As of April 2025, about 44 percent of Americans approved of the way Donald Trump was handling his job as president. President Trump’s public approval fluctuated during his first term, falling to 34 percent toward the end of his first term in 2021. Approval of Administration Donald Trump’s presidency has caused a lot of controversy and debate both within and outside the United States. It took only eight days from his first day in office for Donald Trump to receive a 50 percent disapproval rating. The President is not the only politician with low approval ratings, as many Senators also face low approval ratings. However, President Trump’s second term approval ratings are not much lower than his approval rating after the same amount of time in office during his first term.

According to a July 2025 survey, Donald Trump's favorability among Republicans was strong, with 60 percent viewing him very favorably and 29 percent somewhat favorably. This overwhelming support from his party base contrasts sharply with Democrats, of whom 90 percent viewed Trump very unfavorably. Independents were more divided, with 28 percent expressing some degree of favorability towards the former president. Electoral college victory Trump's popularity among Republicans translated into electoral success in the 2024 presidential election. He secured 312 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 needed to win the presidency. This victory came as Trump won all seven swing states, some by significant margins, despite pre-election polls showing only a slight lead in most battleground states. Increased republican support The 2024 election saw Republicans gain ground across the country. Every state reported an increase in Republican votes compared to 2020, with New York showing the largest gain of 6.43 percent. New Jersey and Florida also saw significant increases of nearly five percent. This surge in Republican support led to Trump flipping six states that he had lost in the previous election, contributing to his decisive victory.

This data package includes the underlying data to replicate the charts and calculations presented in The International Economic Implications of a Second Trump Presidency, PIIE Working Paper 24-20.

If you use the data, please cite as:

McKibbin, Warwick, Megan Hogan, and Marcus Noland. 2024. The International Economic Implications of a Second Trump Presidency. PIIE Working Paper 24-20. Washington: Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The election of Donald Trump not only placed a political outsider in the center of power in America’s federal government, it also put him in a dominant position within the Republican Party as a national organization. While political scientists have traditionally described the parties national committees as inconsequential but impartial service providers, scholars have also long argued that incumbent presidents have considerable control over their party’s national committee. In this paper, I explore the nature of presidential power over the party-in-organization, and whether Trump can take advantage of his control over the Republican National Committee. I show that presidential domination over the party-in-organization is based on the president’s ability to nominate and replace the national committee’s chair, and that presidents have used this power to push their committees to promote both their preferred policy positions and themselves. I argue this means Trump has the ability to use the RNC to promote the GOP as ‘his’ party – including during a potential primary challenge for his re-nomination in 2020.

During a ************* survey, the opinion of Mexicans regarding the future of their country with Donald Trump's presidency was fairly negative. Specifically, ** percent of respondents stated that the direction of the country will go either bad or very bad.

Replication files and appendices for, "Loyalists and Switchers: Characterizing Voters’ Responses to Donald Trump’s Campaign and Presidency." Abstract: Despite characterizations of the American electorate as rooted in immovable partisan loyalties, a crucial segment of voters shift their support to or away from an incumbent president. For example, Donald Trump’s campaign won support from a slice of voters who had previously backed Barack Obama, arguably through Trump’s appeals on immigration, economic growth, populist reform, and strong leadership. Other voters rejected Trump’s rhetoric and were not persuaded by his promises. Using two original surveys, we ask what opinions and perceptions characterize voters who remained loyal in their support for or opposition to Trump from the 2016 election into his presidency, and how their views compare with the views of voters who abandoned their previous support or opposition. We find that loyalty and switching cannot be explained by demographic characteristics; instead, particular sets of attitudes on race and immigration, populism and authoritarianism, and the nation’s and their own economic well-being are all associated with loyalty to and switching from this divisive president. Our findings suggest that voters’ support for incumbents is conditioned by issue attitudes and experience; switchers’ views reveal a lot about the strengths and vulnerabilities of a president.

