According to Edison Research, Trump's overall share of the black vote remained unchanged at just 12%, although it rose 1 percentage point among black men. Significantly, just 11% of voters nationwide were Black, down from 13% in 2020, indicating a slight decline in turnout among a demographic that has long been crucial to Democrats.

The same poll found a clearer shift toward the GOP among Hispanic voters, with Trump winning 45% of the total vote, up 13% from 2020, and 17% among Hispanic men — despite recent disparaging comments about Puerto Ricans angering Latino voters.

Pollsters have not yet provided data on Muslim and Arab American voters, a key demographic in the battleground state of Michigan that helped Biden flip the state in 2020 but has expressed anger at the Democratic president over his unwavering support for Israel .

Ahead of Election Day, many Arab American voters had vowed to punish the vice president for the Biden administration's decision to arm, finance and provide diplomatic cover for Israel's destruction of the Gaza Strip.

Read moreIn the “capital of Arab America,” voters plan to punish Harris for the wars in Gaza and Lebanon

Youth vote is lost

The still-raging war in the Middle East has also dampened Democrats' hopes of winning support among young voters, a Democratic-leaning but notoriously fickle demographic.

Voters under 30 traditionally make up only a small portion of the total electorate, but their mobilization four years ago helped push Biden over the border in key states like Pennsylvania.

Data from AP VoteCast suggests that about half of them supported Harris this time, compared to about 6 in 10 who supported Biden in 2020. Just over 4 in 10 young voters chose Trump, up from about a third in 2020.

About three-quarters of young voters said the country was moving in the wrong direction, and about a third said they wanted a complete shakeup in the way the country was run.

Edison Research found similar results: Trump received 42% of voters ages 18 to 29, up six percentage points from a 2020 election poll.

The reversal was most dramatic in Michigan, where exit polls showed voters under 30 narrowly supported Trump, four years after Biden won a commanding 61% of the vote.

The gender gap is narrowing

Surprisingly, preliminary data suggests that Harris may also have underperformed among women, whose election she won by a slightly narrower margin than expected – undermining predictions of a growing gender gap.

This was the first presidential election since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade repealed and abolished the national right of American women to have an abortion. What followed was an election campaign in which Trump openly courted men with hypermasculine rhetoric.

Both campaigns had anticipated a historic “gender gap” between the two candidates, with women making up a clear majority of Harris' supporters and men making up the bulk of Trump's total.

While 54% of female voters nationally went for the Democratic candidate, according to Edison Research, Trump's share of 44% is up 2 percentage points compared to the last election.

VoteCast reported a narrower gap: About half of women support Harris and about half of men support Trump — numbers that are broadly consistent with the shares won by Biden and Trump in 2020.

The poll found that about one in 10 voters said abortion was the country's top problem, underscoring the issue's newfound importance, although Republicans' preferred issues, immigration and the economy, ranked significantly higher among most voters.

The Democrats were overtaken

The Republican candidate also appears to have made inroads with the growing share of voters who identify as independents — meaning they are neither Democratic nor Republican.

As in 2020, independents favored the Democratic candidate, although Trump significantly improved his performance among the important swing voter bloc. About 50% of independents said they voted for Harris and 45% for Trump — an improvement of 4 percentage points for the Republican compared to 2020.

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In Georgia, where Trump won, independents went 54% to 43% for Republicans, according to a CBS exit poll, while they supported Biden by nine points in the last election.

Worryingly for Harris' party, Tuesday's vote marked the first time that independents had a larger share of the vote than Democrats in a presidential election – and tied with Republicans.

The share of independent voters increased by 8 percentage points compared to 2020, when it was a close third among both Democrats and Republicans at 26%.

The graduates were in the majority

A central goal of Harris' campaign targeting college-educated voters was to win over moderate Republicans alienated by Trump, who voted for the Democratic candidate in larger numbers than four years ago.

But Harris' gains there were more than offset by Democrats' losses among voters without a college degree.

According to Edison Research, Trump won 54% of voters without a college degree, up 4% from 2020 and 10 points ahead of Harris.

The same poll found that voters without degrees made up 57% of the total electorate.

These voters were most likely to make their choice based on concerns about jobs and the economy — the most important issue for about four in 10 voters, according to VoteCast.

According to Edison Research, a slim majority (51%) of voters said they had more confidence in Trump to handle the economy, while 47% supported Harris. 45% of voters said their family's financial situation is worse than it was four years ago, compared to 20% who said this in 2020.

The numbers reflect general pessimism about the economy after four years of Democratic rule – and signal that Harris has failed to address the fears of working-class voters struggling with inflation and rumors of economic decline America is alarmed.