The 2024 Trump "realignment" is already over
Claims of a conservative realignment of non-whites, the working class, and young voters have been highly exaggerated
It is a matter of fact that Donald Trump won the 2024 election in large part by shrinking the vote margins for Kamala Harris among non-white, working-class, and young voters, relative to past Democratic nominees.
But the interpretation of Trump’s 2024 win is a matter of opinion. Some, like the Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini, have argued Trump’s inroads with traditionally left-leaning voters represented a fundamental realignment in American politics. He is not alone in arguing this. Many in the Democratic Party, too, interpreted Trump’s 2024 win as a historic blow — the performance of a coalition on life support. On marches the emerging Republican majority. Left-liberalism is dead.
Other analysts have been more skeptical. On the subject of realignment, political scientists have tended to land on the answer “it’s complicated.” For one thing, they argue, the national shift away from Democrats in 2024 stemmed mostly from non-ideological and non-Trump variables, such as inflation and th…