The violent conclusion of Trump's 2017-2021 presidency has produced sobering reassessments of American democracy. Elected officials' actions necessarily implicate public opinion, but to what extent did Trump's presidency and its anti-democratic efforts reflect shifts in public opinion in prior years? Were there attitudinal changes that served as early-warning signs? We answer those questions via a 15-wave, population-based panel spanning 2007 to 2020. Specifically, we track attitudes on system legitimacy and election fairness, assessments of Trump and other politicians, and open-ended explanations of vote choice and party perceptions. Across measures, there was little movement in public opinion foreshadowing Trump's norm-upending presidency, although levels of out-party animus were consistently high. Recent shifts in public opinion were thus not a primary engine of the Trump presidency's anti-democratic efforts or their violent conclusion. Such stability suggests that understanding the precipitating causes of those efforts requires attention to other actors, including activists and elites.

Donald Trump’s first year in office received unprecedented media coverage, with many wondering whether congressional Republicans were “adversaries” or “allies” of the president’s legislative positions. Our paper explores this issue from two vantage points. First, we place Trump’s presidency in historical context by forecasting his Republican support with data from 1969 to 2016. We find that Republicans supported Trump’s legislative positions in 2017 at levels consistent with expectations, contrary to the views of some. Second, we explore the factors that explain why Republican lawmakers supported or opposed their party’s president. We find that conservative and establishment Republicans were more likely to support Trump, contrary to some claims, while female Republicans and those representing affluent, non-white districts were more likely to oppose Trump. Our paper concludes by discussing the broader implications of these results, including the role of identity in contemporary American politics and the possible realignment of the GOP.

Is American democracy under threat? The question is more prominent in political debate now than at any time in recent memory. However, it is also too blunt; there is widespread recognition that democracy is multifaceted and that backsliding, when it occurs, tends to be piecemeal. To address these concerns, we provide original data from surveys of political science experts and the public measuring the perceived importance and performance of U.S. democracy on a number of dimensions during the first year and a half of the Trump presidency. We draw on a theory of how politicians may transgress limits on their authority and the conditions under which constraints are self-enforcing. We connect this theory to our survey data in an effort to identify potential areas of agreement – bright lines – among experts and the public about the most important democratic principles and whether they have been violated. Public and expert perceptions often differ on the importance of specific democratic principles. In addition, though our experts perceive substantial democratic erosion, particularly in areas related to checks and balances, polarization between Trump supporters and opponents undermines any social consensus recognizing these violations.

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the veteran political journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent, a deep dive into the history, evolution, and current state of the American presidency—and how we can make the job less impossible and more productive.

“This is a great gift to our sense of the actual presidency, a primer on leadership.”—Ken Burns

Imagine you have just been elected president. You are now commander-in-chief, chief executive, chief diplomat, chief legislator, chief of party, chief voice of the people, first responder, chief priest, and world leader. You’re expected to fulfill your campaign promises, but you’re also expected to solve the urgent crises of the day. What’s on your to-do list? Where would you even start? What shocks aren’t you thinking about?

The American presidency is in trouble. It has become overburdened, misunderstood, almost impossible to do. “The problems in the job unfolded before Donald Trump was elected, and the challenges of governing today will confront his successors,” writes John Dickerson. After all, the founders never intended for our system of checks and balances to have one superior Chief Magistrate, with Congress demoted to “the little brother who can’t keep up.”

In this eye-opening book, John Dickerson writes about presidents in history such a Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and Eisenhower, and and in contemporary times, from LBJ and Reagan and Bush, Obama, and Trump, to show how a complex job has been done, and why we need to reevaluate how we view the presidency, how we choose our presidents, and what we expect from them once they are in office. Think of the presidential campaign as a job interview. Are we asking the right questions? Are we looking for good campaigners, or good presidents? Once a candidate gets the job, what can they do to thrive? Drawing on research and interviews with current and former White House staffers, Dickerson defines what the job of president actually entails, identifies the things that only the president can do, and analyzes how presidents in history have managed the burden. What qualities make for a good president? Who did it well? Why did Bill Clinton call the White House “the crown jewel in the American penal system”? The presidency is a job of surprises with high stakes, requiring vision, management skill, and an even temperament. Ultimately, in order to evaluate candidates properly for the job, we need to adjust our expectations, and be more realistic about the goals, the requirements, and the limitations of the office.

As Dickerson writes, “Americans need their president to succeed, but the presidency is set up for failure. It doesn’t have to be.”

