Talk:2024 United States presidential election

"Trump's embrace of far-right extremism, as well as increasingly violent, dehumanizing, and authoritarian rhetoric against his political opponents was described by historians and scholars as populist, authoritarian, fascist, unlike anything a political candidate has ever said in U.S. history"

Not only does it show an obvious false balance to only quote historians and scholars from a certain part of the political spectrum hired by corporate media, possibly to hurt a candidate whose program goes against their interests, but it's so hyperbolic that its factualness is at least as debatable as Trump's public statements.

You're telling me that he is as dehumanizing as the myriad of American political candidates who advocated ethnic cleansing of Natives, owned slaves or supported segregation? Andrew Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace etc etc? Shoshin000 (talk) 15:09, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

For what feels like the eighty-millionth time an editor has had to respond to additions of this nature, see the top two sections, "Bias in lead once again" and "Article shows signs of democratic bias". BarntToust 15:11, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay, and? Does that make my viewpoint invalid? Shoshin000 (talk) 15:13, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Your viewpoint is your viewpoint, which you are entitled to. It's not our WP:CONSENSUS view. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:20, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I feel like there needs to be a RfC on this to really say that though. Almost half of the comments on here are complaining about what they feel is an apparent bias. Unless I missed it, I don't see consensus discussions: please show me if I am mistaken. DuneEnjoyer333 (talk) 18:39, 9 November 2024 (UTC) (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

This whole article has massive issues, but they are not being addressed at all for some reason. Im not even that political or conservative but this article feels like a stain on Wikipedia because it presents itself as unreliable due to its all-consuming bias. DuneEnjoyer333 (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Arguing with these people about why this ridiculous, untrue, and biased quote isn’t needed in the article is like arguing with a wall. It is bias, and it definitely has no place in this article. CavDan24 (talk) 20:42, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

The problem with that sentence is that "populist, authoritarian, fascist, unlike anything a political candidate has ever said in U.S. history" is presented as an attributed opinion, but "embrace of far-right extremism, as well as increasingly violent, dehumanizing, and authoritarian rhetoric against his political opponents" is presented in wikivoice as if it was an undisputed fact. Besides, I doubt that historians and scholars (good historians and scholars, that is) would fall so easily to the popular temptation to use Fascist (insult) as a description of a governor who, even if they find him authoritarian, is still nowhere near the actual fascism of Hitler or Mussolini. Cambalachero (talk) 17:33, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

What about this: Some historians and scholars have characterized Trump’s rhetoric and behavior as embracing far-right extremism and exhibiting increasingly authoritarian and dehumanizing language toward his political opponents, likening it to populist and authoritarian movements, with some even comparing it to fascism in ways they consider unprecedented for a U.S. political candidate Shoshin000 (talk) 17:44, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

What about it? It's true. Are you suggesting it's WP:UNDUE?

And Trump did embrace the far-right, and used violent, dehumanizing, and authoritarian rhetoric. Are you suggesting that's UNDUE? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:49, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Trump did embrace the far-right, and used violent, dehumanizing, and authoritarian rhetoric

It's not up to Wikipedia to decide that. Wikipedia merely relays what the sources say. Shoshin000 (talk) 17:55, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

That's what the sources say. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:33, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

It's better, but it also has a problem in the current sentence: way too wordy. Too many descriptors that basically mean "authoritarian" in some flavor or another. What about something shorter and to the point? Besides, the lead describes the circumstances in which Trump became candidate, the usual topics of his campaign, and how historians and scholars describe him, but in the case of Harris, just the first part. I also have to understand that historians and scholars all have a negative opinion of Trump, because no positive description is given. Is that so?

And why is the opinion of historians relevant here, anyway? Aren't historians limited to the study of events that took place in the past? And a "scholar" is a generic term, it's someone specialized in a field of knowledge, but which field of knowledge? Not all scholar's opinions are relevant for this topic; so we should replace the term with a more precise one. I hope that this is just a problem of ambiguity and not a case of an argument from authority. Cambalachero (talk) 18:16, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Historians often compare the current situation to previous situations. That's kind of the reason to study history, to learn from its mistakes and to see how far we have come. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:01, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Having removed redundant words, maybe like this: Trump’s style was viewed by some scholars as breaking with traditional U.S. political norms in an unprecedented way, marked by a rhetoric they described as authoritarian, dehumanizing, some even drawing parallels to fascism.

