On Tuesday, November 5, America headed to the polls to cast their ballots for the next President of the United States.Voters also decided on other positions in government, including senators, representatives, judges, supreme court justices, and more.
As the votes of the public were counted, many unpredicted results emerged, with some votes yielding surprising results in comparison to polls prior to the election.
As it is widely known, former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance are now the Presidential and Vice Presidential elects for the United States and are set to be inaugurated on January 20, 2025.
According to polling website 270toWin, as of November 4, polls predicted Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the election in popular votes by 1.2%. After the election took place, statistics from NBC revealed that Trump was the one to take the popular vote by an unpredicted 1.6% lead. Not only was this not the forecasted result, but the margin by which the popular vote was won was incorrect in the polling as well.
Results in battleground states are always up in the air by virtue of their nature, however even results in those states proved to be different from what polling suggested. The battleground states for this year’s election included Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
As of November 4, 270toWin predicted that Michigan and Wisconsin would swing towards Harris and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina would be won by Trump. Pennsylvania was evenly split when polled.
Trump swayed all seven battleground states in the actual election. According to Politico, six of these states even swayed against Trump in the previous election in 2020.
More locally, some of the results that stemmed from the New Jersey ballots proved to be unpredicted as well. In keeping with its usual pattern, New Jersey ended up giving its 14 electoral votes to the Democratic party. That being said, the margins were closer than expected. Originally predicted to lead by a 16.4% margin, Harris won New Jersey by only 5.9% in the actual election.
Overall, the 2024 Presidential election yielded many varying results, making it an incredibly memorable and historic election for the United States.
