Trump’s heir, invisible money and more – Carswellfamilyfoundation

Voters who view the opposition as dangerous and dystopian, a threat to democracy itself, will not perceive the loss as a national consensus. They’ll likely see this as the opening bell for the next campaign.

It’s not just about winners and losers.

amazing 2024 elections It features a sitting president who retreated and a former president who returned. An innovative contender who seized the moment. A third-party candidate with a famous last name who rose and fell and then began to emerge as a player again. Two attempts. AND upcoming polls in American history.

This year’s contest will have significant implications for the country’s political landscape.

To get you started, here are four of them.

National debate? It’s not done yet.

Winning the election will not resolve the dispute.

In the last three elections, the divisions in American politics have been sharp and deep – an explosive combination that complicates the winner’s attempts to claim a mandate.

How divided are we? In 2016, Republican Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote count but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. In 2020, the race was so tight in key states that it took the remainder of the election week to determine Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

This time, final polls Across the country and in the seven biggest swing states, neither Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris has a clear lead in any place, with one just outside the margin of error reflecting the uncertainties of the polls. (The most important states are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.)

By more than 3-1, voters said they were dissatisfied or worse with the way the country was developing. In surveys by Edison Research, seven in 10 said they were either dissatisfied or dissatisfied with the state of the country, underscoring a deep desire for change.

At almost 2-1, they said they were worse, not better, than they were four years ago.

A sign of this turmoil: Except when presidents died in office, the United States has not elected consecutive, single-term presidents since the late 19th century—as we now have with Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

Today, voters who view the opposition as dangerous and dystopian, a threat to democracy itself, are unlikely to see defeat as reflecting a new national consensus. They’re more likely to see it as the opening bell for their next campaign.

The Latino earthquake has shaken racial politics.

The coalitions that make up both major parties are changing, and none is as important as the shift of some Latino voters to the GOP.

Democrats have long relied on voters of color for their core support. But in this campaign Trump achieved significant increase among Latino voters and more modest among black voters, especially men.

What this means: Gender, education and class, along with race and ethnicity, are becoming major factors in determining which party and which candidate Latino and black voters support.

In 2016, Trump had roughly 28% of Hispanic voters, trailing Hillary Clinton by 40 percentage points. This time around, he cut that deficit in half in pre-election polls, now sitting at around 37%.

This trend, if it continues, will increase the diversity of the Republican coalition and force Democrats to appeal to more white voters to win across the country.

The ranks of Latino voters, already significant, are growing rapidly.

About 36.2 million Latinos were eligible to vote this year, and they made up 50% of newly eligible voters following the 2020 election, according to a report from the nonpartisan Latino Donor Collaborative. These numbers will grow rapidly. One in four American children is Hispanic.

In battleground states, Hispanics make up 27% of the electorate in Arizona and 21% in Nevada.

Their political influence was marked by a furor after comic made fun of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of trash” when he spoke at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden last week. Harris proclaimed insult to the stump, and her campaign cut an ad using the clip.

Trump and his campaign disavowed these statements. “I love Latinos,” he said at a rally in Albuquerque last week.

Speaking of swing states, about half a million Puerto Ricans live in Pennsylvania, the most important of them all.

It’s raining (invisible) money.

The growing path of election financing remains in the dark.

The 2024 presidential campaign has set fundraising records, including $1 billion raised by Harris in the first three months of her truncated campaign. Under federal law, donations to campaigns and political parties are limited in amount and subject to public disclosure.

But the biggest increase in 2024 election spending has come from Super PACS and other outside organizations that have no spending limits and are increasingly using ways to hide the names of those giving money.

Independent spending groups spent at least $4.5 billion. according to OpenSecretsa nonpartisan group that tracks campaign finance. That’s more than $1.5 billion more than the 2020 campaign.

While outside spending favored Democrats in 2020, it is tilting toward Republicans this time around.

Super PACs are required to disclose their donors, but 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups do not. These groups can funnel money into Super PACS and be listed as contributors, which is one way to avoid identifying the original donors.

The amounts involved can be staggering. Chicago business manager Barre Seid donated $1.6 billion to a 501(c)(4) group led by conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo in 2020, believed to be the largest political donation in history. This year, billionaire entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg reportedly not only donated $19 million to the top super PAC supporting Harris, but also another $50 million to his 501(c)(4), Future Forward USA Action.

Efforts to figure out who is spending what on campaigns were undermined by a 2010 Supreme Court decision called Citizens United. The court ruled 5 to 4 that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts on elections regardless of campaigns, saying it is political speech protected by the First Amendment.

Since then, costs have risen and disclosures have dimmed.

Win or lose, JD Vance will win.

Trump has changed the Republican Party in his image. By your choice Ohio Senator J.D. Vance As his running mate, he also named a political heir who would sooner or later lead the MAGA movement.

With this choice, Trump rejected the advice of those who urged him to broaden the appeal of the GOP ticket to voters who were not already on his side – for example, choosing former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who has posed the most serious challenge to his nomination.

Instead, Trump chose a fellow populist and a fellow pugilist who challenges the old guard establishment and the media. His best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy” chronicles his childhood growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio and made him a culture hero to some.

There will likely be an ideological battle over the post-Trump Republican Party, fought between establishment Republicans who opposed Trump and the populists who aligned themselves with him. But GOP operations nationally and in most states are now controlled by MAGA supporters—people who will presumably pay heed to Trump’s views on what and who should come next.

To recap: Vance is 40 years old, about half Trump’s age (he’s 78) and a generation younger than Harris, who’s 60. In 2060, with nine presidential elections ahead, Vance will still be younger than Trump is today.