A historian is a scholar by definition. Shoshin000 (talk) 09:15, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

my latest revision: Trump’s style and behavior, including his embrace of far-right extremism was characterized by a variety of scholars as breaking with traditional U.S. political norms in an unprecedented way, marked by a rhetoric they described as authoritarian and dehumanizing toward his political opponents, likening it to populist movements and some drawing parallels to fascism Shoshin000 (talk) 09:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

For the current Wikipedia, anything to the right of Lenin is considered far right, populist and fascist. It makes me smile though that they wasted so much time making this article a profound propaganda piece, and yet their candidate still lost terribly and Trump is a new president. --Novis-M (talk) 20:13, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Wikipedia has a lot of incredibly biased pages but this basically reads like a leftist version of Conservapedia. K1ausMouse (talk) 20:20, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

If we're going to quote (Far Left?) historians concerned about Trump then should we not also quote the likes of the Auschwitz survivor condemning Kamala for her gross misuse of the fascism label? If said Auschwitz survivor is pro-Trump then how can Trump be a Nazi? This level of linguistic abuse is dangerous and Wikipedia needs to be very very careful it doesn't join a mob. 人族 (talk) 01:45, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I wonder what that makes RationalWiki — Czello ^(music) 09:42, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

A left-wing counterweight to Conservapedia, something Wikipedia seems to try to become regarding contemporary American politics. Shoshin000 (talk) 13:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

This article reeks of bias. No wonder wikipedia is so hated by many.Bjoh249 (talk) 21:29, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Now, even this talk page has been dumped down the memory hole. Ironically, my comment about Wikipedia being Orwellian was "archived" with most of the talk about the obvious left-wing bias. A "bot" did this on November 10. And now they are limiting who can edit the talk page. JimmyPiersall (talk) 14:48, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it may be better to just remove the paragraph. As written (experts in general, no contrasting points of view) it sounds as if there was Academic consensus on that view, and for that we need a specific source saying so. And contrasting points of view do exist, see Donald Trump and fascism#Criticism of the comparison. Cambalachero (talk) 17:28, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Arizona

Why is Arizona still undecided? Jack Upland (talk) 02:22, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia decided beforehand that a collection of reliable networks had to all call a state before Wikipedia added it. Not enough networks are calling it now. WP:NORUSH BarntToust 04:01, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

They are refusing to call it. Why wait for networks when the states have basically confirmed who has won the election at the presidential level. Qutlooker (talk) 04:04, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

...? We still need reliable sourcing for who won Arizona. That is why we are waiting. --Super Goku V (talk) 09:32, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

At this moment, all five networks (ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, and NBC) are reporting Trump at 1,492,266 votes and Harris at 1,310,383 votes with 82-83% of the expected total finished. (AP says 82%; ABC, CNN, NBC at 83%; CBS says nothing.) To add, NBC says it estimates there are 591,000 votes outstanding that have yet to be counted, which falls in line with the 82/83 percent estimates. Trump needs half of the remaining vote after minusing his lead plus one vote (or more) to win Arizona. Since Trump leads Harris by 181,883 votes, that would mean he needs 204,559 more votes which would put him at 1,696,825 votes. If Harris reaches 1,690,000 votes instead, then she likely wins the votes. (Depends on the actual remaining and votes for other groups.)

So, in short, we are waiting for one or the other's vote count to hit around 1.6m to 1.7m votes, which would likely allow for a call to be made. --Super Goku V (talk) 09:55, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Trump is going to win AZ if I’m being completely honest. But we are an encyclopedia, not a news article. There is no rush for us to declare a winner before the major media networks. And it would be WP:UNDUE to rely on only one network. Prcc27 (talk) 16:07, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I am a bit late to reply, but exactly. Regarding NBC, the main reason I focused on them was to cut out a bit of math. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:04, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Give it time. The grand EC total will be 312 for Trump to 226 for Harris. That's assuming there'll be no faithless electors. GoodDay (talk) 17:27, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Popular vote total

