US Vice President Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves at supporters at the end of her concession speech at Howard University in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2024. Donald Trump won a sweeping victory on November 6, 2024 in the US presidential election, defeating Kamala Harris to complete an astonishing political comeback that sent shock waves around the world. 

On Tuesday, November 5, the Democrats received a major setback after the party’s presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris lost the highly anticipated US presidential election to the Republican Party’s pick Donald Trump. The 78-year-old president-elect created history after he became the first US President in over a century to come back to the White House after losing his re-election bid the first time.

While pollsters and election forecasters were predicting the race to be close, some of them even giving Harris an edge, Trump managed to clinch a landslide victory, winning all the 7 swing states. This meant that the business-mogul-turned-politician managed to infiltrate the “blue wall” of the Democrats.

The setback was so severe that the Republicans also managed to flip the Senate in their favour and are expected to retain their majority in the US House of Representatives. While some Democrats blamed US President Joe Biden for the loss, with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying the POTUS’s delayed exit from the race cost the Democrats the election, the party forgot one of the major factors that contributed to their loss.

Two groups played a key role in changing the tide of the polls because they felt neglected by the party they sought refuge in the past. They were the Latinos and Arab / Muslim voters. While for the Latinos the economy and immigration became the top issues, Muslim and Arab voters were miffed with the Biden administration’s tackling of the Israel-Hamas war.