The presidential election has ended, with Donald Trump winning both the electoral and popular vote.
According to Axios, Trump is the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years. He has gained over 71 million votes compared to 67 million votes for Harris. But the results for the popular vote were different in 2016 when Trump faced Hillary Clinton. Clinton gained 3 million more popular votes than Trump.
Trump’s victory in 2016 was a result of him winning 304 electoral college votes, versus Clinton’s 227 votes.
In 2020, Biden won the popular vote with 81 million votes compared to 74 million votes for Trump.
Many of Harris’ supporters on X (formerly known as Twitter) have expressed their skepticism about the results of the election. One user @CWJediMaster wonders why “Harris got 15 million votes less than Biden, if there was a high turnout.”
Some on X have even gone as far as blaming third-party voters, even though none of the third-party candidates received any electoral votes.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., blamed the “far left” for Harris’ loss to Trump. The full quote from his X account said, “Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘defund the police’ or ‘from the river to the sea’ or ‘Latinx.’ ”
“There is more to lose than there is to gain politically from pandering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok than it is of the real world,” Torres wrote. “The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”
In response, X user @KyleNumber said “Centrists just aren’t popular. If people want Republicans they’ll vote Republican. No need for a Republican-lite.” The reply received 885 likes.
Based on what’s flooding social media, emotions are running high amongst Harris supporters. The democratic voter base is trying to understand why she lost the popular vote against Trump.
CBS News has gathered data revealing that Harris did not perform well amongst women, young people and Latino voters — the reverse of what was expected by the Harris campaign. Trump performed well amongst conservative voters, white evangelicals, and white voters without a college degree.
Senator Bernie Sanders criticized the Democratic party. Part of his statement read, “It should come to no great surprise that a Democratic party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
Despite Sanders’ criticism of the Democratic Party, he endorsed Harris during August’s Democratic National Convention. While the Democratic Party has historically found strong allies with unions, Harris’ campaign failed to connect with working class voters, according to Reuters.
Democratic strategist David Axelrod called out racism and sexism as contributing factors for Harris’ loss against President-elect Donald Trump. Polls show that white men, white women and Latino men chose Trump over Harris. Americans over the ages 45-65 overwhelmingly voted for Trump as well.
When comparing the efforts of Harris to Biden and Hillary Clinton, the numbers indicate that Harris fell way short of the previous Democratic candidates. Democrats now have four years to formulate an effective strategy to regain the top position in office.
Top photo: Kamala Harris failed to win the popular vote in what amounted to a full sweep. (Getty Images)
Sabrina Hossain is the Social Media Editor for The Express. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @WritersBlock678.
