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This Was a Very Close Election, Trump Won, but Got Less Than 50% of the Popular Vote, Now Let’s Act Like That and Build on It – Monroe County, Pennsylvania – a Case Study

https://portside.org/2024-12-07/was-very-close-election-trump-won-got-less-50-popular-vote-now-lets-act-and-build-it
Portside Date:
Author: Jay Schaffner
Date of source:
Stansbury Forum

Kamala Harris lost the election, her vote was just under 7-million votes less than that of Joe Biden in 2020. Four million fewer voted nationally than four years ago, due both to a large stay-at-home vote as a protest by voters to the continued war in Gaza, as well as to increased voter suppression by Republicans in many states. Still the turnout of registered voters was higher than it was four years ago.

Donald Trump won, but he did not get a majority of the national vote. This year’s election had the highest voter turnout of eligible voters – 63.68% of the last five presidential elections, according to The Election Lab at the University of Florida, which has tracked data for all elections since 1789. Trump’s winning vote was the lowest since Bush in 2000.

The reality is that Trump is a minority president, polling less than 50% of the national popular vote. In the battle-ground states, Trump won by less than 1% in Wisconsin; and less than 2% in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, the three “Blue line states.”  He barely won by two percent in Georgia and squeaked by with just 3% margins in both Nevada and North Carolina. squeaking by with 1% margins in many states.

Voter turnout (percentage of registered voters voting) was higher this year than the pandemic year turnout of 62% in 2020, when most voting was done by mail; then voting was done with Donald Trump in office, and voters were voting against the reality of what another four years of pandemic Donald would be for themselves, their families, their communities and the country.

Voter turnout of registered voters was higher than the then high of 62.17 in 2008, when voters were voting for hope and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with Barack Obama running against the reality of the GOP and George Bush.

In this year’s election, with a larger voter pool than any previous election, Kamala Harris received more than four million more votes than Obama did in 2008 and more than eight million more votes than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

With a much larger population than previously, with a larger youth population, the erosion of vast numbers of voters throughout the country is cause for alarm – for voting rights and for democracy and warrants further study and exploration.

Racism and misogyny were a factor. But they were not the factor that was predicted by nearly all the pre-election polls. The polls for the most part got it wrong, with the exception that it would be a very close race. There was no major defection of African American men to Donald Trump. Similarly, there was no major machismo swing towards Donald Trump – the Hispanic male vote for Trump was 48%, with 49% voting for Harris, reflected a division in the population as whole. 

There was no major massive gender gap between women going for Harris and men going for Trump. The one place where there was a significant gender gap was among youth voters under age 30  – here the gender gap was 30 points with young men breaking for Trump! (Trump sees high number of young voters in the 2024 election (NBC) Post-election data in fact show that there was nearly an even split between men and women nationally going for both Harris and Trump, with some notable exceptions:

In all seven of the battle-ground states, the voter turnout of registered voters was much higher than nationally.

Did voters in other states not turn out because their votes didn’t matter? If one looks at the New York State vote going back to 2008, the answer is no. There was a higher turnout of registered voters this year than in any of the previous presidential elections going back to 2008, however statewide there were 700,000 fewer voters than in the 2000 election. In a heavily Blue state, this can be counted as voters that stayed home and did not turn out to vote for Harris-Walz for a variety of reasons.

Harris raised more money than Donald Trump and the GOP, so what went wrong? What happened?

Monroe County, Pennsylvania – A Case Study

I spent ten weeks knocking on doors in Monroe County in Northeast Pennsylvania, NEPA as it is called. Pennsylvania, one of the seven battle-ground swing states with 19 electoral votes, was considered the “prize.” It was supposed to be part of the Blue Wall, along with Michigan and Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania has close to ten million eligible voters, of which so far 7,025,000 ballots have been counted. Everyone is familiar with the population rich anchors of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The more than fifteen counties that comprise the NEPA region of the state cast one-and-a-quarter million of those votes. That is why Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, and Donald Trump and J.D. Vance anchored much of their campaigns in this part of the state.