I've noticed that Trump's pop-vote total in the infobox, is bolden. Does that mean Harris can't overtake him, in the pop-vote? I'm asking since there's still votes to be reported, particularly from California. GoodDay (talk) 19:31, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I think he did win the popular vote. But I am not sure if that is something media outlets even make a projection on, so I didn’t even bother to come up with a criteria for bolding the popular vote. Prcc27 (talk) 19:43, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Didn’t they project Hillary to win the popular vote early on in 2016? Bjoh249 (talk) 21:31, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

In 2016, I remember CNN had a confusing infograph on their website which made it look like Trump had been projected to win the popular vote. I was so confused. I don’t really think networks go, “we project Donald Trump has won the national popular vote”. It’s a beauty contest, so unfortunately, it gets overlooked. Prcc27 (talk) 21:37, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

CBS News has stated that he has won the popular vote [1]. The article says "It's the first time in Trump's three campaigns for the White House that he's topped his opponent in the popular vote, and only the second time since 1988 that any Republican has done so." CountyCountry (talk) 01:26, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but that article is from a few days ago now.How is that going to stack against the remaining votes to be counted? California gave Hillary the popular vote in 2016. Is Trump projected to win the popular vote? I can’t remember how it went in 2016 and when it was projected Hillary would win the popular vote back then. Bjoh249 (talk) 06:39, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think it took long for Clinton to lead in the NPV. If Harris does win the popular vote (doubtful), I would except it to be by a significantly slimmer margin. But anyways, we should do our best to stick to what the sources say. Prcc27 (talk) 12:20, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Analysis of the election, more sources, needs shortening

I believe the analysis section of why Harris lost and why Trump won, is largely accurate.

I have some more sources for it:
1. https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/populisms-rise-in-u-s-isnt-only-about-anger/
2. https://academic.oup.com/joeg/article/23/5/951/7126961
3. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/americas-era-violent-populism?check_logged_in=1&utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=article_link&utm_term=article_email&utm_content=20241109
4. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/09/democrats-working-class-exodus-sets-off-reckoning-within-party/76117107007/

Here's an article by the Washington Post, about how nearly every county in the country had its voting pattern shift to the right: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/11/05/compare-2020-2024-presidential-results/

Also, I think the section should he shortened a lot. The article as a whole I think is already a bit too long EarthDude (talk) 04:56, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Reactions

On NPR yesterday, I heard about an extreme reaction to the result of the election. I have been hearing for weeks that European countries are very concerned about Trump being elected and think it would be negative for them. Why am I not seeing anything here?

In particular, I was hoping to find out if what I heard was really true, but it was bleeped on NPR and censored elsewhere. Although a source for that exact information would have to be found first. And I guess a screenshot, should one be available, is a copyright violation.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:15, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't know about "extreme" reactions, but BBC World News had daily reports about Trump's intent to impose protective tariffs that would make European exports too expensive for the American market. It also had frequent interviews with American business owners who expect their production costs to rise because they will not have access to cheap European components for their products. Dimadick (talk) 17:44, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

There was, according to NPR, a German newspaper with a one-word headline about the election, a word that could not be used on NPR, but one for which the English translation started with F. That seems extreme to me.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:16, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Swing states section wording

In the Swing states section, there is wording:

Most states are not electorally competitive and are usually certain to vote for a particular party. Because of the nature of the Electoral College, this means that a limited number of swing states—competitive states that do not clearly lean towards one party over the other—are vital to winning the presidency.

The phrase I put in bold implies the Electoral College itself is the reason for swing states being vital to winning. This is not correct. It is the winner-take-all method that most states use to select their electors that makes these states vital. The winner-take-all method has nothing to do with the Electoral College itself.

I propose rewording the quoted portion to say:

Most states are not electorally competitive and are usually certain to vote for a particular party. Because of the winner-take-all selection of electors used by 48 states and Washington DC, this means that a limited number of swing states—competitive states that do not clearly lean towards one party over the other—are vital to winning the presidency.

Thought I'd propose this here before updating the article myself. Timmeh 19:15, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that would be ok to add, it would give the reader more information than the other format. And give a clearer picture too.