PRAISE

“Dickerson has a gift for effectively mixing anecdote and history, as he did so well in Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories from Presidential Campaign History, and he does it again in his rich chronicle of the American presidency. The qualities required of a good candidate differ from that of a great president, and Dickerson makes a convincing case for reforming the job, which is radically different from how it was conceived by the founders.” —The National Book Review

“You should read [The Hardest Job in the World] if you want to understand what the presidency should and should not be. Dickerson . . . brilliantly explains how the presidency grew and evolved and accumulated power, how Trump has warped it, and how it can be fixed.” —Business Insider

“Brilliantly chronicles what the American presidency has meant, what it could mean . . . With wit, sweep, and unfailing generosity, The Hardest Job in the World is a book for our times, informed and delightful and definitely not to be missed.” —Brenda Wineapple, author of The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation

“Superb . . . a captivating read . . . I found myself sometimes nodding in agreement so vigorously that I worried about hurting my neck. . . . A wonderful contribution to understanding what is, for sure, the hardest job in the world.”—Robert Gates, former United States Secretary of Defense

“This is a wonderful ‘inside’ look at the difficult act of being the president of the United States. It is told with grace and insight by a man who not only knows his subject—he understands it. This is a great gift to our sense of the actual presidency, a primer on leadership, and, of course, of necessity, a reflection on failure.”—Ken Burns, award-winning filmmaker

“From one of our closest students of the presidency, John Dickerson’s thoughtful, learned, original, shrewd, comprehensive, up-to-the-minute book, full of wisdom and personal observations, could not be more needed than at this moment in American history.” —Michael Beschloss, bestselling author of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789–1989

“Evenhanded and insightful . . . Drawing on illuminating interviews with former White House officials and presidential historians, Dickerson packs the book with intriguing arcana and colorful quotes. . . . This entertaining history rises above the political fray to cast even the most maligned chief executives in a new light.”—Publishers Weekly

About the author: John Dickerson is 60 Minutes correspondent. Prior to that, he was a co-host of CBS This Morning, the anchor of Face the Nation, and CBS News’s chief Washington correspondent. Dickerson is also a contributing writer to The Atlantic, co-host of Slate‘s Political Gabfest podcast, and host of the Whistlestop podcast. Dickerson won the Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency as Slate‘s chief political correspondent. Dickerson covered the White House for Time during his twelve years at the magazine. The 2020 presidential campaign is the seventh he has covered.

Narrated By: John Dickerson ISBN: 9781984883933 Published: Random House Audio June 16, 2020 Length: 944 Minutes

©2020 John Dickerson (P)2020 Random House Audio

This statistic shows a survey on Trump's presidency affecting Sweden in 2017, by gender and political affiliation. During the survey period, 13 percent of interviewed Swedish men stated that Donald Trump's presidency will have a positive effect on Sweden.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election was contested by Donald J. Trump of the Republican Party, and Hillary Rodham Clinton of the Democratic Party. Clinton had been viewed by many as the most likely to succeed President Obama in the years leading up to the election, after losing the Democratic nomination to him in 2008, and entered the primaries as the firm favorite. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders soon emerged as Clinton's closest rival, and the popularity margins decreased going into the primaries. A few other candidates had put their name forward for the Democratic nomination, however all except Clinton and Sanders had dropped out by the New Hampshire primary. Following a hotly contested race, Clinton arrived at the Democratic National Convention with 54 percent of pledged delegates, while Sanders had 46 percent. Controversy emerged when it was revealed that Clinton received the support of 78 percent of Democratic superdelegates, while Sanders received just seven percent. With her victory, Hillary Clinton became the first female candidate nominated by a major party for the presidency. With seventeen potential presidential nominees, the Republican primary field was the largest in US history. Similarly to the Democratic race however, the number of candidates thinned out by the time of the New Hampshire primary, with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as the frontrunners. As the primaries progressed, Trump pulled ahead while the remainder of the candidates withdrew from the race, and he was named as the Republican candidate in May 2016. Much of Trump's success has been attributed to the free media attention he received due to his outspoken and controversial behavior, with a 2018 study claiming that Trump received approximately two billion dollars worth of free coverage during the primaries alone. Campaign The 2016 presidential election was preceded by, arguably, the most internationally covered and scandal-driven campaign in U.S. history. Clinton campaigned on the improvement and expansion of President Obama's more popular policies, while Trump's campaign was based on his personality and charisma, and took a different direction than the traditional conservative, Republican approach. In the months before the election, Trump came to represent a change in how the U.S. government worked, using catchy slogans such as "drain the swamp" to show how he would fix what many viewed to be a broken establishment; painting Clinton as the embodiment of this establishment, due to her experience as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State. The candidates also had fraught relationships with the press, although the Trump campaign was seen to have benefitted more from this publicity than Clinton's. Controversies Trump's off the cuff and controversial remarks gained him many followers throughout the campaign, however, just one month before the election, a 2005 video emerged of Trump making derogatory comments about grabbing women "by the pussy". The media and public's reaction caused many high-profile Republicans to condemn the comments (for which he apologized), with many calling for his withdrawal from the race. This controversy was soon overshadowed when it emerged that the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while handling classified information, furthering Trump's narrative that the Washington establishment was corrupt. Two days before the election, the FBI concluded that Clinton had not done anything wrong; however the investigation had already damaged the public's perception of Clinton's trustworthiness, and deflected many undecided voters towards Trump. Results Against the majority of predictions, Donald Trump won the 2016 election, and became the 45th President of the United States. Clinton won almost three million more votes than her opponent, however Trump's strong performance in swing states gave him a 57 percent share of the electoral votes, while Clinton took just 42 percent. The unpopularity of both candidates also contributed to much voter abstention, and almost six percent of the popular vote went to third party candidates (despite their poor approval ratings). An unprecedented number of faithless electors also refused to give their electoral votes to the two main candidates, instead giving them to five non-candidates. In December, it emerged that the Russian government may have interfered in this election, and the 2019 Mueller Report concluded that Russian interference in the U.S. election contributed to Clinton's defeat and the victory of Donald Trump. In total, 26 Russian citizens and three Russian organizations were indicted, and the investigation led to the indictment and conviction of many top-level officials in the Trump campaign; however Trump and the Russian government both strenuously deny these claims, and Trump's attempts to frame the Ukrainian government for Russia's invol...

