which could plunge under Trump.
The number of U.S. forces in Iraq is already dwindling based on a new agreement between the Biden administration and Baghdad. The plan would wrap up the U.S.-led coalition’s mission to fight the Islamic State group by next year but likely shift at least some U.S. troops to northern Iraq to support the fight against IS in Syria.
Trump's first term — followed by President Joe Biden's foreign policy becoming consumed by unsuccessful efforts to reach cease-fires in the Middle East — already spurred allies to start building up their own military strength and that of smaller regional alliances.
“Factored into calculations is there’s going to be less United States than before” on the world stage, Hill said. “There can’t be this dangerous dependency on what happens in Washington, D.C.”
AP reporters Didi Tang and Tara Copp in Washington and Ayaka McGill in Tokyo contributed.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, speaks with French President Emmanuel Macron at a plenary session during the European Political Community (EPC) Summit at the Puskas Arena in Budapest, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)
FILE - In this Saturday, June 29, 2019, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump, left, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
FILE - In this June 28, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Leader of the free world has never been a role Trump has embraced. The world has gotten the message
Leader of the free world has never been a role Trump has embraced. The world has gotten the message
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump points to the crowd at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
