COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former President Donald Trump's projected win in the presidential race shows he gained traction in several key demographic groups, particularly in battleground states, where he made ground with several groups.
According to an Edison Research exit poll, 54% of Hispanic men nationwide voted for Trump, an 18-point increase from 2020. Trump also won 42% of the vote among 18- to 29-year-olds, up by 6 points.
“Latino men apparently broke away from [Vice President Kamala Harris] and went to Donald Trump in numbers that were significantly larger than I would have anticipated,” said Kirk Randazzo, a University of South Carolina political science professor.
Randazzo also says that Harris also received lower-than-expected support from female voters, who still favor Harris, but by a smaller margin than expected.
“Early projections indicate she got about 10 to 15 points higher among women than Donald Trump did,” Randazzo said. "I would have predicted that number to be 20 to 25 points, maybe even higher than that."
Trump also capitalized on support from white male voters without college degrees, a group that typically has low voter turnout but showed up in high numbers for Trump this election cycle.
According to Randazzo, these trends were influential in battleground states, especially North Carolina, who say split-ticket voting. While Trump turned the state red again, voters chose a Democratic governor, Josh Stein.
"That's a split ticket kind of voting that you don't often see in in this kind of election," said Randazzo.
A CBS exit poll revealed that Harris retained support from Black voters, though her margin was narrower than Biden’s in 2020. In North Carolina, Trump doubled his support among Black male voters compared to the previous election.