The surprising election of Donald Trump to the Presidency calls for a comprehensive assessment of what motivated voters to opt for a controversial political novice rather than a provocative but experienced political veteran. Our study provides a novel exploration of the Trump victory through the prism of the defeated candidate – Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC). Losing candidates’ perceptions are usually not subject to academic analyses. Nevertheless, these people often hold substantial sway in their parties and thus understanding their views on the loss is essential, especially as a party regroups after defeat. Using HRC's memoir What Happened, we devise the Hillary Hypotheses, her rationale for her electoral defeat. Using the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES), we provide the first systematic test of a losing candidate’s rationale for their defeat. We show that more often than not, HRC’s assumptions are supported. However, we find little evidence to support HRC's most crucial assertion, namely that the e-mail scandal and specifically James Comey's intervention ten days before Election day cost her the Presidency. Our findings have implications for understanding why Donald Trump won, but more broadly they explore an understudied aspect of elections – the meaning of a defeated candidate's views.

While much of the United States undoubtedly was aware of the impeachment hearings and trial for President Donald Trump in early 2020, the extent to which information about those events influenced the public remains unknown. Building upon scholarship on public opinion and democratic governance, we attempt to fill this knowledge gap through a unique survey. We asked half of our sample to answer three factual questions pertaining to Trump’s impeachment trial. We ran a quasi-experiment on the other half, trying to influence their view of the trial by informing them of the same three facts that we asked the first group. The quasi-experiment demonstrates that support for acquittal was largely static, and that partisanship strongly influences whether the public accepts the veracity and importance of political information. Consequently, civic knowledge today appears to have a limited — perhaps even nonexistent — effect on public attitudes about American politics.

