PHOENIX (AZ Family) — Political analysts are just beginning to unpack the electorate of 2024 and the factors that propelled Donald Trump to a decisive victory.

One thing is clear: Trump has exceeded expectations among several key demographics.

A new poll, which uses artificial intelligence, helps explain why black voters, Latino voters, young voters and independent voters have broken it for Trump in greater numbers than in 2020.

These demographic changes help explain why polls leading up to the election underestimated Trump’s support for a third consecutive term, according to CloudResearchIts research director, Leib Litman.

While polls accurately predicted support for Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.5 percent nationally, they underestimated Trump by 3.8 percent nationally, according to the firm’s analysis.

Trump’s poll margin of error ranged from 2.1 percent to 3.7 percent in the seven battleground states.

In 2024, Trump won 8 points among voters aged 18-29, securing 46% of this group, up from 36% in 2020.

He received 45% of independent voters, up from 41% in 2020; 42% of Hispanic voters, up from 35%; and 16 percent of black voters, up from 8 percent in 2020, according to a CloudResearch analysis of data from AP VoteCast and Reuters.

Using an AI chatbot system called EngageCloudResearch conducted in-depth conversational surveys with 565 Trump supporters to explore trends in their voting decisions.

Across all demographic groups, Trump voters cited the former president’s positions on the economy and immigration as the top two reasons for their support, but motivations varied beyond that.

The poll found that 32 percent of black voters attributed their support to Trump’s personality and leadership style, while 29 percent highlighted their conservative views.

Many respondents cited Trump’s opposition to “radical” views on transgender issues, underscoring a key theme in the campaign’s closing message to the country.

The Trump campaign has spent more than $200 million on ads focusing on Harris’ past support for gender-affirming inmate care.

In October, the campaign spent more money on an ad claiming “Kamala’s agenda is hers” than on any other ad it ran.

Those ads aligned with the top reasons black voters opposed Harris in the poll: 64 percent cited policy disagreements, while 27 percent singled out identity politics.

“I think the overwhelming theme across all of these groups is that they didn’t like progressive politics,” Litman said.

Hispanic, youth and independent voters shared the same primary concern about Harris: doubts about her authenticity or sincerity. In conversations with Engage, authenticity was mentioned by 49% of Hispanics, 47% of independents and 43% of young voters.

“They specifically mentioned things like the lack of clear policy positions, which is something that, at election time, many people pointed outLitman said. “That was a constant theme.”

The only subgroup that did not raise concerns about Harris’ authenticity were black voters.

“To me, this election has nothing to do with race or gender,” a black woman in her 40s told Engage about her support for Trump. “This race was all about good versus evil.”

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