November 5th, 2024, sent shockwaves across the nation. From Howard University to Palm Beach, election night photos captured a seismic shift that will profoundly reshape America.

By Michael Shaw

In an election night defined by dashed expectations and visual ironies, the 2024 presidential race revealed itself through a series of powerful photographs that captured more than just political outcomes. From the premature preparation for contested results to the raw emotion at Howard University, from climate disasters playing silently on screens behind celebration parties to the tears of joy and despair, the images tell a story of an America grappling with fundamental contradictions and the undoing of political alignments.

The Replay That Didn’t Happen

The number of behind-the-scenes photos of vote counting and voting observers in CNN’s election night photo gallery reveals how much the country was steeled for an extremely close race, new election fraud claims from the far right, and Donald Trump again refusing to concede.

So much for Joe Biden’s pithy statement: “You can’t love your country only when you win.” Attempting to have it all, many Trump supporters and election deniers are touting the “perfect outcome” of 2024 as further proof that the 2020 election was indeed rigged.

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

This diptych looks like one more representation of the gender gap, right? Except joy, like grief (if you know your facial expression research), can be indistinguishable, and the woman on the left, at a GOP watch party in Wisconsin, is crying for joy.

Trump won approximately 46% of the female vote, a 2% increase over the 2020 election, though his vote share of white women was 52%.

The Broke Economy

While the “fix it” slogan was just one of many Trump rotated through during the campaign, it’s telling this one ascended to the surface and bannered his victory celebration on election night.

Amid a mountain of commentary on why Harris lost, the consensus is that the economy—or the perception of it—brought her down, with Trump capitalizing by positioning himself as the solution. Of course, Democrats are agonizing right now over two things: that the political framing of lingering Covid inflation trumped concern over Trump’s cultural, political, and economic agenda and that Trump’s economic fix will break things for all those middle-class and low-income citizens who backed him.

Harris’s Bet on Women Across the Aisle

These two images captured by Washington Post photographer Michael McCoy at Kamala Harris’s concession speech at Howard University offer a profound visual commentary on her coalition-building effort and its ultimate unraveling.

In the first image, we see a compelling portrait of youthful defiance and pride through the striking red “HU HU” novelty glasses worn by a poised young Black woman with braids adorned with blue streaks and pearl earrings. A deliberate nod to both Howard University and sorority symbolism, the “HU HU” is well known to Howard University (“HU”) through its iconic call-and-response chant. (When someone calls out “HHHH-U!” the response is “YOU KNOW!”) The woman’s confident, upward-tilted stance and fixed jaw suggest resilient determination despite the election outcome.

In the second image, we see a striking generational and ideological spectrum: a white woman holding an American flag and Liz Cheney’s “Oath” memoir – symbolizing the anti-Trump conservative wing and the more moderate Republican women Harris tried to court. Positioned centrally, this woman is surrounded by a diverse crowd, including two young Black women who look decidedly more aggrieved.

The juxtaposition of these different groups—each with their hopes and expectations—highlights the promise and fragility of Harris’s coalition, which ultimately could not withstand the economic and cultural forces that shaped the election. The disappointment etched on the faces in these photos reflects not just a lost election but also a lost opportunity to redefine the political landscape. While some remain defiant and proud, others appear crestfallen and fearful about the future.

More Powerful Scenes of the Crushing Disappointment for Black Women

There is no more significant evidence of the election’s shockwave than the eloquent photographs from election night at Howard.

This last photo of the group is profound for its emotional range. Although the 21% of Black men who voted for Trump only represents a 2% increase from 2020, the number nearly doubled for Black men under 45. On the other hand, Trump earned only 7% of the Black female vote.

One More Coalition Post-Mortem

Given the screen cueing the election count, the ethnicity of this couple, and most of all, the t-shirt, Dina Litovsky’s photo from election night in Midtown Manhattan further reflects on the schism of the outcome. The net is that Obama’s coalition of urban and suburban young, racial and ethnic minorities, educated professionals, and self-described moderates is officially a thing of the past.

Reproductive Rights: Breaking the Streak and a More Clouded Future

Majority rules—until it doesn’t. Such was the fate of the abortion rights amendment in Florida, which failed with 57% of the vote, just short of the state’s 60% threshold.

The GOP’s shattering victory, including control of the Senate and an apparent Congressional sweep, has overshadowed the passage of abortion protections in seven of ten states, both red and blue, breaking the movement’s perfect record.

The photos of the sad faces of women in Florida reflect not just the referendum loss but also the complex reality of abortion and reproductive rights after the January 5 earthquake. While the wins broadly demonstrate majority support, strategic Republican maneuvers may have blunted the momentum.

In Nebraska, ballot placement tactics and heavy conservative funding helped pass a more restrictive measure over a less restrictive one. Trump’s strategy of “leaving abortion to the states” proved politically effective. And with Trump’s return to the White House and GOP control of the Senate securing conservative judicial appointments, the future of reproductive rights looks more clouded, with advocates fearful of a further emboldened Supreme Court and a potential move in Congress to pass a national abortion ban.

Climate Zero

Trump denied it, and Harris strategically ignored it, but history will show that the 2024 campaign was marred by violent floods and two massive Gulf-warmed hurricanes in quick succession. The first event claimed at least 232 lives across six states. In Wright County, Missouri, two poll workers lost their lives to flash flooding en route to their election day assignment, a tragedy that barely registered.

While Trump supporters party with their backs to the screen, the climate crisis still manages a cameo, as the projection addresses Hurricane Helene’s impact on the election, showing a mountainside in the battleground state of North Carolina torn away beneath a roadway, the closed caption indicating how citizens in Raleigh were forced to vote from makeshift tents using electric generators.

The campaigns may have chosen to ignore the climate crisis, but the crisis refused to ignore the election. And now the victory scored by Trump and the fossil fuel industry might as much signify the point of no return.

All for One and One for Windfall

In a frame shared proudly by his campaign, Trump adjusts his tie before an impressively lit, full-length mirror, as if conjuring the vanity and self-obsessed “who’s the fairest of them all?” from “Snow White.” While his appearance remains exclusive to him alone, Trump’s image dominates the TV screen nearby, framed by the backdrop of his victory rally—a scene where even his reflection seems to demand center stage.

Photographer Haiyun Jiang used a tight shot when everyone else was capturing the vast spectacle of flags, family, and dignitaries to focus on Trump’s bottom line. Incidental or not, the movement of Trump’s thumb and forefinger toward his wife’s diamond ring as he basks in his victory and the adulation of hundreds of followers can’t help but serve as commentary—and a fact accepted or overlooked by a majority of the electorate on this day—that Trump is first and foremost about Trump and his personal gain.

Aftershock

As the images of election night 2024 fade, they leave us with a portrait of a nation in pieces. The photographs capture not just the victory and defeat of candidates but the bafflement of American democracy – where the majority doesn’t always rule, economic concerns overwhelm existential threats, wealth is the coin of the realm, and the ambitions and grievances of a former president once again shape the national landscape. Perhaps most poignantly, they document when one political era abruptly expired and another, more hardened and hardfisted, stormed ahead.