Donald Trump has now been announced as the 47th president of the United States of America after winning key swing states.
He is also set to become the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years.
The 2024 presidential election saw Trump flip the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin while making inroads in historically Democrat states.
But what did his campaign do to ensure this win?
Targeted campaign adverts
Political adverts were a key element of both the Trump and Harris election campaigns with an estimated $10.5 billion spent in total on campaign ads in the 2024 election cycle.
Trump’s media campaign largely focused on Harris, using footage and soundbites from her 2019 presidential campaign to present a specific picture of her in the eyes of voters.
Trump’s “She’ll ban fracking” advert promised key swing state Pennsylvania, which has a significant energy sector and a large population of blue-collar workers, that he will protect clean energy fracking and the jobs that it creates there.
The ad used clips from Harris’ 2019 presidential campaign where she told a climate activist that “There is no question I’m in favour of banning fracking”, to present her as opposing fracking in Pennsylvania, despite her since changing this view.
Trump’s campaign ads also made efforts to resonate with people of colour, and black men in particular.
An NBC News exit poll found that American voters were less divided along racial lines than in previous presidential elections, with one in three people of colour voting for Trump.
The campaign’s “I’m not with her” video, posted to Trump’s YouTube channel five days ago, contained a compilation of men of colour defending their reasons why they would not be voting for Harris.
The men emphasised some of the Trump campaign’s key issues, including promoting economic growth, bringing manufacturing back into the country and protecting traditional values.
The Trump campaign’s closing advert, titled “We fight”, portrayed a bleak picture of the past four years in American politics; a landscape where freedom of speech was under attack, religious values were “labelled shameful”, the country’s borders were surrendered and paycheques dwindled. It also featured the debunked claim that Olympic boxer Imane Khelif was a “man”.
The ad campaign ended on a powerful note about resilience, with a clip of Trump getting to his feet after the assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally in July.
Rallies in swing states and partisan Democrat states
Both Trump and Harris heavily targeted swing states with rallies in the days up to the election.
Trump’s rally in Warren, Michigan on Friday 1 November reiterated his hardline views on issues like immigration, while Harris, at appearances in Wisconsin on the same day, emphasised her aims to build a political consensus.
Trump was also keen to hone in on specific issues relating to the swing states. At multiple rallies and events across Pennsylvania towards the end of October, Trump focused on the issue of fracking, emphasising its importance for the state in terms of providing jobs and energy to Pennsylvanian families.
His 2024 campaign also saw Trump orchestrate large rallies in traditionally Democrat-leaning states, including a large-scale event at Madison Square Garden in New York on 27 October where he presented the Republican Party as the party of ‘inclusion’ and promised to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”.
Other speakers at the rally included Elon Musk, Hulk Hogan and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who mocked Harris’ ethnic identity during his time on stage.
This marked Trump’s third rally in the historic Democrat state this year despite the state being predicted to remain Democrat due to how the electoral college works.
One commentator said Trump’s decision to hold such a large rally in New York so close to the election was informed by the knowledge that it would generate media exposure, rather than any form of strategy.
Trump’s ‘get-out-the-vote’ strategy and Elon Musk support
As part of a ‘get-out-the-vote’ strategy to target ‘low-propensity voters’ Trump’s 2024 election campaign relied on a conjoined effort with outside groups to increase voter turnout in his favour, rather than relying on the central campaign and the Republican National Committee, as is tradition.
Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action and Elon Musk’s America PAC were among the outside organisations aiming to target those in battleground states who did not vote in 2020.
Musk previously funnelled $75 million into America PAC, the political action committee that he founded, between July and September this year.
The organisation is said to have done the bulk of Trump’s voter turnout work in battleground states and was reported to have roughly 400 canvassers per state, more than the Trump campaign itself.
Musk was also involved directly in Trump’s campaign since endorsing him in July, speaking at Trump rallies, hosting a series of free pro-Trump talks in Pennsylvania and using his X platform to promote pro-Trump messages.
Last month, Musk announced America PAC would be starting a $1 million giveaway to voters in swing states and a judge ruled yesterday that this giveaway could continue.
Featured image: Donald Trump at a 2024 election rally by Gage Skidmore on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
