It may seem like a straightforward story: Donald Trump won the election by winning the most votes. He improved his total, adding about 2.5 million more votes than four years ago. But just as consequential to the outcome were Kamala Harris’ losses: She earned about 7 million fewer votes compared to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s performance. in 2020.

Ms. Harris failed to find new voters in three of the seven swing states and in 80 percent of counties nationwide, a New York Times analysis found. In places where she matched or even exceeded Mr. Biden’s vote totals, she failed to match Mr. Trump’s gains.

We cannot yet know how many Biden voters supported Mr. Trump or did not vote at all this cycle. But the decline in support for Ms. Harris in some of the most liberal areas of the country is particularly notable. Compared to Mr. Biden, she lost hundreds of thousands of votes in major cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, and earned about 10 percent fewer votes overall in counties that Mr. Biden won four years ago.

Trump, on the other hand, found new voters in most counties, with significant gains in red states like Texas and Florida as well as blue states like New Jersey and New York.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, acknowledged that Biden voters leaning toward Trump played a role in Ms. Harris’ loss, but pointed to low Democratic turnout as the bigger factor.

“They just weren’t enthusiastic,” Sabato said of Democratic voters. “They were probably disillusioned with inflation, perhaps with the border. And they didn’t have the motivation to get up and vote.”

The national shift to the right is a continuation of the voting pattern of the past two elections. Even in his 2020 defeat, Trump found new voters across the country. (Both parties won more votes in 2020 than in 2016.) And while Democrats performed better than expected in 2022, when some had predicted a “red wave,” they lost many voters dissatisfied with rising prices, pushing out the restrictions the pandemic era and immigration policy.

At the local level, three different patterns help illustrate the overall outcome in 2024:

1. Where both candidates received votes, but Trump received more votes.

In hard-fought Georgia, both parties found new voters, but Mr. Trump outperformed Ms. Harris. For example, in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, Ms. Harris received about 4,500 votes, but Mr. Trump received more than 7,400.

How vote totals changed in Atlanta’s precincts

Where each candidate ended up
more votesor
fewer votes in 2024, compared to 2020

Trump

Harris

By Eli Murray, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart and Christine Zhang

In addition to his gains in the Atlanta area, Mr. Trump won new voters in every other part of Georgia. He returned the state to Republicans after Mr. Biden’s victory there in 2020. He similarly outpaced Ms. Harris, where she made gains in Wake County, N.C., Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Montgomery County, Texas.

2. Where Trump won a little and Harris lost a little.

In Milwaukee County in the swing state of Wisconsin, Ms. Harris lost 1,200 voters compared to Mr. Biden’s 2020 total, while Mr. Trump won more than 3,500.

How vote totals changed in Milwaukee’s precincts

Where each candidate ended up
more votesor
fewer votes in 2024, compared to 2020

Trump

Harris

By Eli Murray, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart and Christine Zhang

Ms. Harris still won the county as a whole, but her margins there and in other liberal enclaves of Wisconsin were not enough to counter Trump’s victories in rural, working-class districts that voted Republican in 2016 and 2020.

Democrats’ inability to maintain their vote totals in battleground states was also evident in the crucial areas around Charlotte, N.C., Flint, Michigan, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.

3. Where Trump won a little and Harris lost a lot.

Mr. Trump won Miami-Dade County in Florida, becoming the first Republican to do so since 1988. But again, Ms. Harris’s loss was as much a story as his win: Mr. Trump won about 70,000 new votes in the province, while losing nearly 140,000.

How vote totals changed in Miami’s precincts

Where each candidate ended up
more votesor
fewer votes in 2024, compared to 2020

Trump

Harris

By Eli Murray, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart and Christine Zhang

Other counties that Mr. Trump flipped had similar voting gaps. In 21 of these 77 counties, Trump received fewer votes in this election than in 2020, but the decline in Democratic votes was much steeper. This happened from coast to coast, from Fresno County, California, to Pinellas County, Florida.

Joel Benenson, the chief pollster for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, said he thought Democrats’ turnout was hurt by the party’s lack of presidential primaries. (Mr. Biden dropped out of the race in July.) That process, he said, helps energize core voters who engage in volunteer work, making phone calls and knocking on doors early in the year.

“That was a real challenge for Vice President Harris, who had a short runway and would have benefited from a real primary season,” Mr. Benenson said. “Republicans had a contested primary — even if there was a former president, they didn’t just give it to him.”

Mr. Trump was clearly able to tap into enthusiasm beyond his base. He made gains among nearly all groups ranging in demographics, education and income, including those who traditionally formed the Democratic coalition. Ms. Harris failed to rally Mr. Biden among the same groups.

Pre-election polls showed minority voters swinging toward Trump, and he appeared to be making gains among those groups. He won votes in majority-Hispanic counties and in black neighborhoods of major cities, a preliminary analysis of district data shows. But he lost votes, like Ms. Harris, in counties with majority black populations, especially those in the South, where turnout fell overall.

Trump found new voters in more than thirty states, including in battleground states where strong campaigns were waged. In most other places his gains were modest. Ms. Harris was able to improve on Mr. Biden’s performance in only four of the seven battleground states and in only five states overall.

John McLaughlin, Trump’s campaign pollster, said the campaign was focused on finding supporters who were not reliable voters and getting them to show up at the polls. He said internal polling showed that voters who cast ballots in 2024 after not voting in 2022 or 2020 supported Mr. Trump, 52 percent to 46 percent.

“The strategy was a lot like 2016, to bring out casual voters who thought the country was on the wrong track,” Mr McLaughlin said. “These voters blamed Biden and Harris and had generally positive approval for Trump.”