Over those ten weeks I personally knocked on more than 2000-2500 doors in different parts of Monroe Country. Along with my wife, we emailed every friend, co-worker, relative, neighbor, many of the musicians that I had represented for over twenty years, activists that I had known and worked with. The response was incredible – 46 responded and came out to join our group in Monroe County, a group of us that had worked together going back to the 2008 Obama campaign. We worked with the local Monroe County Democratic Organization and the Harris-Walz Campaign. Some came for a day, some for the weekend, some for longer. Additionally, friends helped email more than 5000 postcards to Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan voters.

Our country came out of the McCarthy period to end Jim Crow, to pass Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation, and then to help end the war in Viet Nam. And two years after Richard Nixon swept the 1972 election, this is the country that drove him from office and nearly impeached him the following year.

Can we do this again?

I think we can, but we need to do this working differently, reaching out to those that voted, for various reasons, for Trump, and at the same time, in defense of reproductive rights, to raise the minimum wage and numerous other ballot measures in states from one end of the country to the other.

Some say the Economic Issues Were Not Emphasized – Not Enough – Those some were not in northeast Pennsylvania.

Along state highways there were signs saying, “Kamala Wants to Raise the Minimum Wage.” The minimum wage in Pennsylvania is $7.25. Those some did not attend the mass rally that I did in Wilkes Barre, where both economic issues and reproductive rights were stressed.

Could there have been more signs? Sure. Could there have  been better literature? Sure. The message at the rallies from friends who attended the rallies with Tim Walz was that he hit on the same issues. The campaign did not control how the news media covered those rallies.

The campaign did control the message in the ads – these could have been vastly improved on.

The volunteers that we brought out came because of the existential threat of fascism. That does not mean that this was the number one issue on the minds of voters. Talking with voters at their doors, the number one issue was prices they paid for goods in the stores, jobs or lack of jobs, and inflation. After the fact polling shows that .as well.

But changing the message when you are canvassing, and when the infrastructure of the campaign is doing something else is a daunting and perplexing task.

The campaign should have championed an economic message of jobs, raising the minimum wage and tying those wages tied to inflation. But would Wall Street and the small businesses that the campaign was pitching to have gone along with that? Did the campaign count who had the votes, not just some of the dollar contributions?

Pitching a $25,000 credit for first-time home buyers when there aren’t homes to buy, when the cost of homes in the NEPA area is from $200,000 on up, amounts to closing costs. People realized it just wasn’t real, or didn’t apply to them, or to their immediate needs. They also realized that $25,000 would merely drive up the cost of what homes were actually on the market.

Similarly, the $50,000 tax credit for first-time businesses, given the cost of starting a business today, and the cost of equipment and capital improvements, was also not real to many.

Harris projected raising prescription caps for all and extending Medicare to include home elder care, but these were raised late in the campaign. Debt relief for teachers and other workers in the public sector should have been a top issue for the campaign and should be still for Democrats in Congress.

Bottom line, the economic issue of jobs, and wages tied to inflation are what should have been forefront – but that is a weakness and limitation of the Democratic Party as it is constituted.

Democrats need to advance an Economic and Social Bill of Rights that they will champion in Congress, even in a Congress that is dominated by Republicans. Such legislation can then be introduced in every state and city.

Minimum wage increases were approved in Missouri and Alaska; both those states and Nebraska passed paid sick-leave statues – all three states gave a majority of votes to Trump.

Too Much Emphasis on Cultural Issues – I Think Not

Voters clearly understood that women’s right to control over their bodies, families right to control over their collective bodies was on the line. This was expressed repeatedly in after-vote comments on why voters voted for Kamala Harris.

Voters approved a state constitutional right to abortion in seven states (Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York); and a majority of voters in Florida voted similarly, but it failed to reach the 60% bar imposed by Gov. DeSantis and GOP-controlled legislature. (Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Florida voted for Trump.)

Other state-wide measures of significance passed by voters were:

(Kentucky, Nebraska, and Alaska voted for Trump.)

Strategy of Working the Margins Needs to Be Changed for Reaching Everyone

The national emphasis of the Democratic Party has been to concentrate on the inconsistent voters  the irregular voters – registered Democrats who did not vote in 2022, or 2020, or 2018, or 2016 and to reach them, convince them to vote for Harris and get them to the polls.

