Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

‘He Made Some Giant Strides’: Steve Kornacki Describes How Trump ‘Transformed’ GOP Into ‘More Diverse’ Party

Screenshot/Rumble/NBC

NBC National Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki said Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump “made some giant strides” in the popular vote because he attracted a “more diverse” coalition for the Republican Party.

Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, securing the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency early Wednesday morning. Kornacki outlined Republican gains among Hispanics, young voters and black voters in the election while on “Meet the Press,” hosted by Kristen Welker.

WATCH:

“He did it by transforming the Republican Party. It is now more diverse than it’s ever been in modern times and certainly much more than when Donald Trump first came on the scene eight years ago. A lot of ways to look at this,” Kornacki said. “How about this here? When it said pre-Trump, that’s the last presidential election before Donald Trump started running. You gotta go back to 2012 for that. Remember three straight elections Trump’s been the Republican candidate and pre-Trump voters under 30 were going for the Democrats by 23 points. Folks with incomes under $50,000, 22 points for the Democrats and folks without college degrees, four points for the Democrats, that’s pre-Trump.”

“What comes out of this election? Look at some of these shifts. The youth vote, the Democratic margin cut more than in half. Voters under $50,000, now a Republican constituency and voters without a college degree and look at that shift, now a core Republican constituency,” Kornacki continued. “And then we can talk about race, ethnicity and this gets into that diversity I mentioned a minute ago. Check this out. Pre-Trump versus now. The black vote still overwhelmingly Democratic, but that’s a 15-point shift, that used to be 87 points for the Democrats, down to 72. How about this? You heard a lot about it this week, this is what the numbers look like. Hispanic voters were 44 points Democratic before Donald Trump, now basically a toss-up constituency. And Asian-Americans, a 32-point shift there, as well. That’s what’s happened to the Republican Party since Donald Trump became the standard bearer eight years ago.”

While Harris regained some support from Hispanic voters in pre-election polling since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, she still lagged behind Biden’s numbers in the 2020 election. Kornacki also said the new coalition helped Trump make “giant strides” in states like California and Illinois, where Trump narrowed the margins he lost by, helping him carry the popular vote.

“The other big story has to do with the popular vote and how Trump pulled that off, here’s one answer,” Kornacki said. “Big, blue states with very diverse populations. This new coalition that Donald Trump’s assembled, it meant he didn’t win any of these, but he made some giant strides.”

Republicans have picked up four seats in the Senate and are favored to hold the House of Representatives as of Sunday morning.