A new feature on Instagram that let’s users share their real-time physical location with others on the app has privacy experts concerned over the amount of data exposed and potential safety risks to users.

Called Instagram Map, the new feature was introduced on Thursday as part of an app update. On its blog, the company says the location-sharing tool makes it “easier for you and your friends to stay in touch through the content you’re enjoying on Instagram.” 

“You can opt into sharing your last active location with friends you pick, and you can turn it off anytime,” Instagram said in a blog post announcing the new feature. “You can also open the map to see content your friends and favorite creators are posting from cool spots. No matter how you use the map, you and your friends have a new, lightweight way to connect with each other.”

“Off by default”

In a statement shared with CBS MoneyWatch Friday, Instagram’s parent company, Meta, emphasized that Instagram Maps is not automatically active upon updating the app and that users must opt-in to the location-sharing feature in order to make their whereabouts visible to others. 

“Instagram Map is off by default, and your live location is never shared unless you choose to turn it on. If you do, only people you follow back — or a private, custom list you select — can see your location,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. 

Users can also choose not to share their locations when they are in particular places, or with particular people. 

Still, privacy experts say that social media users aren’t always aware of how much information they’re sharing with an app or its users, even if they have the ability to limit who sees what.

“The more these location features are rolled out on social media it carries out the assumption that as long as you give users the ability to toggle them on and off that they’ll know exactly how to do that,” Douglas Zytko, an app safety expert and associate professor at the College of Innovation & Technology at the University of Michigan-Flint, told CBS MoneyWatch. “But the average user isn’t always aware of their privacy settings and if they match their preferences.” 

When the Instagram Map feature is turned on, any content a user posts with a location tagged, including a reel, post or story, will show up on the app’s map for 24 hours, according to the Instagram blog. While the feature remains on, the user’s location is updated whenever they open the app or return to it. The feature can be turned off at any time.

In an Instagram post discussing the feature, Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, explains how he himself uses the map. “Personally, I use the map to share what I’m up to with a handful of my closest friends, and I curate that list carefully,” he said. 

User confusion over whether the feature is on or off 

On Threads, Meta’s microblogging site, a number of Instagram account holders claimed that their locations were being pinned on friends’ maps by default.

Mosseri weighed in, saying the concerns prompted the company to re-examine how the feature works. 

“We’re double-checking everything, but so far it looks mostly like people are confused and assume that, because they can see themselves on the map when they open, other people can see them too,” he said. “We’re still checking everything though to make sure nobody shares location without explicitly deciding to do so, which, by the way, requires a double consent by design (we ask you to confirm after you say you want to share).”

How to turn on Instagram Maps

In the top right corner of the app, tap on the messaging function. There you will see a circular world map icon labeled “map. If you click on the icon, you will see you’re on location pinned on a map. Friends who are sharing their locations will also appear. Click on the gear icon to choose to share your location with no one, or a custom list of friends, or all of your friends — who are followers that you also follow back on the app. 

Social pressures, privacy and safety risks

Zytko, however, said it can be complicated for social media users to manage privacy settings that let them share different kinds of content with different groups of people. “This issue is called ‘context collapse,'” he said. “Your co-workers see your social media posts, and your friends and family, and there is certain content you only want some groups to see but not others, and it can be hard to manage the visibility of content.” 

Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, which makes entertainment and technology recommendations for families, said location-sharing features can be particularly risky for younger app users. 

“These features might feel fun and social, but they create unnecessary risks that teens and many adults don’t necessarily understand,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. 

While parents who supervise their teens through controls built into the app can control their kids’ location-sharing settings, he still has concerns about the kinds of social pressures such features expose teens, too. 

Torney said research at Common Sense Media shows that location-sharing also creates “social pressures around where teens go and who they spend time with, and kids feel obligated to share location to show they are someplace cool.”

Furthermore, when teens share their locations, “they are potentially telling strangers where they are in real time,” Torney told CBS MoneyWatch. “If you’re not selective about who you’re sharing your location with, it creates opportunities for harassment, stalking or worse.”

