What happened on Election Day? Erie’s political analysts explain

( WJET/WFXP ) — A lot of Democrats on Thursday continued to ask "what happened" on election night after former President Donald Trump created a red wave across the nation.

Where did the Democrats fall short and what could they have done differently?

Tyler Gallagher spoke to some political analysts about what lead him to his triumph, and what the Harris campaign could have done differently.

Former President Donald Trump is heading back to the White House after winning the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 5 by a significant margin.

Trump won the popular vote for the first time in his three presidential campaigns defeating Vice President Kamala Harris by over 4.3 million votes and counting.

"Did the Democrats choose their best nominee? Probably not. She ran a great campaign, as good as you could've imagined, but she went from spring training to game 6 of the World Series without having a regular season, which are the primaries," said Jeff Bloodworth, Gannon University professor of American political history.

Dr. Joe Morris, a political analyst from Mercyhurst, said the problem also comes back to joe biden and the similarities between him and harris.

"She was the Vice President of Joe Biden, and Joe Biden was not a popular president. Kamala Harris above all else had to distance herself from Joe Biden in this race, and apparently she didn't do that well enough," said Morris.

How 5 key demographic groups voted in 2024: AP VoteCast

Despite some shortcomings with the Democratic Party in this election, Donald Trump and the Republican Party ultimately led a successful campaign to put him back in the White House for another term.

"Donald Trump had a playbook in 2016 that involved reaching out to people outside of the major metropolitan areas, and persuading them to turn out in large numbers. This is a plan that worked for him in 2016, that he did not execute well in 2020, but he executed beautifully in 2024," said Morris.

But Bloodworth said Trump's victory comes through an understanding of voters.

"He has essentially been campaigning for four years, so he understood that people were upset about high prices, upset about what people perceive to be an unstable global situation. Voters don't like chaos, and he was able to hammer that theme," said Bloodworth.

And as for the future of what Trump's presidency will look like, the professors said it's hard to predict.

President-elect Trump will officially be sworn into office on inauguration day in January.