by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University

Election 2024 is now in the books. While the last few ballots are still being counted, most of the winners and losers are now known. As usual, the breathless accounts of pundits and social media influencers often contradict political science.

Political scientists are not known for our “hot takes.” Academic research moves slowly, and most definitive accounts of this year’s election will not be published for another year or two at least. This has numerous advantages, in that it allows for the passions to cool and data to be analyzed, all subject to the peer review process. Unfortunately, it also causes us to miss the news cycle, since the American attention span will have moved on several times by the time the first academic, peer-reviewed books and articles are released.

While avoiding the superficial, bias-confirming, and emotionally loaded hot takes associated with news and social media, I still hope to offer a few quick, political science insights to tide over the curious reader until true academic research on the election is available. Read on.

#1 The election was close.

Exuberant as always, numerous news media outlets have reported this year’s election to be a “landslide.” Sorry, not true. This year’s election was close. As of Friday, November 15, ballots were still being counted in some states. The popular vote stood at 74,672,841 for Trump and 71,144,667 for Harris, or a difference of 2.4%. In the seven battleground states, Trump won Georgia by 2.2%, North Carolina by 3.2%, Michigan by 1.4%, Pennsylvania by 1.7%, Wisconsin by 0.9%, Arizona by 5.5%, and Nevada by 3.1%. Ultimately, Trump won 32 states and 312 electoral votes.

Contrast this with some true landslide elections in U.S. History. The term “landslide” has no objective definition in electoral politics, but here are some elections that were widely characterized in those terms.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan won 49 states and defeated Walter Mondale in the popular vote by 18.2%. In 1972, Richard Nixon also won 49 states, trouncing George McGovern by 23.2% in the popular vote. And in 1964, Lyndon Johnson won 44 states and beat Barry Goldwater by 22.6% in the popular vote. Consider the graphic below, contrasting this year’s popular vote with true landslide elections:

FIGURE 1: 2024 POPULAR VOTE MARGIN COMPARED WITH LANDSLIDE ELECTIONS

This mischaracterization of the election by reporters and pundits reflects the ongoing demand for sensationalistic news, feeding the voracious 24 hours news cycle. In addition, it may reflect the tendency of the electoral map to exaggerate victories. For example, Barack Obama won the 2012 race with 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206– apparently, a convincing victory. However, Obama only won the popular vote by 3.9% that year. Obama’s margin was small in key battlegrounds, too. For example, Obama only won Florida by 0.9%, while he carried Ohio by 3%. As noted above, this year, Trump did win all seven battleground states, but he did so by small margins, including one (Wisconsin) which he won by less than 1%. Trump’s victory this year is clear, but it is far from a landslide.

#2 The Polls Were Correct.

Regular readers of this blog will recognize this argument, as I have made it repeatedly, but that is because it deserves repeating: polls cannot predict winners and losers when they are within the margin of error! Sure enough, the polls this year were as accurate as polls can be– they showed this to be a close race, and it was. Pundits’ accounts of “momentum” in the polls often revolve around changes from poll to poll which are all within the respective polls’ margins of error. In fact, such differences are rarely relevant.

To briefly recap, polling is done via sampling, much like the testing of water quality. Samples are drawn and tested, and then an inference is made from the sampling results to the whole population. Since the estimates for the whole population are just that–estimates–the results must be interpreted within the margin of error and confidence interval for the poll. The margin of error (often +/- 3%) creates an interval around the results, whereas the confidence interval (often 95%) is the probability that the results for the whole population are within the margin of error.

For example, a final Emerson College poll before the election showed Harris and Trump tied at 49%, with a margin of error of +/- 3% and a confidence interval of 95%. Adding and subtracting the margin of error to the poll results in the following accurate interpretation:

There is a 95% chance that among the population, support for each candidate is within the interval of 46-52%. There is also a 5% chance that support for one or both candidates is not in that interval.

This poll was accurate in terms of the final election results.

Of course, interpretations like the above are rarely offered by reporters or pundits, who are constantly seeking “momentum” in the poll numbers, particularly as Election Day approaches. The Emerson polling team deserves special commendation for properly reporting the relevant statistics. Many other pollsters do not even bother to report the confidence interval, while the margin of error is often buried in a tiny footnote. The press release from Emerson was accurate– “Trump and Harris Remain Locked in Tight Race.”

#3 Even Today, Parties Do Not Vote as a Bloc.

Trump made outrageous comments and promises while on the campaign trail, including threats to use the military against his opponents, referring to them as “vermin”, comments about shooting journalists, promising mass deportations, and his infamous, inaccurate claim that legal immigrants in Ohio eat dogs and cats. Observers are wary of what a second Trump presidency may look like, and for good reason.

That said, it should be noted that the new Republican majority in Congress is thin, particularly in the House, where a few races remain undecided. A few seats will be decided in special elections, after their occupants depart to take jobs in the Trump Administration. No matter what, the Republicans’ margin will definitely remain in the single digits, as it has been for the past two years. Just a few defections will result in Trump’s agenda being stymied or at least moderated.

