Election Day is in the books: NBC News has predicted that Donald Trump has won the presidential race over Kamala Harris and that Republicans have captured the Senate, while the House of Representatives is still up for grabs.
The results and exit poll data reveal the undercurrents of what has shaped an election full of twists and turns.
Here are five takeaways from election night 2024.
Latinos wave dramatically at Trump
It’s perhaps the biggest story of the race: Latino voters have swung toward Trump by as much as 25 percentage points compared to four years ago.
Trump received the support of 45% of Latino voters nationally, compared to 53% for Harris, the NBC News Exit Poll showed. That’s much better than the 33-point loss Trump suffered among Latinos in 2020, when he won 32% to Joe Biden’s 65%. And it could be the Republican Party’s strongest performance among Latinos in a presidential race since George W. Bush won 44% of the vote in 2004.
Nationally, Latinos represented 12% of the electorate, and Trump’s gains widened his margins in a host of battleground states, from Pennsylvania to Arizona, complicating Harris’ path.
Trump’s gains were fueled by a huge shift among Latino men, who trailed Harris by 10 points.
The swings are likely to lead to a reckoning among Democrats over why support is eroding in the fast-growing demographic. Members of the party were preparing for some losses among Hispanic voters, but not at the levels they suffered on Tuesday.
Political seriousness is catching up with Democrats in the Senate
Democrats, facing an enormously difficult Senate map, had hoped that their battle-tested incumbents could once again brave the political rigors in hostile territory — especially with the help of millions of dollars in spending from allied groups.
It wasn’t meant to be.
Republicans flipped Democratic-held seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana to capture majorities, while holding on comfortably in red-leaning states like Texas, Florida and Nebraska.
The outcome will give Republicans a boost as they set the agenda for big issues Congress will have to tackle in 2025: Trump’s expiring tax cuts and a possible extension of Obamacare subsidies aimed at lowering premiums for the middle class , as well as a new debt ceiling extension and a new round of government financing.
Harris wins among white women and college graduates
The election showed signs of a racial realignment, with Republicans making gains among nonwhite voters while Democrats gained a few points among white voters, mostly women.
After Trump gave white women an 11-point lead in 2020, Harris narrowed the gap to 5 points, according to the NBC News Exit Poll.
Biden defeated Trump four years ago by 9 points among white women with college degrees. Harris extended that advantage to 20 points, perhaps her most significant demographic triumph among a historically Republican cohort.
The education gap also grew overall, with Harris gaining a few points among college graduates, while Trump gained a few points among voters without a college degree.
And the gap between the generations flattened somewhat, as Trump made gains among men under 30, winning 47% of them, compared to 49% for Harris.
The abortion issue was not a silver bullet for Democrats
Without a doubt, the issue of abortion and the response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade helped Harris. The NBC News Exit Poll found abortion was the third most important issue for voters, and Harris won those who mentioned it by 52 points.
But abortion was not the defining issue of the cycle, with economics and democracy dominating. Trump handily won those who cited the economy as their top issue, while Harris comfortably won those who said they prioritize the state of democracy.
Ultimately, economic concerns were high: Trump dominated by 40 points among the two-thirds of voters who rated the economy as “not so good” or “bad.”
The battle for the House of Representatives threatens to go into overtime
Meanwhile, the results of the race for control of the closely divided House may not be known immediately.
The reason is that the battle for the majority of the House takes place on a different battlefield than that for the White House and the Senate. Competitive House districts are in the disproportionately white and educated suburbs, where Democrats have largely held on.
The majority in the House of Representatives will likely be determined by races in blue states — particularly New York, where Democrats are poised to make gains, and California, where Republicans are defending five seats in tough territory. Still, it’s unclear that Democrats will win enough seats to flip the House of Representatives, having lost some ground elsewhere.
It leaves open a question about the balance of power in Washington next year.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
