In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton to win the presidency.

Some called it a coincidence.

But now, eight years later, Trump is back stronger than ever despite a failed re-election bid in 2020, a second impeachment after his supporters attacked the US Capitol and a conviction on 34 counts that left him the first former president to be convicted. of a crime.

As votes continue to be counted, Trump was projected as the winner in the early hours of November 6. He captured six of seven swing states (ABC News has yet to project Arizona, where Trump is also ahead in the vote count); outperformed in blue states like Virginia and New York; and could be the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote since wartime George W. Bush.

It is the cornerstone of his singular imprint on American politics, defined by his relentless disregard for institutional norms.

What many Americans now expect from a president has changed dramatically. And by conquering them, some experts say, Trump changed America.

A new coalition

Trump won, in part, by building an unprecedented multiracial coalition within the Republican Party. White working-class men, as they did in 2016, fueled his success, but Trump also appealed to black and Latino voters — two demographic groups that traditionally vote for Democrats.

First-time voters also flocked to Trump 54-45%, a reversal from 2020, when the group went overwhelmingly to President Joe Biden.

“It’s hard to imagine any other Republican doing as well, but Trump was able to capture that feeling in people who felt like they weren’t getting ahead despite working hard and playing by the rules.” said Brandon Rottinghaus, presidential historian and professor at the University of Washington. the University of Houston.

“There is a difference in politics between being looked at and being seen,” Rottinghaus said. “And the Trump campaign made people feel seen.”

Trump, when declaring victory, claimed he had been given a “powerful mandate.”

“This is a movement like no one has ever seen before and, frankly, it was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time,” he said.

How Trump flipped the script

Trump was shunned by much of his party after testing democracy with his election denialism, which culminated in his supporters’ violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Then, when the expected “red wave” never materialized in the 2022 election because many of Trump’s hand-picked candidates lost, his influence over the party was seriously questioned. When he announced his third campaign for president that same year, it was a relatively lackluster affair that drew a lukewarm response from GOP leaders, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

According to Republican strategist Mark Weaver, the criminal investigations and indictments against Trump in 2023 were a turning point.

“So many Republicans were disheartened by the weaponization of the justice system against a single person that their anger sparked the rise of Trump, not quite from the ashes, but almost,” Weaver said.

At his first campaign rally, held in Waco, Texas, Trump’s message to his supporters was that the “deep state” was also attacking them and their way of life. He said he would be their “punishment”.

That theme remained a central theme of the campaign even as Trump focused heavily on immigration and the economy. He described Democrats as out of touch with cultural issues such as transgender rights. America was broken on every front, he said, and only he could “fix” it.

In doing so, he leaned into authoritarian rhetoric to a level that alarmed critics and even some of his former aides, including a retired general who said that in his view, Trump fit the description of ‘a fascist.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spent much of their campaigns denouncing Trump as a threat to democracy. They pounced on his suggestions for expanding executive power, gutting the civil service, using the military to prey on American citizens and more policies that flout the Constitution’s guardrails.

But it appears that most voters either didn’t believe he would indulge in such extremes during his term, voted for him despite it, or even liked the idea of ​​Trump’s “strongman” style at the White House.

ABC News exit poll results showed that among the candidates’ qualities, voters rated “has the ability to lead” as the most important. Next comes the question of whether the candidate “can make the necessary changes.”

Trump beat Harris in both categories. Among those who cited leadership ability as the candidate’s top quality, Trump beat Harris by 33 points. By making changes, the gap widened to 50 points.

And even though democracy is seen as an important issue for voters, with a large majority (73%) viewing it as under threat, this has not automatically translated into success for Harris as some thought.

“The polls for democracy are good, but the threat to democracy is in the eye of the beholder,” said Weaver, who claimed that Trump’s projection that Democrats were the real danger (the accusing the government of militarizing and censoring) had to resonate.

‘They think: ‘He’s angry like me’

For all the talk about democracy, abortion rights or Trump’s dark and inflammatory rhetoric, the economy was the issue of the day for the electorate.

According to early ABC News exit polls, more than two-thirds of voters said the economy was in bad shape. Forty-five percent said their own financial situation was worse today than four years ago, surpassing the level of those who said the same during the “Great Recession” of 2008. Much of the discontent has been attributed to Biden and, by association, Harris.

The key to Trump’s political longevity, according to strategists on both sides of the aisle, is how he has managed to reorient the GOP’s image from “Country Club Republicans” to the party of the working class, well that he himself is a billionaire and despite some of his proposals. , like customs tariffs, being frowned upon by economists.

“He has completely remade the party and restored its appeal so that now non-college and multi-racial voters are much more likely to consider voting Republican than they ever have in the past.” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster.

The Democrats, in the middle point a finger The question of who is responsible for this loss comes down to how these voters escaped their grasp. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders eviscerated the party, saying it had “abandoned” these Americans. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi countered by suggesting they were spending too much time on cultural issues rather than alleviating economic concerns caused by high prices.

Elaine Kamarck, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution who served in the Clinton administration, said the economic chasm between Americans with a four-year degree and those without one is one of the biggest forces important aspects of modern politics, with the latter feeling increasingly left behind.

“It’s a very difficult public policy problem, which is why Trump probably won’t solve the problem either, but at least he talks to them in a way that they understand and they feel like he understands their lives.” , she said.

“He’s an angry man and they think, ‘He’s angry like me,'” Kamarck said.

Experts say this anger doesn’t just apply to the economy. Trump has tapped into a greater sense of discontent among Americans, hyperpolarized and disillusioned with the political establishment.

“It has become clear that our country has divided itself into two completely separate Americas, and neither of these Americans understands much about the other nor seems to have much interest in knowing more about the other, that Trump or Harris won this week,” said Daniel Schnur, a political analyst at the University of California, Berkeley.

Trump’s rise to the White House in 2016 was seen as a symptom of a country full of resentment and distrust, Schnur said. These divisions have only intensified since then, largely due to Trump fanning the flames.

“We had eight more years to build them up and let them fester,” Schnur said.

ABC News poll results reveal that Trump largely prevailed among so-called “double haters” — a small bloc of voters but who hold unfavorable views of both candidates.

“What strikes me is that the issues, the candidates, the ideology were perhaps less important than just people’s dissatisfaction with the current state of American politics,” Rottinghaus said.

“You can call it the economy. You can call it immigration or the border. There are many reasons why you might associate this election with a particular issue, but the underlying nature of people’s preferences has them led to reject the status quo and side with the economy Donald Trump.