For example, thirteen House Republicans broke ranks to back President Biden’s signature act as President: Build Back Better, which funded $2.2 Trillion in infrastructure improvements. Not surprisingly, several of these Republicans hailed from swing districts, while others were retiring. As noted earlier, this year’s election was extremely close, and that closeness extended to several House races. There will be ongoing pressure for moderation and/or bipartisanship from the House members from both parties who won by these narrow margins.

Not only that, but the opposition party that does not hold the White House typically wins Congressional seats in midterm elections. During Trump’s first term, Democrats gained the House majority and made other gains in the 2018 midterms, for example. Some of the districts that “flipped” that year never flipped back, such as that of Representative Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) from suburban Kansas City, who has won re-election by double digits in each subsequent election, including this year. One exception to this pattern was the expected 2022 “red wave” in favor of the Republicans, which did not materialize. Many observers think the red wave was blocked due to voter backlash over the 2022 Dobbs v Women’s Health Services Supreme Court decision, which overturned Roe v Wade. It is not yet clear what, if anything the Republicans have in their toolbox that would block a “blue wave” in 2024. Those from close districts would be well-advised to moderate some of Trump’s more extreme proposals and nominations in anticipation. One such nominee– Congressman Matt Gaetz–has already withdrawn his nomination for Attorney General.

#4 Supreme Court Justices Do Not Always Support the Presidents Who Appointed Them

Trump opponents seem convinced that the Supreme Court will rule in lockstep with his agenda. Much of this alarm is based on two cases, Dobbs, mentioned above, and Trump v United States (2024), which granted former U.S. Presidents– specifically, Trump–executive immunity from prosecution for acts that were part of their official duties as President, though not for their unofficial actions. The latter case pertains to prosecution for Trump’s actions during the January 6th insurrection attempt.

It is true that the Court ruled 6-3 in both of these cases, with all Democratic appointees (the “liberals”) opposed to all Republican appointees (the “conservatives”, who include three appointed by Trump himself). It is also true that both are landmark cases. Yet as important as these are, research has shown conclusively that today’s court does not usually rule 6-3.

In a fascinating Politico piece, Sarah Isgur and Dean Jens found that 6-3 decisions are not the norm on today’s Supreme Court. About half of their decisions–yes, even today–are unanimous. For those that do feature a cleavage, Isgur and Jens found that liberal-conservative is only one of two cleavages that define most rulings today, the other being a more institutionalist-less institutionalist split. They argue that the true split of the Court today is 3-3-3. It should also be noted that two Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, have already ruled against Trump in two 2020 cases, in which the then-President was ordered to release his tax and financial records. In one, Kavanaugh even wrote a stinging concurrence in which Gorsuch joined. Of course, Trump criticized them on Twitter (now X), but this has no impact on Court rulings. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was not on the Court at that time.

There is a long history here. President Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice. Warren was the California governor who carried out FDR’s orders to arrest and confine Japanese-Americans during World War II. But as Chief Justice, Warren led the most liberal Supreme Court in history, overturning segregation, enacting a right to privacy, and ruling broadly in favor of the rights of those accused of crimes when their procedural rights were violated by police or lower courts. Eisenhower called Warren’s appointment the worst mistake of his presidency–but he had no power to recall the Chief Justice. Unless they are impeached for improper behavior, Supreme Court justices are appointed for life.

Eisenhower’s predecessor Harry Truman was so angry with his appointee Tom Clark, he referred to Clark as a “Son of a B*tch”, but again, that had no impact on Clark’s continued service on the Court. If Trump overreaches his constitutional authority, he may soon be denouncing his own court appointees yet again, but he still has no path to remove them from office.

Trump simply does not have a free pass from the Supreme Court–or any court–to do as he pleases. There are still numerous judges who can, and will rule against him if they deem it necessary. Keep a close eye on the three “institutionalists” that Isgur and Jens identified– Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts, who essentially form the swing votes in the Court. Two of these three were appointed by Trump himself.

Conclusion

Trump ran another alarming campaign and this time, he won the popular as well as the electoral vote. Still, his win was narrow, as were the victories of several of his allies in Congress, particularly in the House, who must be mindful of their re-election races in only two years. Furthermore, court appointees do not owe the Presidents appointing them anything, and they can only be removed by impeachment, which is very rare.

Trump’s campaign promises and behavior were disturbing, and disruption is definitely coming. Even so, it is premature to predict the demise of America’s constitutional democracy.

 

About the Author

Michael A. Smith is a Professor of Political Science at Emporia State University.  He has authored or co-authored five books, the most recent of which is Reform and Reaction: The Arc of Modern Kansas Politics (co-edited with H. Edward Flentje, Kansas 2024).  He has other academic publications as well, and also writes newspaper columns carried throughout Kansas as part of the Insight Kansas group and blogs for the MPSA. Michael appears occasionally on television and radio in Kansas and western Missouri to discuss state and national politics.  He was an expert witness for the plantiff in the Bednasek v Kobach case, decided together with Fish v Kobach by the federal district court for Kansas in 2018.  Michael teaches courses in American politics, state and local government, and political philosophy. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 2000. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter).