How We Got Here (U.S. Election Recap)

Seun Shokunbi - Editor

The 2024 U.S. election has ended. For over a year, issues like domestic economic policies, access to affordable healthcare, women’s reproductive rights, and foreign policy sparked debates about the security of America’s position as the most influential government in the world. 

With the results in, it is beneficial to review a timeline of events that may explain how Americans decided to elect candidates for the presidency, Congress, and other state/local government roles.

With 107 days left until Election Day, President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign & Democrats selected Vice-President Kamala Harris as their new presidential candidate. Five days later, Harris raised an historical amount from White women donating to her campaign over a Zoom call.

However, Harris earned less votes from women voters than Biden in 2020 or Hilary Clinton (the former Democratic presidential nominee) in 2016. Her portion of American women’s votes was still more than Donald Trump (former president and Republican nominee) in 2024. Only 48% of White women in Pennsylvania (a state that secured Trump’s win) said they would vote for Harris in preliminary polls (ABC News).

Many Americans didn’t think Trump would/could continue his campaign because of several criminal cases against him during the race. The Supreme Court, in a July ruling, stated that “[Trump] is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts [as President].” This led political think tanks and Americans to doubt whether a prison sentence would prevent Trump from securing a second term.

In addition to support from the judicial branch, billionaires like Elon Musk showed early signs of a commitment to Trump’s re-election. For example, Musk restored Trump’s suspended X (formerly Twitter) account, and newspapers owned by Jeff Bezos (Amazon) declined to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in nearly 40 years. Musk also led a sweepstakes that attracted mostly MAGA supporters, though he claimed it was a non-partisan Get Out the Vote initative.

Securing the Black women’s vote wasn’t a slam dunk for Harris. Despite being a member of a Divine 9 sorority & alumna of a historically Black college (Howard University), not all Black women aligned with Harris’ views on policing or international policy. To some, she was essentially the lesser of two evils.

Publicly sharing disagreements with Harris’ politics was considered taboo, regardless of if they were well-founded. Independent and undecided voters were torn between being honest about their frustrations with the “status quo” and being seen as giving others permission to vote irresponsibly (or not vote at all).

One of the most controversial, divisive topics during the election was the Biden/Harris response to Gaza. Arab Americans in key swing states, especially Michigan, vowed to vote against Harris if she refused to hold Israel responsible for war crimes.

Another controversial topic was the Black male vote. Several news outlets posed the question of why it seemed Black men were gravitating towards MAGA Republicans, though polls conducted by NPR showed Harris had a significant percentage of Black men planning to vote for her. Nevertheless, numerous Black rappers & celebrities endorsed Trump leading up to November 5th.

Harris also tapped into celebrity endorsements, the biggest coming from Beyonce. The singer both spoke at Harris’ rally on reproductive rights, and uploaded a last-minute “Vote” video to her YouTube channel, featuring music from her latest album. It’s unclear how effective these maneuvers were on Harris’ behalf.

As the race grew tighter, an increasing number of international spectators began congratulating Trump within the comments’ sections of foreign news outlets like DW and BBC News. World leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated before U.S. news outlets officially called the election in Trump’s favor.

Regardless of the presidential outcome, Black women made history in congressional and gubernatorial races. Lisa Blunt Rochester in Delaware & Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland both became the first Black (and for Lisa, first female) senators of their respective states.

Liberal Americans have stressed their desire for viable third-party candidates as alternatives to the traditional two-party system the U.S. has grown accustomed to. However, per this diagram, third-party candidates tend to struggle earning enough (if any) electoral votes to win the presidency. Some political pundits may also argue they hurt the chances of big-ticket candidates from winning all the electoral votes for key battle states.