Add to their ranks similar registered Independents who are inconsistent voters, Greens, Libertarians and even Republicans who may have signed a petition for a democratic cause over the past few years.

Left alone were registered Democrats and Independents who voted regularly. These voters were excluded from the voter call banks; the lists prepared for door canvassing. (In New York City we regularly get calls, or at least my wife does, who is a registered Democrat. This year she did not get one call, none from her union, or from any of our elected Democratic officials, urging her to vote. Since I am registered for the Working Families Party, I can understand why I didn’t get these calls.)

My experience was that the voters identified as “Independents” through this process were really closet Republicans in the main.

Over the ten weeks, I was going to some houses four and five times – once people said they were voting for Harris and the Democratic ticket and had a plan, and were visited in the past two weeks, I didn’t go again, unless it was the weekend before the election. The MiniVan (phone app used by the campaign) history showed that some of these voters were being called or texted as many as 6, 8 and 10 times since the beginning of September. And the message was always the same.

And yet, for the neighbors on the block who we were passing by, who were registered Democrats, there was no door knock, no literature drop, no phone call, no nothing. No finding out what concerned them, where they stood, if they were voting, and who they supported.

There was no training for the hundreds and thousands that answered the call of “come to Pennsylvania.” The message was, read the MiniVan script, tell people why you are for Harris, get them to commit. There was no emphasis on what were the key issues for the area of Pennsylvania we were canvassing in.

Many of the “Democrats” that we visited were not going to vote for Harris. I think the same can be said of the regular Democratic voters.

There was plenty of money in the campaign – it was just not allocated for this – this was not a priority. What was needed was a massive outreach campaign to all potential voters, to reach and educate, and then mobilize them to vote.

The approach of working the margins resulted in all the battle-ground states in a voter turnout of registered voters that was significantly better than the national average of 63.68%, but could more have been accomplished? In order to win, more needs to be accomplished.

No Real Coordination With Local People

There was no real coordination with the local Democratic Committee. No exchange of information as to what the communities were like, what the local issues were, even who the local candidates were (other than read the campaign handouts); and even sending volunteers to communities where they could not gain entry because they were gated.

On the last weekend of the campaign, we finally gained entrance to the largest community in the Poconos – a gated community. I asked why “X”  wasn’t contacted; she lives in the community and got us access in previous elections. The response of the area Harris coordinator was “who is that.” My response is “she is one of the candidates listed on the literature that everyone is giving out.”

The people working for the Harris Campaign were hard working people, but they were not from the local area.In previous elections, out of area staffers came into the area much earlier (In 2012 a staffer from Kansas moved into the area in February; in 2016 a staffer from Scranton moved into the area in late May). These people learned about the area, the various communities, met with local people, lived with local people. Such was not the case with the 2024 campaign. Part of the problem was the late start of Kamala Harris’s campaign, but the key staff was here while Joe Biden was the candidate in June.

Some Specifics of the Campaign

Misogyny – Was a real factor and you could see it. So many times, when we knocked on doors and when both husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend came to the door together, after hearing what we were there for so often the man stayed and the woman walked away ‘to do other things,’ or the man came out to talk to us. Often the woman would come out by herself and say or whisper: ‘I’m with her and he doesn’t know it.’

Lack of a Trump Ground Game – The media was full of reports that there was no Trump Ground Game in Pennsylvania, that Musk’s efforts were breaking down, and we didn’t really see much evidence of any Trump or Republican literature on people’s doors. In the last two weeks there was literature for local state assembly Republican candidates.

But there was a Trump Ground Game – it was the Catholic Church and the different Evangelical Churches. When you would get repeated answers, and these were from “registered Democrats, “that I can’t vote for that woman because she kills babies,” because  she changes children’s sex when they go to school,” because she is for “men playing on girls’ sports teams,” you know that these are organized and indoctrinated responses.

In the more western parts of NEPA there is the added factor of the Amish. The Amish community rallied to Donald Trump, and their vote cannot be underestimated in Berks County and the farms surrounding Reading and Kutztown.

