Key takeaways from the 2024 Election: FOX 7 Focus

AUSTIN, Texas - The votes are in and former President Donald Trump will serve another term in office.

The Associated Press projected him as the winner early Wednesday after he secured Wisconsin, putting him over the 270 threshold needed to clinch the presidency.

According to the final numbers from AP, Trump got 312 electoral votes to Harris' 226. Trump also won the popular vote with 74,648,928 to Harris's 70,915,828.

Scott Braddock with the Quorum Report joins FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak to break down some of the key takeaways from Tuesday, including in Texas.

JOHN KRINJAK: All right. So Donald Trump defied the polls, delivered a pretty decisive victory both in the popular vote and the Electoral College. What do you think the polls got so wrong? And what does this say about Trump's kind of enduring appeal?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: Well, he does have one. Of course, he's been a winner and a loser now in presidential contests and a winner twice now in 16. And this past week. And far be it for me to guess, second guess the national pollsters or national media. But they did get quite a bit wrong, didn't they? But, you know, I think and there's a robust debate about this right now, John, but I tend to think I mean, I'm in the camp with those who say that it's not so much that Donald Trump has such a great appeal. This is more of a story of the Democratic Party just collapsing in this election. And, of course, this all comes down to the historic gamble that they made in the way that they replaced the top of their ticket. I mean, this is a fundamental thing. And we haven't seen it before where, you know, the sitting president steps aside and the vice president steps in to be the nominee, really right at the last minute. I mean, who would think that anybody could mount a serious campaign over 3 or 4 months to win a national election? They gave it their best shot. It didn't work out the way I described it on the Texas Tech podcast this week was to say, it would be like if you went to Las Vegas, you didn't even check into your room yet. You went right to the roulette wheel and you put all the money that you bought for the trip. You put it all on red seven. That's either going to be a huge win or you're going to have to just not even check in and go home. That's what happened. The latter is what happened at the Democrats.

JOHN KRINJAK: Another race that a lot of people expected to be close but wasn't close at all was the race for Senate. Obviously, Ted Cruz handily defeated Colin Allred. What do you think happened there? What were the biggest factors you think?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: I always expected that Cruz was going to win. This is a Republican state, and I always expected that after all the votes were counted, there would be more Republican votes than Democratic votes, although based on what we thought the national environment was, we did think that it might be a little bit closer. But I can tell you my reporting on Monday night before the election, before Tuesday, was that Cruz's campaign was feeling a lot more confident going into Election Day morning. And a lot of it had to do with the sense that they were getting that nationally, that the Democrats were just collapsing. And I think in four issues, it came down to the economy. People don't feel good about it. The party in power is usually punished if people aren't happy about the economy at a base level. That's one of the biggest things that happened this week.

JOHN KRINJAK: Well, let's talk about the Texas Capitol. Obviously, Republicans dominating in a few key races in both the House and the Senate. Talk to us a little bit about what that configuration looks like and what it could mean come January for the new session.

SCOTT BRADDOCK: As you know, I'm not surprised by much in Texas politics anymore, but I was surprised by this, despite the fact that there was a ten-point swing toward the Republicans at the presidential level in Texas. But get this, John. At the legislative level, almost nothing changed. There was only one incumbent who lost a senator in south Texas. And it is significant. And then there were two seats in the Texas House, open seats where the member from that district had chosen to retire in both those cases. But no incumbent Democrat in the Texas House lost their seat. Their voting strength really is unchanged. And whatever leverage the Democrats have at the Texas capital is relatively unchanged. I think for some of the key issues, the big issues, number one being who the speaker of the House is going to be. Of course, there's also a lot of talk about whether a school voucher program is going to pass. This election doesn't change the math on any of that very much at all.

JOHN KRINJAK: When Democrats zoom out, what lessons should they be taking away from all this?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: Well, I would tell them to take a breath. Don't overreact. The Democrats need to do some soul-searching and reflect. And that's true. But Republicans also need to think about not going too far with their legislative agenda because they could see some real backlash to whatever that is coming up 24 months from now.

JOHN KRINJAK: Scott Braddock, editor of quorumreport.com. Scott, as always, thanks for being here. We appreciate your insight on this really, really pivotal week. Thank you.

SCOTT BRADDOCK: My pleasure. Thank you.