Since 1789, the United States has had 45 different men serve as president, of which five are still alive today. At 78 years and two months, Joe Biden became the oldest man to ascend to the presidency for the first time in 2021, however Donald Trump was older when he re-entered the White House, at 78 years and seven months. Eight presidents have died while in office, including four who were assassinated by gunshot, and four who died of natural causes. The president who died at the youngest age was John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated at 46 years old in Texas in 1963; Kennedy was also the youngest man ever elected to the office of president. The longest living president in history is Jimmy Carter, who celebrated his 100th birthday in just before his death in 2024. The youngest currently-living president is Barack Obama, who turned 63 in August 2024. Coincidentally, presidents Clinton, Bush Jr., and Trump were all born within 66 days of one another, between June and August 1946. George Washington The U.S.' first president, George Washington, died after developing a severe inflammation of the throat, which modern scholars suspect to have been epiglottitis. However, many suspect that it was the treatments used to treat this illness that ultimately led to his death. After spending a prolonged period in cold and wet weather, Washington fell ill and ordered his doctor to let one pint of blood from his body. As his condition deteriorated, his doctors removed a further four pints in an attempt to cure him (the average human has between eight and twelve pints of blood in their body). Washington passed away within two days of his first symptoms showing, leading many to believe that this was due to medical malpractice and not due to the inflammation in his throat. Bloodletting was one of the most common and accepted medical practices from ancient Egyptian and Greek times until the nineteenth century, when doctors began to realize how ineffective it was; today, it is only used to treat extremely rare conditions, and its general practice is heavily discouraged. Zachary Taylor Another rare and disputed cause of death for a U.S. president was that of Zachary Taylor, who died sixteen months into his first term in office. Taylor had been celebrating the Fourth of July in the nation's capital in 1850, where he began to experience stomach cramps after eating copious amounts of cherries, other fruits, and iced milk. As his condition worsened, he drank a large amount of water in an attempt to alleviate his symptoms, but to no avail. Taylor died of gastroenteritis five days later, after being treated with a heavy dose of drugs and bloodletting. The most commonly accepted theories for his illness are that the ice used in the milk and the water consumed afterwards were contaminated with cholera, and that this was further exacerbated by the large amounts of acid in his system from eating so much fruit. There are some suggestions that recovery was feasible, but the actions of his doctors had made this impossible. Additionally, there have been conspiracy theories suggesting that Taylor was poisoned by pro-slavery secessionists from the Southern States, although there appears to be no evidence to back this up.

45 men have served as the President of the United States. Of these 45 men, 31 have had a military background, with ranks ranging from a militia private to five-star generals. There is some correlation between the ages of the presidents and major wars in U.S. history; explaining why none of those in office between 1909 and 1945 had any military background, and why six of the ten veteran presidents since then served in the National Guard or Naval Reserve. Three US presidents have held the highest position in the U.S. military, they were; George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the War of Independence; Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the US Army during the American Civil War; and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe in the Second World War. Popular professions In terms of non-military roles, the most common profession for U.S. presidents before taking office was that of a lawyer. 27 U.S. presidents studied and practiced law before entering the world of politics, while Harry S. Truman met all the criteria to become a lawyer, before political and personal circumstances prevented this (although he was posthumously awarded an honorary law license in 1996). Joe Biden is the most recent U.S. president to have held this job; however, the profession was most common in earlier years, as 22 of the first 32 presidents had been lawyers. Eight presidents had also worked in the education sector, with four schoolteachers, three college professors and one university dean being elected to office, and a number went on to teach or serve on university boards after their time in office. More uncommon jobs for U.S. presidents include Hollywood actor (Ronald Reagan), inventor (Thomas Jefferson), peanut farmer (Jimmy Carter) and reality TV host (Donald Trump). Donald Trump was the only U.S. President without any military or political background before assuming office. Political roles A total of 15 vice presidents have ascended to the presidency; eight were due to the death of their respective president, six were elected for their first term, and Gerald R. Ford assumed the presidency following the resignation of Richard Nixon. Of the nine men who assumed the presidency following a death or resignation, five were re-elected to serve a full term. Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon are the only vice presidents to have won two presidential elections, and Jefferson is the only one to have completed both full terms. The most common political background of a U.S. president is that of a Congressman in the House of Representatives, with 18 presidents having served in this role, while 17 also served in the U.S. Congress as Senators. Additionally, 17 U.S. presidents had served as state governors, and William Howard Taft was the Governor-General of the Philippines from 1901 to 1903, when it was a U.S. territory. Six U.S. Presidents had previously served as Secretaries of State, while Taft and Grant had served as Secretaries of War, and Herbert Hoover had been the Secretary of Commerce.

