How the Democrats became the party of the elite
The billionaire whose name adorns a golden skyscraper in Manhattan – now poised to be president for a second time – is no longer the favourite of America's rich and powerful.
Instead, it is Kamala Harris who has so far received the greatest level of support from US counties where the average household income is above $150,000 (£116,000) – roughly double the current median.
The Democrats also registered their strongest gains relative to the 2020 election with wealthier voters – up 3.2 points from Joe Biden's take then.
This from the same Democratic Party which not too long ago was synonymous with the working classes, and championed the social safety net.
In the counties won by Harris so far, 35 per cent of voters had been to college. The comparable figure for Donald Trump was barely one in five.
Despite his wealth, the former president made a political career of railing against the elite. While this may have seemed a stretch in 2016, his attacks now appear bang on the money.
The signs came very early on election night. According to the exit poll , the Democrat candidate had an eight-point lead over her rival among respondents with family incomes above $100,000 (£77,000).
It was a surprising statistic, given the Republicans' focus in government has long been deemed to be cutting taxes to favour the wealthy.
And the same preliminary results showed that support for the Republicans among respondents whose family income was between $100,000 (£77,000) and $200,000 (£155,000) had plummeted by 13 points.
County-level data bore this trend out. Of the 300-odd counties Harris carried most decisively – with a margin of 10 points or more – 43.3 per cent had median household incomes above the national average.
This number was more than three times lower in Trump's case, just 12.9 per cent.
The hypothesis holds at the very top, middle and bottom of the income scale.
Of the 25 richest counties in the country, Harris succeeded in 16, and Trump in just 9.
The typical family in areas won by Trump was almost $15,000 a year worse off than the typical family in those won by Harris.
The Republicans' pitch during the campaign was clearly angled towards these voters. Trump asked attendees at his rallies more than once: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
Ahead of the election, Gallup found a higher proportion of US voters cited the candidates' position on the economy as key than during any election cycle since 2008, in the throes of the Great Recession.
In early October, a YouGov poll found inflation – which has been shown to have the worst impact on the least well-off – to be the most important economic issue mentioned by registered voters (68 per cent).
The education split also appears to have deepened since the last election. Trump rallied those who feel left behind in modern America to his cause, leaving the academic achievers for the Democrats.
Harris proved most successful in counties where at least 70 per cent of the population had at least a college degree (79 per cent).
The reverse was true for the Republican, who increased his lead in the least-educated parts of the country by almost three points compared to 2020.
Those counties – where fewer than one in ten hold a bachelor's degree – are conversely where the Democrats saw their share of the vote fall the most since 2020, by 2.7 points.
There is an implicit advantage in courting the college-educated: they have a solid track record of making their voices heard at the polling booth.
In 2020, college graduates made up just 35 per cent of voting-age citizens, but 42 per cent of those who cast a ballot, according to the Census Bureau's turnout survey.
Tuesday's exit poll suggested they had voted 57 per cent for Harris, with just 41 per cent for Trump. Whether they actually showed up in numbers large enough to make a difference, however, looks highly uncertain.
