The 2024 presidential election blew up everyone’s expectations. Donald Trump’s transformation from national pariah to winning every swing state and the popular vote came as a surprise to many, both inside and outside journalism.
Early in my career as a reporter, one source told me that people who look into crystal balls tend to eat a lot of glass. Needless to say, I had a hefty side of glass with my Thanksgiving dinner this year.
What I saw coming
I did get some things right in this election cycle — like when I predicted that Nikki Haley would not pose a big threat to Trump but would hurt Ron DeSantis; or when I said that Vice President Kamala Harris would pick Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. And I was certainly correct when I predicted that Latinos would continue their rightward shift, which would hurt Democrats in western states and give Trump a big advantage.
But, as with every perpetually online pundit, some predictions whiffed. Here are five things I got wrong — and why.
Who Trump would pick as his running mate
Back in February, I attended the Conservative Political Action Conference. Since Trump was all but guaranteed to be the Republican presidential nominee, the conference turned into a running-mate cattle call.
Given Trump’s difficulties with courting suburban white women, particularly those with college degrees, I wrote then about how I believed Trump would likely pick a woman to run with him, like New York Representative Elise Stefanik or Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota.
I also speculated that, given his overtures to non-white working-class voters, he might instead pick a Black running mate like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Noem and Stefanik both spoke at CPAC and gave compelling speeches. Of course, I never would have imagined that Noem would reveal in her own book that she shot her dog Cricket — a move that essentially ended her running mate bid — though she does seem to be on her way to a cushy job as Homeland Security secretary. Meanwhile, Stefanik has ended up as the president-elect’s ambassador to the United Nations.
In the end, Trump picked Senator JD Vance to be his running mate, which leads to another aspect of this race that took me by surprise.
JD Vance’s political power
When he spoke at CPAC, Vance chose not to deliver a speech; instead, he had a moderated conversation about Ukraine. Hardly the kind of stuff that riles up the crowd.
When Trump picked him to be his running mate, I figured it was an overwhelming sign of confidence, since Vance has never been that great of an electoral performer. Vance lagged in the GOP primary polls when he ran for the Republican nomination for Senate in Ohio and owes much of his win to Trump’s endorsement. Even when he clinched that race, he underperformed Trump in the state.
Later on, his comments about “childless cat ladies” and his views on abortion made me believe he could be a worse drag on Trump than Sarah Palin was to John McCain.
But Vance was able to rehabilitate his image with a solid debate performance against Walz. In the days and weeks after, he served to be an asset, particularly with young men.
Bob Casey’s performance in Pennsylvania’s Senate race
Back in May, I traveled to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to profile Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. I wrote about how Casey — the son of the beloved Democratic Governor Bob Casey Sr., the staunchest anti-abortion voice in the Demcratic Party —had changed his position on abortion in the aftermath of Dobbs v Jackson.
Casey’s famous name, coupled with the fact that he is a consummate retail politician, made me think he would likely be a shoo-in for re-election against Republican Dave McCormick and an asset for Joe Biden, who also hails from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I also thought that since McCormick had lost the 2022 Republican Senate primary to Mehmet Oz and had previously espoused a hardline opposition to abortion, he might be in trouble.
It turns out Casey would lose in a tight race to McCormick, as his challenger poured in money and ran a fairly flawless campaign. Casey’s loss also showed that Democrats likely won’t be able to fire up voters with abortion policy in the future to the degree they have in the past.
Trump’s abortion strategy
Democrats avoided disaster in the 2022 midterms thanks to the Dobbs v Jackson decision that overturned Roe v Wade. In response, Trump insisted he would leave abortion to the states.
When the Alabama Supreme Court endangered in vitro fertilization, Trump came out in favor of having insurance companies or the federal government pay for IVF. In response, I wrote that nobody believed Trump’s wishy-washy claims on abortion rights. I figured that Democrats would continue to see him as the person who nominated the Supreme Court justices that killed Roe, and he’d rankle anti-abortion conservatives like Lindsey Graham and activists by carving a third way.
But abortion did not become an albatross around Trump’s neck. States like Arizona, Montana and Missouri all voted for Trump while also codifying abortion rights.
That being said, Trump will now face a difficult situation: Plenty of his diehard supporters, including white and Latino evangelicals, will want him to take some steps to restrict abortion access. But many swing voters will likely respond poorly and punish Republicans for any action the administration might take.
Kamala Harris’s performance in North Carolina
The final weekend of the campaign, I traveled to North Carolina to follow Trump and Harris as they both held final rallies in the Tar Heel State.
While plenty of people attended Trump’s rally in Gastonia, I also noticed that plenty of people left early. By contrast, Harris had an incredible amount of energy. And I noticed plenty of African American voters at Harris’s rally, which made me think she was doing well enough with Black voters that she might get the requisite amount of votes to flip the state.
Thinking now about Trump’s rally, I figure most of the people who left early had already voted and made up their mind and just wanted to say they were there for the final gas. By contrast, yes, Harris had plenty of energy — but perhaps that support was overestimated in the face of Biden’s lackluster early rally performances.
Or maybe there’s only so much rallies can tell us about election results.