There were fewer Trump signs than in previous years, but there were still fewer Harris signs. It took weeks for us to get a Harris sign, and we ordered and paid for one from the Harris-Walz campaign. The local campaign was stingy giving them out at first, and only had lots of signs the last few weeks of the campaign. In canvassing, the Trump signs were up to intimidate and terrorize neighbors to not put up a Harris sign – that was the atmosphere.

People who took signs said they felt safe doing so this year, that in 2020 the Biden signs in their part of the country had been shot down.

We found some Hispanic support for Trump – and division in families along generational lines that was inconsistent. In some families it was the younger members that supported Harris, in other families the opposite was the case. Reasons for doing so were often expressed as, “our family did it the right way,” or “our family didn’t jump the line.” Then there were the more MAGA expressions that “we are not rapists.”  More Hispanic men supported Harris than Trump (49 to 48%) and amongst Hispanic women, Harris received support from 59% of Hispanic women, with Trump garnering just 39%. (2024 Fox News Voter Analysis)

Immigrants of other nationalities in our nation’s past faced similar divisions. In the 1880’s Irish who were already here, were opposed to the entry of new immigrants from Ireland.

Later in the century, new Italian immigrants faced similar hostility from Italian Americans already here. In the early part of the last century, Jews from England and Germany were hostile to the entry of Eastern European Jews, and even championed quotas, which were later enacted.

Immigrants who were already here have long sought to be “Americanized.” We are seeing this play out once again. There is a new twist, however. This time there is opposition to immigrants coming to the country from Venezuela, Nicaragua Brazil, and Cuba – countries that have taken a socialist or non-capitalist path or have tried to. So, the opposition now is also fueled by good old anti-communism.

I haven’t seen figures for the Asian American vote, but from experiences canvassing, I can say that this was similar. There also needs to be a differentiation amongst the different peoples of Asia and the Pacific Islands, where immigrants have come from, and their experiences.

African American support for Trump – we found this, and nationally it reached about 23-25% of the African American population, up from what it had been in previous elections. (The AP reports that in 2020 Trump got 13% of the African American vote, and in 2016, 8%.)  In some homes it was the male member supporting Trump, in fewer, it was the woman.

Surprisingly, contrary to what the polls predicted; on election day a number of younger family members came to the door whispering that they voted for Harris.

Arab American and Palestinian Americans – we found mixed reactions from these voters, depending it seems on their age and how long they have been in the country. Some were going to be voting for Harris, some doing so reluctantly, more were going to sit the election out. None were going to be voting for Trump. Many while they would give us their choices on who they were supporting for President, were not inclined to do so when in came to Senate (Casey) and Congress (Cartwright or Wild, depending which district we were in).

Disconnect between volunteers and those being canvassed – thousands of wonderful people came to Pennsylvania to help “turn Pennsylvania Blue.” They were motivated by the existential threat of fascism posed by Donald Trump and the MAGites. They came as individuals, some in their own cars, some by bus, some flew in; others got on buses organized by Democratic elected officials and Democratic Clubs and the Working Families Party in New York; or similarly organized in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. . Volunteers came regularly from Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland the District of Columbia, some flew in from states to the west, a few, even from Canada. Others came on buses organized by their union – 1199, SEIU, UNITE-HERE, UFT, AFSCME, SAG-AFTRA, AFM and others.

Some of those being canvassed were also moved by the threat of fascism, but not many –remember these were infrequent voters, not regular voters. More were moved by the threat Trump posed to women and reproductive health and a ban on abortion. But canvassers were not prepared to take on the economic issues uppermost on those being canvassed – prices, inflation and jobs. There was no preparation of canvassers.

NEPA is low union density – seeing the busloads of union members coming in was great for this retired union organizer. It was a great pick-up for those of us at the mobilization point when the purple SEIU and 1199 buses rolled in. But when those same buses hit the neighborhoods, it was a different story. Union membership in this part of Pennsylvania is low. My neighbors in Monroe who are union members are often those who commute back to New York City, belonging to unions there, and voting in the city. Teachers here who are in a union are more likely to be in the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Some in our neighborhood are in IATSE, working jobs at venues like the arenas, casinos, stage shows, etc.

Canvassers expecting to hit the doors talking to their union brothers and sisters were disappointed.

