In November 2024, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris to win the pres­i­den­cy for the second time. In contrast to Trump’s previous campaigns, the election itself was rel­a­tive­ly unre­mark­able. Unlike in 2016, when Trump won the pres­i­den­cy while losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, he prevailed this time both in vote share (50% to 48%) and in the Electoral College (312 to 226). Unlike in 2020, when Joe Biden’s win over Trump depended on victories in swing states that took days to call, Trump’s 2024 win was called not long after midnight on election night. Also unlike Trump in 2020, Harris quickly conceded defeat, enabling a peaceful tran­si­tion of power.

Since the election, Trump has moved quickly to staff his second admin­is­tra­tion, naming con­tro­ver­sial picks for some high-profile positions, including (initially) Congressman Matt Gaetz (R‑FL) for Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Fox News per­son­al­i­ty Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D‑HI) for Director of National Intelligence, and former National Security Council staffer Kash Patel for FBI Director.

In the aftermath of the election, we fielded parallel surveys of 539 political sci­en­tists and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sample of 2,750 Americans from November 13–27, 2024.