FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) – The 2024 Presidential election being as close as it was surprised a local political science professor who did not think it was going to be a close race.
Mark Wolf, a Purdue Fort Wayne Political Science Professor, says he was not surprised Donald Trump won.
“We saw a relatively high turnout, engagement, and overall kind of sour mood based on inflation and based other situations,” says Wolf. “It’s not a surprise that the incumbent party would kind of take a hit.”
The hit was losing the White House and Senate.
At this moment, Trump is winning the popular vote by more than four million.
However, not all states are done counting.
“I don’t know if many people expected the popular vote to be this close or if he might win it, we still have to wait to see how that counts out in California and everything. I do think it was noteworthy how strongly he ran across different demographics,” says Wolf.
The numbers show that Harris underperformed Joe Biden’s 2020 numbers in urban areas, and Trump overperformed his numbers from 2020.
“When inflation hits, it oftens hits people in the working class who also tend to live in urban areas particularly hard, so it might demobilize them in a way or cause them to switch over to Donald Trump or a third-party candidate,” says Wolf.
Wolf says that it is still noteworthy how the Harris campaign was able to get this close in such a short time.
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