The kicker – the last two weeks TV commercials for Matt Cartwright were disgusting. Matt Cartwright was our Congressperson. He was number ten on the GOP hit list. He was defeated.

The commercial starts out with Cartwright standing next to dam wall, saying we need this, it protects us from flooding. Next is a shot of the Texas-Mexico border wall, with Cartwright saying, ‘we need this, it protects us from murderers and rapists.’ Politico quotes Cartwright: “I took on my own party to oppose sanctuary cities and deport immigrants who commit crimes because it’s absolutely necessary for America to work,” said Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), as his ad showed footage of the wall.

This is the campaign literature we were handing out! We were telling voters that if Kamala is elected, she needs people in Congress like Matt Cartwright to have her back. Right!

When first elected to Congress, Cartwright supported sanctuary cities and was a member of the Progressive Caucus in Congress. Later he dropped out. Cartwright reminds me of members of the Populist Party in the late 1800s, who while elected as progressives, refused to take on racism, and later even made a pact with the Klan. Hopefully, Democrats like Cartwright won’t go that far. But positions like this are not how we are going to win back support for the Democratic Party.

Both Democratic Congressional Representatives, Susan Wild (PA-7) and Matt Cartwright (PA-8) were defeated.

So, how do we build a movement that combines people that live out here, with people that help and support their work, on issues that reach out to people that voted for Donald Trump?

Writing this I was reminded of movements I participated in many years ago. One such movement was Vietnam Summer in 1967, where we canvassed everyone who lived in the Evanston community, north of Chicago. We were planning to run a peace candidate against Congress member Donald Rumsfeld in the election the following year, and we were trying to get a sense of the community in a non-election year on the issue of the war in Viet Nam, and a halt to the bombing, for negotiations.

My parents had done similar work in their suburban community of Skokie for open housing in 1965 and 1966 while Martin Luther King was leading the open housing marches in Chicago. Skokie later passed an ordinance declaring that the suburban community was ending the practice of Jim Crow housing and the covenants attached to home sales. Similar efforts were undertaken in other Chicago suburban communities.

What if a coordinated campaign were undertaken with peace forces in Monroe County, working with students from local colleges, calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel with the money going to fund hospitals, schools, new housing construction and libraries in our country. Elements of a campaign could be a petition, teach-ins, forums, hearings, with the aim of resolutions in student bodies, churches, synagogues and mosques; and the getting of letters to the editor, elected officials to come out in support, etc.

A similar campaign could be undertaken to Save our Social Security and Medicare – We Paid For It.

If such campaigns could get off the ground, could we seek to get progressives once again from other states to “come to Pennsylvania,” stay with Penn Staters for the weekend or longer and help us return Pennsylvania to the Blue? Could we go back to door-to-door canvassing? Could we coordinate with the Monroe County Democratic Committee, and could we use the MiniVan app for all registered Democrats and Independents, regardless of when they voted?

Donald Trump was elected President with 50% of the national vote. In eight of those states, voters in their majorities voted to support women’s right to an abortion, putting it in their state constitution in seven of them. Voters in a number of states that voted for Trump also passed incredible economic measures, aimed at alleviating the pain which working people face. This shows that a cross electoral coalition and movement can be built, if we are smart, that can include Harris voters, Trump voters, and those that didn’t vote.

So, while Trump is president, while Republicans control the Senate and hold a slim majority in the House, we can still pressure Congress, and we must. We can still pressure state legislatures. And we must. We will continue to build a political movement in the streets, in the communities, and to win and take back the legislative halls. We will still defend immigrants and immigrant families, and we must. We will still defend our trans brothers and sisters, our trans neighbors and families, and we must. We will still defend all the gains that we now have and fight against all attempts to cut our basic social safety net, and we must.

Jay Schaffner is one of the founding moderators of ”Portside". He is a member of the State Committee of the ”New York Working Families Party". For twenty years he was the supervisor of the Recording Department of Local 802, American Federation of Musicians. He is now retired.

Source URL: https://portside.org/2024-12-07/was-very-close-election-trump-won-got-less-50-popular-vote-now-lets-act-and-build-it