Texas Republicans unveiled a redrawn congressional map that they hope will result in a gain of five seats in the U.S. House after the 2026 midterm elections. The new map, pushed by President Trump, puts areas of Houston, Dallas and San Antonio with Democratic incumbents into districts that now favor Republicans.

It does the same with two districts along the border. In redrawing the new maps, Republicans again were able to create what appear to be nearly universally safe seats, with none of their targeted districts closer than 10 percentage points based on 2024 election results.

Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican-led legislature went along with the overtly partisan redistricting effort.

The proposed map must still be approved by the Texas legislature, which could happen as soon as next week. And it is likely to face an immediate legal challenge from Democrats, who have argued that the new lines cut into majority Black and Hispanic districts in violation of the Voting Rights Act. But several of the new districts that were drawn to favor Republicans also contain a majority of Hispanic voters. The party appears to be counting on keeping the gains its candidates have made among Hispanic voters in recent elections, particularly in Texas.

Houston

In Houston, the biggest impact appeared to be on the ninth district, held by Representative Al Green. District lines would move from south of the city’s downtown to mostly east, and from favoring Democrats to favoring Republicans.

Mr. Green, the 77-year-old incumbent who heckled Mr. Trump during an address to Congress this year, may still be able to hold onto a seat in Congress under the proposed new map because it puts much of the vacant 18th House district in the area that he currently represents. But several rising young Democratic candidates are running for the 18th district in a special election this November. That could yield a competitive primary next year pitting the old guard against the new if Mr. Green — who promised he will “be on the ballot” next year — chooses to enter that race.

Austin and San Antonio

In San Antonio, the new map eliminates a Democratic district that now stretches between San Antonio and Austin and instead carves out a new Republican seat in the more conservative San Antonio suburbs.

The change appears to force two incumbent Democrats, Representative Greg Casar, the 36-year-old chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a rising star, and Representative Lloyd Doggett, the 78-year-old dean of the state’s delegation, to compete for the one remaining Democratic seat.

Dallas

The newly drawn 32nd district is a textbook example of what is known as “cracking,” a term that describes a gerrymander that breaks apart — or cracks — a region with a high concentration of one party’s voters and spreads them out. By diluting such concentrations with far-flung regions, the map flips the majority and prevents the densely populated area from electing voters of its choice.

In this case, Republicans split the 32nd congressional district, found in the densely populated eastern and northern suburbs of Dallas, and extended it over a hundred miles east, into more rural and deeply Republican areas of East Texas. The result changes the district from one that Representative Julia Johnson, the Democratic incumbent, carried by more than 20 points, into one Mr. Trump would have carried by more than 15 points.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency included the prestigious girls’ summer camp in a “Special Flood Hazard Area” in its National Flood Insurance map for Kerr County in 2011, which means it was required to have flood insurance and faced tighter regulation on any future construction projects.

That designation means an area is likely to be inundated during a 100-year flood — one severe enough that it only has a 1% chance of happening in any given year.

Located in a low-lying area along the Guadalupe River in a region known as flash flood alley, Camp Mystic lost at least 27 campers and counselors and longtime owner Dick Eastland when historic floodwaters tore through its property before dawn on July 4.

The flood was far more severe than the 100-year event envisioned by FEMA, experts said, and moved so quickly in the middle of the night that it caught many off guard in a county that lacked a warning system.

But Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle, who has extensively studied FEMA’s flood map determinations, said it was “particularly disturbing” that a camp in charge of the safety of so many young people would receive exemptions from basic flood regulation.

“It’s a mystery to me why they weren’t taking proactive steps to move structures away from the risk, let alone challenging what seems like a very reasonable map that shows these structures were in the 100-year flood zone,” she said.

Camp Mystic didn’t respond to emails seeking comment and calls to it rang unanswered. The camp has called the flood an “unimaginable tragedy” and added in a statement Thursday that it had restored power for the purpose of communicating with its supporters.

