I've been unable to resist listening to a slew of election post-mortems. Here are a few of the more arresting graphs and charts that I've stumbled upon or heard reference to.
Caveats: Some of these are based on exit polls (not always especially reliable) and incomplete county voting data.
"Didn't vote" is a candidate
The first graphic is what the 2024 electoral map would look like if "didn't vote" were a candidate in each state. As has been the case when these have been created for previous elections, the number of non-voters in the electorate is always surprising. But in 2024, Trump would still win all or most of the swing states (depending on if you include Nevada, which would go to the "didn't voters"). In this imaginary scenario, neither Harris nor Trump would would come anywhere close to 270 electoral votes.
Young male voters race to the right
The second graphic illustrates a general rightward shift in the 18-29 year-old electorate from 2018 to 2024. The swing in men (19+D in 2018 to 14+R in 2024) is extraordinary. This graphic made me think of my 3/15/2023 entry on my Motes page (interview with Richard Reeves) and this recent blog post calling November 2024 the "testosterone election." There's some evidence that fathers with children in the home voted pretty overwhelmingly for Trump.
2024 incumbents got trounced
The third graphic represents vote share of governing parties in national elections globally over time. It's clear that 2024 has been a horrible year for incumbents. Actually, in comparison to elections in other nations, the Democratic rout looks pretty mild.
Surprising shifts right in the cities
The fourth graphic shows that Trump improved his margin when compared to 2020 almost everywhere. However, the improvement in large urban counties was greatest.
Speaking engagements
The fifth chart from a New York Times article compares total time candidates spent speaking at different campaign engagements. I'm not sure how much the in-person event disparity matters (over 2:1 speaking time for Trump) as these numbers were driven by Trump's famously long-winded rally speeches for committed members of his base. But in hindsight, the over 4:1 differential for Trump in podcast/streaming interviews feels like political malpractice on the part of the Harris campaign.
Partisan consumer sentiment patterns continue
The next graph illustrates the pattern of consumer sentiment being driven by partisan bias. As has happened historically, the moods of Democrats and Republicans on the economy have already inverted in the short time since the election. For a few more market-centered graphs, see this Business Insider article. Bank stocks are up, as are bond yields (the market anticipates inflationary tariffs). Crypto is also on a tear.
Drift to the right
The final graphic could definitely change slightly as California's votes are counted. But the 2024 mini map shows a small but consistent shift to Republicans almost everywhere. Tom Wood, the Ohio State political scientist that posted this, said "It's the modesty of the shift in presidential vote, and the absence of geographical clustering, which belies simple explanations for Trump's re-election."
Some really good ones in there. The shift in large cities/blue states generally was particularly striking when I looked through the data that has come out thus far. One map I will contribute that seems initially unrelated to the election but I think contributes something meaningful is the projected change in congressional seat apportionment for 2030 if things keep going roughly the way they have:
Plenty of time for that to change, but where people want or don't want to live is its own sort of voting, and a more dramatic vote to make than who to check on a ballot. If I was looking for a quiet undercurrent to this election outside topics many others have mentioned, 'blue state…