Since 1789, 45 different men have served as President of the United States, and the average age of these men when taking office for the first time was approximately 57 years. Two men, Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump, were elected to two non-consecutive terms, and Donald Trump's victory in 2024 made him the oldest man ever elected as president, where he will be 78 years and seven months old when taking office again. Record holders The oldest president to take office for the first time was Joe Biden in 2021, at 78 years and two months - around five months younger than Donald Trump when he assumes office in 2025. The youngest presidents to take office were Theodore Roosevelt in 1901 (42 years and 322 days), who assumed office following the assassination of William McKinley, and the youngest elected president was John F Kennedy in 1961 (43 years and 236 days). Historically, there seems to be little correlation between age and electability, and the past five presidents have included the two oldest to ever take office, and two of the youngest. Requirements to become president The United States Constitution states that both the President and Vice President must be at least 35 years old when taking office, and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years of their life. Such restrictions are also in place for members of the U.S. Congress, although the age and residency barriers are lower. Additionally, for the roles of President and Vice President, there is a "natural-born-citizen" clause that was traditionally interpreted to mean candidates must have been born in the U.S. (or were citizens when the Constitution was adopted). However, the clause's ambiguity has led to something of a reinterpretation in the past decades, with most now interpreting it as also applying to those eligible for birthright citizenship, as some recent candidates were born overseas.

According to results on November 6, 2024, former President Donald Trump had received *** Electoral College votes in the race to become the next President of the United States, securing him the presidency. With all states counted, Trump received a total of *** electoral votes. Candidates need *** votes to become the next President of the United States.

Of the forty* men who have been elected to the office of U.S. president, the average weight of U.S. presidents has been approximately 189lbs (86kg). The weight range has been between 122lbs (55kg) and 332lbs (151kg), meaning that the heaviest president, William Howard Taft, was almost three times as heavy as the lightest president, James Madison (who was also the shortest president). Although Taft weighed over 300lbs during his presidency in 1909, he did implement a fitness and dietary regimen in the 1920s, that helped him lose almost 100lbs (45kg) before his death due to cardiovascular disease in 1930. Increase over time The tallest ever president, Abraham Lincoln (who was 6'4"), actually weighed less than the presidential average, and also less than the average adult male in the U.S. in 2018. It is important to note that the average weight of U.S. males has gradually increased in the past two decades, with some studies suggesting that it may have even increased by 15lbs (7kg) since the 1980s. The presidential averages have also increased over time, as the first ten elected presidents had an average weight of 171lbs (78kg), while the average weight of the ten most recent is 194lbs (88kg). Recent presidents In recent years, the heaviest president has been Donald Trump, who weighed 237lbs (108kg) during his first term in office; however medical reports published in June 2020 show that he gained 7lbs (3kg) during this term. There was also controversy in 2018, when it appeared that Trump's official height had been increased from 6'2" to 6'3", which many speculated was done to prevent him from being categorized as "obese" (according to his BMI). In the past half century, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton were the only other presidents to have weighed more than the presidential average, although both men were also 6'2" (188cm) tall. President Joe Biden weighs below the presidential average, at 177lbs (81kg).

The state of Michigan has taken part in 47 U.S. presidential elections, correctly voting for the nationwide winner in 37 of these, giving a success rate of 79 percent. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, Michigan generally voted for the Republican Party's nominee, although it has regularly swung between the two major parties since the 1930s. The only time when the Wolverine State voted for a third party candidate was in the 1912 election, when former President Theodore Roosevelt carried Michigan while running as the Progressive Party's nominee. While born in Nebraska, Gerald R. Ford was raised, studied and represented Michigan in Congress, before he became the only Michiganian to ascend to the presidency following Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974.

Swing state After voting for the Democratic candidate in all elections from 1992 until 2012, the Republican nominee Donald Trump carried the state in the 2016 election, with just a 0.23 percent larger share of the popular votes than Hillary Clinton. Trump's victory has been attributed to a large number of working class voters who traditionally voted Democrat, but had become disenfranchised with the party during the Obama presidency. In the 2020 election, however, increased turnout among black voters and stronger appeal to unionized workers saw Joe Biden swing Michigan blue again, with a seven percent margin in the popular vote.

Michigan demographics Michigan was designated three electoral votes in the 1836 election (despite not being admitted to the union until 1837), and over the next 130 years its allocation grew to 21 votes. This came as a result of Michigan's significant population growth and positive net migration rate in mid-1900s, which was largely due to the expansion of the automotive industry in the Detroit area. Since the 1970s, job automation and increased competition have substantially weakened the industry's employment opportunities; therefore Michigan's population growth has slowed significantly, and its number of electoral votes has also decreased to just 16. This number is expected to drop to 15 in the 2024 election.