When campaign strategists and historians look back at the 2024 election a number of important factors will help  explain how Donald Trump won a decisive victory, despite the slings and arrows of lawfare and even literal bullets flying in his direction. While there are many angles to examine, there are essentially five big factors that moved voters toward the once and future President.

Buyer’s Remorse

The advantage Trump had from the beginning of his 2024 campaign was   the possibility of comparing his four years in office with those of the Biden administration. Trump’s boisterous personality and dedicated supporters helped establish his base of support. But his first term record on border security, economic growth, and relative peace and stability abroad was always going to be the core of his appeal in a general election. Were it not for the bizarre set of circumstances that racked the nation with the onset of of COVID, President Trump may have easily won reelection in 2020.

In contrast, President Biden and Vice President Harris began their term amid that pandemic and immediately turned their efforts to the work of censoring speech and pursuing “health” mandates. Their quick reversal of Trump era border security and energy policy encouraged mass migration and higher prices for consumers. Throw in a botched withdrawal in Afghanistan, ratcheting up war between Ukraine and Russia, and chaos in the Middle East and you get record low approval ratings. The Trump 2024 message wrote itself. Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Democracy is on the Ballot

The talking point from the Biden White House, the DNC, and legacy media has long been that Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy.” Trump left the White House in January 2021, yet Americans were told that if given a second term he would never leave. The talking point from the left is simple: Trump and his supporters are fascists. Yet that accusation came from the same people who bullied tech companies into burying stories in searches, shutting down speech online, and weaponizing federal agencies against their political enemies.

At the same time, Americans were told—without evidence—to believe that President Joe Biden was operating at his peak. Even a casual observer could see him stumble on live television, but the politburo insisted he was energized to campaign for reelection until his performance in the June debate with Trump. Suddenly, he was no longer fit to run. Enter Vice President Harris, the candidate of joy. Without a single primary vote cast, Harris was gleefully nominated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Combine a record that is tough to defend, along with misleading the public about a sitting president’s wellbeing and then backdoor dealing to change the candidate and it is easy to see that the Democratic Party’s formula more than a few glaring flaws.

Trump’s Message Discipline

Trump himself deserves tremendous credit for staying focused on core issues in this election. Despite the opposition’s attempt to pin him on issues like abortion or Project 2025, Trump hammered home the big three: border security, economic prosperity, and peace and stability in foreign policy. Almost all issues fall under these banners, with some additional projects like “Make America Healthy Again” or keeping men out of women’s sport. These are all winning issues.

In contrast, outside of unrestricted abortion rights and expanding the housing market, it was difficult to identify what policies a Harris administration would pursue. When asked in what way her administration would be a departure from Biden’s, she could not produce an answer. Harris largely avoided the issue of illegal immigration and blamed high prices on grocery stores. She also stuck to Uniparty orthodoxy on the Ukraine War, while promoting mixed messages elsewhere. CNN even called her out on running pro-Israel ads in Pennsylvania and ceasefire ads in Michigan.

In short, Trump was clear and generally stayed on message.

The Decline of Legacy Media

The 2024 election may ultimately mark the demise of the legacy media. This includes network and cable news, along with traditional print media. The best efforts of these formerly dominant sources to disparage the former president and to prop up Kamala Harris, did little to sway voters.

Harris herself diligently avoided lengthy interviews—either with legacy outlets or the newer media. This raised suspicion that she had something to hide and the legacy media’s attempted “assists” in the form of selective editing, further damaged her credibility.

In contrast, Donald Trump and J. D. Vance fully embraced media accessibility. Vance appeared to even enjoy combative interviews with Sunday Morning news shows, CNN, and other traditional sources. Both Trump and Vance also relished the opportunity to sit down with podcast hosts with large, younger audiences. The podcast circuit is a much more authentic form of media, allowing voters to see candidates speak at great length in a conversational way. It’s entirely possible that the successive three hour sit downs with Joe Rogan put the Trump-Vance ticket over the top in the final weeks.

The legacy media is largely supported by voters 65 and up, while voters under the age of 40 consume nearly all their information on podcasts and social media platforms. Future campaigns (on both sides) will look back at the 2024 media strategy of both candidates and look to the Trump campaign as the new model moving forward.

Demographics are Not Destiny

In 2004, John Judis’s book The Emerging Democratic Majority argued that demographic, economic, and cultural shifts in America would result in a generational shift toward the Democratic Party. Essentially Judis’s thesis was that immigrant and minority populations, combined with highly educated suburban professionals and women, would help build the next era of party dominance similar to the way FDR built his New Deal Coalition in the 1930s.

After the election of Barack Obama in 2008, that new majority seemed like it would be the lasting future of American politics. Following the defeat of Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, the GOP launched its famous “autopsy” report claiming  they needed to focus on attracting Latino voters by softening their position on the border. Romney captured just 27 percent of the Latino vote in 2012. Twelve years later, Donald Trump captured 45 percent of the Latino vote and 54 percent of Latino men by calling for a stronger border and the deportation of illegal aliens. In the state of Florida, Miami-Dade County (70 percent Latino), broke 62/38 for Obama in 2012 and 55/44 for Trump in 2024.

In Dearborn, Michigan, an Arab majority city went from 88/11 Biden in 2020 to 43/36 Trump in 2024. Many Arabs and Muslims moved toward Trump because of his commitment to bring peace and stability to the Middle East and his emphatic opposition to culturally radical woke policies Trump’s broad, winning coalition includes 10 percent gains with voters under 30 and winning a 53 percent majority of white women. The Trump campaign was also able to mobilize unlikely pockets of voters, like the Amish in Pennsylvania and Orthodox Jews in New York. His support for strategic tariffs and domestic manufacturing have peeled off large swaths of blue-collar workers, including many union members. Several unions, including the Teamsters, decided against endorsing in the race in fear of a member revolt.

In the age of identity politics, Trump shattered assumptions about how to build a broader coalition of voters for the Republican Party. The GOP apparatus, despite a fundraising disadvantage, very effectively recruited voters and got them to the polls. Trump benefited from comparisons between his first term and that of Biden-Harris in a way no other Republican could have done. It was the candidate with a clear and consistent message to voters about the issues that they actually cared about who secured all the swing states and popular vote. Finally, by successfully overcoming the bias of the legacy media and capitalizing on new media platforms, Donald Trump has emerged as the next as well as former president of this country.