James Johnson is co-founder of JL Partners. He was the Senior Opinion Research and Strategy Adviser to Theresa May as Prime Minister, 2016-2019. .
The 2024 race has challenged expectations and upended conventional wisdom, with Donald Trump now leading projections across the board, including in pivotal swing states. (Most expectations; JL Partners, my firm, is set to have the most accurate election forecast).
With Fox News calling Pennsylvania for Trump moments ago, he is firmly poised for victory. Harris has no path to win.
One of the most significant revelations from last night’s results is Trump’s success in assembling a cross-demographic coalition. Unlike in previous elections, the 2024 outcome reflects a clear message from voters across racial and geographic lines.
Trump’s strong showing among non-white voters has turned traditional voting patterns upside down; NBC News estimates he won approximately one in three non-white voters—some, like Rory Stewart, thought these people would not turn out for Trump. I saw them in focus group after focus group, again and again, turning to Trump over frustrations with the economy, the border, and what they saw as a Democratic Party trading their votes for those of liberal, white women.
Alongside this, rural America delivered for Trump. Counties across states like Pennsylvania and Michigan recorded significant jumps in rural turnover.
In some affluent suburbs, Harris did make strides. Still, these were counterbalanced by Trump’s rural dominance and his appeal to new voting blocs, challenging assumptions about the impact of female suburban voters.
What are the ramifications for Britain? That is way too big a topic for an article written at 2 am from the corner of a New York City office, but a couple of quick points.
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump might be very far apart, but I wouldn’t necessarily count on a bad relationship. Yes, the Trump campaign was infuriated by what they saw as election interference by the Labour Party in their staff helping Kamala Harris. But Trump is a negotiator and a do-er who wants relationships he can turn into wins for himself and America. If that means getting close to Starmer, he will. The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, has built a genuinely good relationship with the Trump team and their outragers.
We should expect an attempt at a settlement in Ukraine. It is anyone’s bet how that one goes, but chances are this will lead to tension with Europe and the UK. The understated scenario I have heard talked about is that the deal Trump pushes will not be good enough for Putin and that talks could drive to a standstill due to Putin’s recalcitrance rather than Zelensky’s, as is commonly assumed.
Finally, Nigel Farage just became even more important. Trump will name-check him, and you can bet he is third on his visit list just after the King and the Prime Minister when he visits the UK. The Reform leader may need to be cautious: Trump is still viewed negatively by Brits.
What of Kemi Badenoch and the Conservative Party? If relations do collapse between Starmer and Trump, she can present herself as the pragmatist in the room.
But I think she has a better opportunity still. Trump’s election taps into something, and a message Americans were desperate to send – one from a new, diverse coalition of white voters and non-white voters alike. On the need to restrict immigration, on the need for the economy to work for ordinary people, on their desire not to see their family values overtaken by what seem like outlandish far-left absurdities.
We should not over-stretch the similarities. But perhaps a new global narrative is developing. People, regardless of their skin color, share the same concerns about the pace of immigration, the pace of social change, and the pace of what many see as ultra-liberal values over-riding common sense.
A 64-year-old Asian American man and first-generation immigrant who I met in Detroit last week best sums it up. He told me he “came to this country because it’s the greatest. I don’t want to lose the country I came to.”
We are not together for the first black female President of the United States. But perhaps the first black female Conservative leader can harness some of the same energy as Donald Trump in uniting a new coalition of common-sense voters behind the Tories.