Fed up with the economy, Americans turn to Trump, giving him election sweep of swing states
With Arizona called last night, Donald Trump swept all seven swing states. Six of them flipped from Joe Biden's column in 2020. So far, the president-elect has won just over 50% of the popular vote and he made gains in key demographics, including the young, Latinos and women. Republicans took the Senate and are on track to control the House. Tuesday, more than 80% of all the nation's countries moved toward the right. The shift is decisive and leaves Democrats arguing over how they misread the people. To understand what just happened, we went to Pennsylvania, one of the places that made all the difference.
Political pilgrims, seeking a vision of the future, travel to Bethlehem.
Chris Borick: We're in Bethlehem which is the heart of Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania, a county along the Delaware River. Midsize, couple hundred thousand people, mix of urban, suburban, rural areas all in a pretty centered location here in eastern Pennsylvania.
And pretty perfect for picking presidents. For 25 years, Chris Borick has been conducting one of the leading polls of Pennsylvania voters. He's a professor of political science at Muhlenberg College, next to Northampton County.
Chris Borick: It was an Obama county. Then it was a Trump county. And then it was a Biden county, and in 2024 it once again is a Trump county.
Scott Pelley: How did Trump win?
Chris Borick: It's a great question. You know first of all I think he had the winds on his side here, from talking to voters. They're, they're not in a great mood. They're not in the good place. There's lots of good things happening in Northampton County. The economy's good. But they're feeling things in their lives that really troubled them. Housing prices here. Grocery prices. I can't tell you how many times when I talk to people about elections this year, they referenced eggs and the price of eggs.
Egg prices doubled and featured on the menu of discontent. At the Nazareth Diner near Bethlehem, no one sees a sunnyside to inflation, high interest rates and housing prices. The average tab here in 2020 was $24. Now it's 38. And that's the election in an eggshell.
Roz Werkheiser: The prices have went up, obviously because the food cost. And for a family of, like, four people, five people, I have them come in and say, "Oh my God, I spent $100 with the tip for breakfast? That's crazy." Which it is.
Roz Werkheiser: Yeah, 7:30 we open, 7:30 to 10.
Roz Werkheiser was a waitress 25 years ago. Now she runs the place.
Roz Werkheiser: My mother used to always say, "Gotta vote Democrat. You know, they're for the poor people."
Scott Pelley: You grew up in a Democratic household…
Roz Werkheiser: Yes.
Scott Pelley: But you just voted for Donald Trump.
Roz Werkheiser: Yes.
Scott Pelley: Inflation is down by more than half, interest rates are falling, mortgage rates are falling, wages are going up. Are you not feeling that?
Roz Werkheiser: I don't feel it. No, I don't feel it. I don't feel it at all. Everybody I talk to, nobody's wages went up. But we had four years of this. I mean, four years. Gas was super high. Yes, it just went down now, but what-- the past four-- three and a half years it was up.
Anthony Salvanto: The party in power is going to get blamed by a certain portion of the electorate for economic conditions that they don't like. And sometimes it's just as simple as that.
Anthony Salvanto is CBS News executive director of elections and surveys.
Scott Pelley: Who were the Trump voters?
Anthony Salvanto: People who believed that things would be better them being better financially under Donald Trump in large measure because they recalled a time before the pandemic when they said the economy was good. And that's how they were benchmarking their financial comparison. Number two, don't forget about the MAGA base. There's the Republican base and then there's the MAGA base within the Republican party. These folks have a very personal connection to Donald Trump. Many of them turn out to vote just because he is on the ticket.
Trump swept the swing states but, narrowly-- about 1% in Michigan, about 2% in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Scott Pelley: Does this election represent a major realignment of the American electorate? Or is it just an election with its own issues?
Anthony Salvanto: I think it's a shift but it's an important one. And not just in the battleground states but in places like counties in New York, in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania. And I think it also speaks to the kinds of changes in constituencies that we saw. Democrats didn't do as well, Republicans did better, among young voters, among Latino voters.
Leslie Sanchez: The historic support that Donald Trump got from the Latino community has been building over a series of election cycles.
Leslie Sanchez is a Republican political analyst and contributor to CBS News.
Scott Pelley: What did you see on election night, in terms of Latino support for Republicans all across the country?
Leslie Sanchez: You have second and third generation Latino families who are living now in the middle-class, working-class families, very sensitive to inflation and prices and very sensitive in their communities to an open border. Those two pressures together created a community which wanted change. And they fundamentally felt if you talk to them that the Democratic Party had left them.
Donald Trump's election day support among Latinos jumped 14 points.
Scott Pelley: You voted for whom?
Ronald Corales: I voted for Donald Trump.
Latinos are 20% of the U.S. population now and the fastest growing community in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Ronald Corales opened a barbershop 12 years ago. Then a second, now a third. Some of his 20 employees changed their minds about Republicans for the first time.
Scott Pelley: Democrats would've expected to do really well with Latino voters.
Ronald Corales: Yes.
Scott Pelley: Donald Trump made a lot of inroads --
Ronald Corales: Yes.
Scott Pelley: -- in this election, and I wonder why you think that is.
