On Wednesday, November 6, 2024, the Associated Press (AP) projected that Donald J. Trump will be the 47^th President of the United States after winning a majority of the 538 electoral votes through crucial swing states including North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  Since that time, the AP has projected that Mr. Trump has also won the electoral votes in Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona, the last of the seven defined battleground states of this election cycle.  That gives the former president a total of 312 electoral votes to Vice President Harris’s 226.  Out of his three campaigns, this is Mr. Trump’s largest electoral win and the first time he has been projected to win the popular vote, making the 2024 election the first time in twenty years that a Republican presidential nominee has won the popular vote.  The Associated Press has also projected Republicans to control the United States Senate with a 53-47 majority.  Also, at this time, control of the House of Representatives remains up for grabs, but Republicans are leading there with a projected ratio of 216:207 and twelve seats still to be called.  In the end, this election will have been a sweeping victory for Republicans and a crushing defeat for Democrats up and down the ballot.

One interesting statistic of this election cycle has been the “gender gap” as found in the last NBC News poll, showing Ms. Harris with a sixteen-point lead (57% – 41%) among women while Mr. Trump had an eighteen-point (58% – 40%) among men, even though the race was a dead heat overall (49% – 49%).  Although women made up 53% of the electorate, according to NBC News Exit Polls, this was not enough to elect Ms. Harris president.  So, what demographic caused a Trump win and an overall Republican triumph?  Most pundits would reply “young white male voters.”

It’s a very specific section of the electorate, considering it weighs three factors, but this year, it turns out that these voters might have been the lynch pin for Mr. Trump’s popular vote victory.  But even more extraordinary about this situation is that The Kestrel has access to a poll that pinpoints the demographic in question.  That poll would be Xavier’s Mock Election, which was conducted on Tuesday, November 5, by Mr. R. King’s AP Politics & Government Class.

Xavier’s Mock Election Results

• This election was open to students, faculty, and staff, meaning that it may not be a 100% male vote.
• Because faculty and staff were included, not all participants were high-school aged (13-19).
• This data includes underage students who had a vote in the Mock Election but would not have a vote in the General Election (not eighteen years of age).
  • This group of non-voters would also likely include any international students who, for not being US Citizens, would not be able to vote in the General Election but voted in the Mock Election.

Xavier’s Student Body Diversity Distribution (Niche)

• This data is only about the student body whereas the Mock Election included faculty and staff.
• This data was collected in 2022.

NBC News Exit Poll

Male Voter Turnout:

• These are scaled values from raw data which included female voters.
• This poll was conducted in key battleground states (PA, WI, MI, NC, GA, AZ, NV).

Party Registration:

• This data does not state for which candidate these demographics supported, but in which party they are registered.
• This poll was conducted in key battleground states (PA, WI, MI, NC, GA, AZ, NV).

A final caveat before starting an analysis:  I am not a statistician.  I have taken neither AP Statistics nor AP Politics & Government.  I am just a political enthusiast.

Based on the diversity data, a vast majority (almost three-quarters) of our student body is white.  Our student body is also entirely male.  The mock election data shows that almost three-quarters of participants voted for the Republican ticket.  From this, it can be concluded that Mr. Trump received more overall support from white male voters than Ms. Harris did.  (This does not mean that all white Xavier students voted for Mr. Trump).  This conclusion corroborates the NBC News Exit Poll data, which shows Republicans with a significant advantage over Democrats among white male voters.

Now, one can take age as a factor.  Most of the mock election participants were among the standard ages of a high school student (13-19).  Again, our student body is entirely male.  Because Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance did so well among the participants in our mock election, it can be concluded that they did better among young male voters than Ms. Harris did.  While this is seen in the NBC News Poll, which shows Republicans with a two-point advantage, the margin is not seen as definitively as in the poll comparing race and sex.  This is likely because only 15% of all male voters fit into the lowest age group (closest to high school ages) and it is unknown how diverse that group was, even though data shows that 72% of male voters were white.  Regardless, the data still shows an advantage for Mr. Trump in this group of young men, which is definitively seen in Xavier’s mock election.

Overall, this data shows that young white males greatly supported Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, and Xavier’s Mock Election Results truly indicated that.  Now comes the question:  why did young white men support the Republican ticket?  Well, the answer does not lie with the candidates or their party.  Look at the Supreme Court.  In the past two and a half years, the Dobbs decision returned abortion questions to the states (many states illegalized), the Students for Fair Admissions decision illegalized Affirmative Action, and Trump v. United States established Presidential Immunity.  These decisions, all made by a Supreme Court divided 6-3 with the supermajority of conservative justices, have greatly influenced Democrats’ focuses in this campaign, leading to their goals of widening their support among women and minority groups and of defeating Donald Trump.  Because of these Court decisions and how they influenced Democrats, there was no longer a place in their party for young white male voters.  Instead, they looked towards the man who was rich and on his third wife, the man who made high-top sneakers, the man who, after being shot, stood up and yelled “Fight!”

A Time for Choosing

Ronald Reagan posed this essential question to Americans sixty years ago: “Do you want economic stability or economic freedom?”  In this election, we too could ask Americans what they would prefer:  freedom or stability.  This year, the Democratic Party focused more on the freedom rather than the stability.  They advocated for abortion opportunities, promoted certain LGBTQ+ provisions, and emphasized the election of a female president.  However, most Americans care more about paying their bills and protecting their communities.  In the end, the American people, many reluctant to choose either major party candidate, had to make the choice that they felt was in their best interest.  Now, so does the Democratic Party.

As the Democrats enter the next four years without the presidency, start at least the next two years without control of either house of Congress, and continue their now decades-long run in the minority of the Supreme Court, it becomes a time for choosing.  Soon, Donald Trump will be irrelevant in American politics, and it is up to the Democrats to choose whether or not to let his movement live on in JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.  The party will have to reconnect with middle-of-the-road voters, and it is up to the Democrats to choose whether or not to focus more on the issues those voters care about rather than what the party’s ambitions are.  The party will need new leaders from middle-America who are as young as generations X and Y (millennials), and it is up to the Democrats to choose who those people will be and whether or not they will be allowed to take charge of the party and seat themselves in the highest offices in the land.

There is no doubt that the Democratic Party needs to make a change, now is the time to do so.  Now is a time for choosing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls

https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/

https://www.niche.com/k12/xavier-high-school-middletown-ct/#culture-safety