The futile pursuit of realignment elections

Elliott Morris observes that the 2025 electoral results are inconsistent with the idea that the 2024 election represented a fundamental realignment of American politics, and in particular toward a considerably younger and more racially diverse Republican coalition:

It is a matter of fact that Donald Trump won the 2024 election in large part by shrinking the vote margins for Kamala Harris among non-white, working-class, and young voters, relative to past Democratic nominees. 

But the interpretation of Trump’s 2024 win is a matter of opinion. Some, like the Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini, have argued Trump’s inroads with traditionally left-leaning voters represented a fundamental realignment in American politics. He is not alone in arguing this. Many in the Democratic Party, too, interpreted Trump’s 2024 win as a historic blow — the performance of a coalition on life support. On marchesthe emerging Republican majority. Left-liberalism is dead.

Other analysts have been more skeptical. On the subject of realignment, political scientists have tended to land on the answer “it’s complicated.” For one thing, they argue, the national shift away from Democrats in 2024 stemmed mostly from non-ideological and non-Trump variables, such as inflation and the pandemic. Longer-term trends, too, have been pushing voters toward either party regardless of what nominees say or do, including the sorting of conservatives, regardless of race, into the Republican Party. Yes, residual group-level swings exist, but they are mostly small. Trump doesn’t look so indomitable in Dec. 2024 if you account for all the variables that set him up for victory (and it was a small victory at that).

It is clear now that claims of a fundamental realignment of American politics have been highly exaggerated. The 2024 election is best seen as an anti-incumbent electionstemming from economic anxiety, most but not entirely driven by rising inflation during Joe Biden’s presidency. The elections held this week were a continuation of the anti-incumbent sentiment from last year — this time directed toward the new party in charge. The biggest difference between 2024 and 2025 is that Republicans are running the country now, instead of the Democrats.

This is also consistent with the “people are just unhappy” thesis.

David Mayhew wrote a good book about how both political scientists and journalists were always rushing to find elections to declare the a pivot point for realignment like 1932, even though when you looked closely only 1932 ever met any meaningful set of criteria. Realignment happens, of course, but as a gradual and fiftul process. The same tendency can be seen in the tendency to over-interpret the results of presidential elections. What’s tricky is that of course some trends do prove durable, but you can never tell from any particular snapshot.

And we’re also seeing that this can become an anti-self-fulfilling prophecy. To some degree in this context thermostatic public opinion represents an inherent distrust with incumbents, but it’s compounded by overreaching. A caretaker Trump administration that had the same policies at the southern border but used a relatively light and focused hand on internal enforcement, implemented token rather than systematic tariffs, didn’t suddenly demolish the East Wing to build a tacky monument to the president’s ego,* etc. could probably have held on to more of the demographic gains Trump achieved in 2024, but that’s not what we’re getting.

*It could certainly be entirely a coincidence that Trump disapproval ratings took a notable upward tick after images of the destruction of the East Wing began to circulate widely. But contrary to many of the nation’s Savvy pundits, I don’t think so. Symbolism matters, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see why this one could be so redolent.