Ronald Corales: The economy. The economy. I've been talking over the past couple of years to, like, people at one point, they were, like, so against him because of the comments or whatever the media was saying. But-- you know, a lotta-- lot-- a lotta the Latinos are working-class people. They have families. You know, they help their families, even outside the country as well.
Corales' late father immigrated from Peru in 1985 and was so thrilled to be in America he named his son for the president. Today, Ronald finds some common ground with Trump, even on immigration.
Ronald Corales: We still need immigration, but if we could do it-- the legal way, and hopefully President Trump will bring some kind of legalization to those-- to those immigrants, because there's still a lotta good people out there. That they're willing to work and continue dreaming with the American dream.
Leslie Sanchez: Speaking to families that live along the U.S.-Mexico border, this has been a cultural and economic relationship on the frontera, like, right there in the border area for over 100 years. But it no longer is balanced. This flood of migrants coming across, they feel that its lawlessness is putting tremendous pressure on border patrol, first responders, and their families and their municipalities.
Scott Pelley: Did Democrats take Latinos for granted?
Leslie Sanchez: Absolutely. I would think the party of my parents, the party of my grandparents, just assumed that Latinos, as the community grew, and our population grew that we would just naturally fall in line with the Democratic Party. And in the last 10 years about 10 percent more Hispanic Americans have moved into the middle class, they are much more sensitive to these economic issues. We live on the margins still so small ripples in inflation really have a dramatic impact.
Scott Pelley: Do you think this is a lasting change beyond this election?
Leslie Sanchez: I would argue absolutely. So, the question becomes, if Trump can really meet those promises, bring inflation down, make things more affordable, and make these families feel more financially secure, he's going to have an ally for probably several election cycles going forward.
Scott Pelley: When all the votes are counted, Vice President Harris is going to be several million votes short of where Joe Biden was in 2020. Why?
Anthony Salvanto: The Harris campaign lost the turnout game in many respects. We all knew going in that one of the keys here were people who don't always vote, new voters, people who skipped the election in 2020. The Trump campaign did a better job than the Harris campaign at turning them out. Those 2020 non-voters broke for Donald Trump.
And Harris' turnout failed even on an issue Democrats were sure would be compelling—one that helped them in the 2022 midterms.
Anthony Salvanto: They thought they would do better with women. They did not. They thought that the abortion issue would drive more people to the Harris side. It did not.
Another part of Harris' shortfall came after an advertising blitz targeting her support for transgender rights. Republicans spent $143 million on the transgender campaign to cast Democrats as out of touch.
Susan Wild: The party as a whole spends too much time in places like Washington, and New York, and Chicago and doesn't really spend time listening to people like my constituents.
Democrat Susan Wild is Northampton County's representative in Congress— and she's thinking about the Democratic losses.
Susan Wild: If you are struggling to pay your rent or feed your kids-- you don't have the privilege of thinking about things like LGBTQ rights. Unless you've got somebody in your own family that's personally affected, you don't have the luxury of thinking about reproductive rights. Unfortunately, I think our party needs to figure out that not everybody is just thinking about these very important social issues.
Wild has served since 2018 and Tuesday, she ran for a fourth term against Republican Ryan Mackenzie. She lost by 1.2% to a Trump disciple who had insisted that the 2020 election was stolen.
Scott Pelley: We have a picture of you from 2021, lying in the floor of the House Chamber as Donald Trump supporters were trying to smash their way in. And I'm curious, did you imagine in this election that January 6th or Trump's felony convictions would have been disqualifying in the minds of most voters?
Susan Wild: Did I think it would change some people's minds? Yes. And I think it did. But I didn't think that was going to be the pivotal thing that would cost him this election.
Scott Pelley: Why not?
Susan Wild: Back in 2021, I would've said, "There's no way he could ever run for president again." But over the last three years, I kind of assessed that it just wasn't going to be a disqualifier.
Scott Pelley: Why would Democrats not turn out in the numbers they had before?
Susan Wild: I do think that there was a lack of enthusiasm about the top of the ticket. That part I think a lot of us didn't gauge. And just thinking that people were gonna turn out to vote against Donald Trump was a miscalculation.
Many Trump supporters told us they cringe at the things he says and the things he's done but the economy, to them, is more urgent. And there's something more-- a connection—an emotion really—they find hard to put into words.
Scott Pelley: Did you feel like he was someone you knew?
Roz Werkheiser: Yes.
Scott Pelley: Did you feel that he knew you?
Roz Werkheiser: I feel he knows the American people and the working class, yes.
The working class of the 20th century built Bethlehem into the second largest steel maker in the world. But today, the old mills are silent. Pennsylvania pollster Chris Borick told us a new economy and new politics are on the forefront of change.
Chris Borick: It was such a Democratic place for such a long time, and that Democratic Party doesn't exist. Those Democratic voters don't exist the way they long did in Northampton County. They have to re-vision what it's going to look like. Does that center on candidates? Does it center on issues? The answer is all of those things.
Produced by Maria Gavrilovic, Henry Schuster and Nicole Young. Associate producers: Alex Ortiz, Kristin Steve and Sarah Turcotte. Broadcast associates: Michelle Karim and Georgia Rosenberg. Edited by Warren Lustig, Peter M. Berman.