User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 20:40, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Page Format needs to be improved

The page's format is so messy compared to every other Presidential election page. The background needs to be dramatically shortened/moved into "Campaign issues", on top of that the nominations section needs to be moved above "Campaign issues" and "Electoral map" as it is listed in every other Presidential election page. TheFellaVB (talk) 01:00, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I added a "Nominations" section and moved the "Republican" and "Democratic" sections there. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:32, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

The Introduction (2024)

Trump, who lost the 2020 election to Biden, ran for re-election again, this time for a non-consecutive term.[15] He was nominated during the 2024 Republican National Convention along with his running mate, Vance, after winning the Republican primaries. The Trump campaign was noted for making many false and misleading statements, including the claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, engaging in anti-immigrant fearmongering, and promoting conspiracy theories.[20][21] His speeches were widely described as marked by authoritarian and dehumanizing rhetoric toward his political opponents. His campaign and populist political movement were characterized by several historians and former Trump administration officials as featuring parallels to fascism.

Putting this paragraph front and center in the introduction approaches being laughable. Regardless of the veracity of any claims by Trump or his campaign or lack thereof, would any election covered 100 years ago be this focused on electoral editorializing in its introduction? Here is, I guess, the equivalent paragraph from the 1904 election (and that introduction is, tellingly, 3 paragraphs rather than 6):

As there was little difference between the candidates' positions, the race was largely based on their personalities; the Democrats argued that the Roosevelt presidency was "arbitrary" and "erratic". Republicans emphasized Roosevelt's success in foreign affairs and his record of firmness against monopolies. Roosevelt easily defeated Parker, sweeping every US region except the South, while Parker lost multiple states won by Bryan in 1900, as well as his home state of New York. Roosevelt's popular vote margin of 18.8% was the largest since James Monroe's victory in the 1820 presidential election, and would be the biggest popular vote victory in the century between 1820 and Warren Harding's 1920 landslide. With Roosevelt's landslide, he became the first presidential candidate to receive over 300 electoral votes in a presidential election. This was the first time since 1868 that Missouri voted for the Republican candidate.

Surely it would be far more in line with Wikipedia's remit to provide a tight, concise paragraph that sums up the mechanics of the election and the issues relevant to its result in the simplest and cleanest fashion, than something which reads like a very childish and frankly desperate safeguard against imagined readers interpreting an article which states someone won an election as meaning the person who won the election must be good, something which does not credit the reader with any critical thinking skills, or really any intelligence at all. In summation, the introduction is far too long and reads like shit. ColonelBustard (talk) 01:04, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

This is WP:DEADHORSE territory, since this is the third or fourth time in the past week the wording in the intro has been brought up. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Go away. I will rewrite the intro. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ColonelBustard (talk • contribs)

Not without consensus. — Czello ^(music) 12:23, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

“the first at a rally in Butler Pennsylvania”

There should be a comma after "Butler" in this phrase in one of the introductory paragraphs WumBis (talk) 02:42, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done Let me know if there's any more, I added a comma to the paragraph which talked about assassinations Cranloa12n / talk / contribs / 02:57, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Starlink conspiracy theory

might be good to include under the "Stolen election" conspiracy theories subsection: AllSides: Newsweek User Mag 🐦DrWho42👻 03:27, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

These would need to be discussed per WP:ALLSIDES and WP:NEWSWEEK. User Mag has only existed since October 2024 per this article, though it appears to be run solely by Taylor Lorenz. Digging for more sourcing, I found this Al Jazeera article which briefly refs to Starlink though WP:ALJAZEERA might apply. --Super Goku V (talk) 08:03, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

NOTNEWS, NORUSH, could probably name a few other things too. As of right now, this "conspiracy theory" is the result of a relative few accounts opining on Twitter/X and is not actually something that should be included per DUE. If it results in court cases - big if there - then it will tell us whether it's actually a conspiracy theory (if they lose) or a valid concern with the election (if the court cases show there was misconduct on Elon/Starlink's part). But as of yet, it's probably not DUE weight to include as a conspiracy theory - we are not a database of everything some people said on X from any viewpoint. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 09:47, 11 November 2024 (UTC)