Correction: As of 14/11/24 Trump’s total vote is just under 76 million and Harris’s just under 73 million. That means Trump’s vote has risen by 2 million while the drop in Democrat support is around 8 million.

It is important to base analysis on facts not wishful thinking, so, once the final final count is in, I will rewrite this blog.

Nevertheless, the main argument remains valid.

A small increase in the Trump vote, perhaps 2% or so up on 2020, is not a surge, and remains a very thin mandate for the sweeping changes he intends to bring in. He is standing on thin ice and it is likley that the measures he will take will blow up in his face.

The drop in Democrat support, at around 10% of their 2020 vote, remains very large.

The media chatter about fundamental realignments in US politics has an air of the UK in 2019, but where is Boris Johnson now?

Between the 2020 election and the 2024 election, with nearly all votes now counted, Donald Trump’s vote FELL by a nearly a million, from 74.2 million to 73.4 million*. This is not the surge the media are reporting.

But, the Democrat vote slumped by 12 million, from 81 million to 69 million. So, this was more a Democrat defeat than a Trump victory.

In some ways it is a Republican victory despite Donald Trump.

As this was based on a squeeze on worker’s living standards with real wages lower now than when Biden was elected, and an anger and fear about the slide in US global standing (Biden first lost significant support at the time of the Afghanistan withdrawal) Trump will find that he is standing on thinner ice than the media are projecting because his economic policy of tax cuts for the rich and tariffs on imports will hit living standards even harder, mass deportations will spark mass anger, as will the devastation brought by wholesale environmental deregulation, not to mention the impacts of letting RFK loose on health.

With Republican control of the Senate, the House and the Supreme Court, there will be no checks and balances on this, so the madness will be able to run in full spate until at least the mid term elections in 2 years time. At which point, its likely that the reaction will be severe.

The decision of the Democrats to campaign on what might be called a “Red Wall” strategy,

• trying to appeal to conservative leaning voters with conservative leaning policies on immigration,
• having campaign sessions with Liz Cheney,
• keeping quiet about climate – even after the Florida hurricanes –
• remaining muleishly pro-Israel, to the extent that Bill Clinton, campaigning in Michegan, argued that the Palestinians had it coming because they didn’t agree to the bantustan he proposed at Camp David, proved incapable of holding the base they had in 2020.

This parallels the experience of the UK Labour Party, which has relentlessly carried out the same orientation since Keir Starmer was elected leader, with the result that Labour amassed half a million votes fewer in the General Election this year than in 2019 (down from 10.2 million to 9.7 million) only managing to get a huge majority in the House of Commons because the Conservatives had presided over a decline in livings standards even greater than that in the US over the same period, and the right wing vote, for the first time in modern history, was split right down the middle between the Tories and Reform; putting this governmnet too on very thin ice – as local council by elections are showing sharply.

The core lesson for the UK is that an incumbent government that proves incapable of at least maintaining living standards is going to be kicked out. “Its the economy, stupid”.

• These figures are correct as of 8/11/24. The few votes that remain to be counted will not make a substantial difference. Trump’s vote will be about the same as last time. The Democrat vote will be substantially down on 2020.