Since former President Trump won the election Tuesday, pundits have pored over exit polling, trying to deduce what put the former and future president over the top — in such a decisive way — to get a second term after voters declined to support him four years ago.
The top stories have revolved around how Trump wooed Latino voters, Black voters and young male voters.
CNN's exit polling, for example, found the former president managed to cut into Democrats’ support among male Latino voters, winning 54 percent of their support, up from 36 percent four years ago.
NBC News polling found Trump beat Vice President Harris by 2 percent among young male voters after President Biden beat Trump by 11 percent among young men four years ago.
Votes are still being counted, and exit polls rely on self-reporting from voters with no hard proof to back up their answers.
"I think this is a moment for people to express some caution," Fernando Tormos-Aponte, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, told The Hill. "This needs to be taken with a grain of salt."
But assuming polls are reflective of trends, he noted that some Latino voters appear to be moving away from the left.
"There was a shift to the right among Latinos primarily among Latino men," he said.
Black voters overwhelmingly voted for Harris, the exit polls show. More than 70 percent of Black women and Black men voted for Harris.
But anecdotally, the CNN exit polls found some shifts. For example, 25 percent of Black male voters in Pennsylvania went for Trump, compared to 10 percent in 2016.
Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour, a professor at North Carolina State University, an HBCU, said she discussed the election with her students Thursday morning.
"There were some students who brought up this issue," she told The Hill. "They told me, 'I know some students who voted for Trump.'"
"That's what they wanted to talk about," she added.
Mitchell-Walthour said it's important to put it into context.
"Of course, Black women showed up disproportionately for Vice President Harris," she said, adding Black men did as well. Black Americans still tend to have very high percentages of support for the Democratic Party."
Whitney Ross Manzo, a professor at Meredith College in North Carolina, said the low turnout rate among Democrats also likely had an impact.
"We already know that more men and particularly white men are Republicans," she said.
During her research on younger voters outside of the latest election, Manzo said she has seen a growing gap between young men and young women. The men tend to be more conservative, while women tend to be more liberal.
"Men are saying that 'my politics are totally different than the women support' and the women are saying 'All of the guys are conservative. There's no one to date.'"
The gender divide was more obvious in the campaigns themselves.
Harris supporters, who had been highlighting threats to abortion rights, set out an effort to remind wives that their ballots are secret and their husbands wouldn't know how they voted.
Meanwhile, Trump's campaign made overt appeals to male voters.
On the night of the election, as polls were about to close in some states, Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, tweeted: "If you know any men who haven’t voted, get them to the polls."
Tormos-Aponte agreed such "shifts" also could reflect low voter turnout. With fewer voters, the percentages are more easily skewed.
Democrats, in particular, may have had other reasons to not vote, like the ongoing War in Gaza.
He said turnout is an easier issue to address, rather than trying to sway voters who legitimately agree with Trump's platform and his ideas.
"It is possible there was a shift," he said. "If so, it is possible that Democrats need to reckon with it."
—Liz Crisp