FEMA exempted buildings at old and new sites

In response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area. Records show that those buildings were part of the 99-year-old Camp Mystic Guadalupe, which was devastated by last week’s flood.

After further appeals, FEMA removed 15 more Camp Mystic structures in 2019 and 2020 from the designation. Those buildings were located on nearby Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, a sister site that opened to campers in 2020 as part of a major expansion and suffered less damage in the flood.

Campers have said the cabins at Cypress Lake withstood significant damage, but those nicknamed “the flats” at the Guadalupe River camp were inundated.

Experts say Camp Mystic’s requests to amend the FEMA map could have been an attempt to avoid the requirement to carry flood insurance, to lower the camp’s insurance premiums or to pave the way for renovating or adding new structures under less costly regulations.

Pralle said the appeals were not surprising because communities and property owners have used them successfully to shield specific properties from regulation.

Analysis shows flood risks at both camp sites

Regardless of FEMA’s determinations, the risk was obvious.

At least 12 structures at Camp Mystic Guadalupe were fully within FEMA’s 100-year flood plain, and a few more were partially in that zone, according to an AP analysis of data provided by First Street, a data science company that specializes in modeling climate risk.

Jeremy Porter, the head of climate implications at First Street, said FEMA’s flood insurance map underestimates flood risks. That’s because it fails to take into account the effects of heavy precipitation on smaller waterways such as streams and creeks. First Street’s model puts nearly all of Camp Mystic Guadalupe at risk during a 100-year flood.

The buildings at the newer Cypress Lake site are farther from the south fork of the flood-prone river but adjacent to Cypress Creek. FEMA’s flood plain doesn’t consider the small waterway a risk.

However, First Street’s model, which takes into account heavy rain and runoff reaching the creek, shows that the majority of the Cypress Lake site lies within an area that is at risk during a 100-year flood.

In a statement, FEMA downplayed the significance of the flood map amendments.

“Flood maps are snapshots in time designed to show minimum standards for floodplain management and the highest risk areas for flood insurance,” the agency wrote. “They are not predictions of where it will flood, and they don’t show where it has flooded before.”

An ‘arduous’ appeal process can help property owners

Property owners challenging FEMA’s map designations hire engineers to conduct detailed studies to show where they believe the 100-year flood plain should actually be drawn. That is a “pretty arduous process” that can lead to more accurate maps while making it easier for future construction, said Chris Steubing, executive director of the Texas Floodplain Management Association, an industry group that represents floodplain managers.

Pralle, who reviewed the amendments for AP, noted that some of the exempted properties were within 2 feet (0.6 meters) of FEMA’s flood plain by the camp’s revised calculations, which she said left almost no margin for error. She said her research shows that FEMA approves about 90% of map amendment requests, and the process may favor the wealthy and well-connected.

A study she published in 2021 with researcher Devin Lea analyzed more than 20,000 buildings that had been removed from FEMA flood maps. It found that the amendments occurred more often in places where property values were higher, more white people lived and buildings were newer.

Camp expanded after ‘tremendous success’

FEMA had cautioned in its amendments that other parts of Camp Mystic remained on the flood map, and that “any future construction or substantial improvement” would be subject to flood plain management regulations.

County officials not only allowed the camp to keep operating, but to dramatically expand.

Considered Texas royalty after decades of taking care of the daughters of elite families, Camp Mystic owners Dick and Tweety Eastland cited the “tremendous success” of their original camp in explaining the need for a second site nearby.

The expansion included new cabins and a dining hall, chapel, archery range and more. The camp had 557 campers and more than 100 staffers between its two locations when a state licensing agency conducted an inspection on July 2, two days before the tragedy, records show.

FEMA referred questions about the expansion to local officials, who didn’t reply to messages seeking comment.

Steubing, a longtime municipal engineer in Texas, said the rain and flooding that hit Kerr County in a matter of hours were so much more intense than anything in its history that it’s hard to call the flood plain management a failure.

Local officials likely believed they were following existing regulations when they allowed the camp to keep growing, but “then Mother Nature set a new standard,” he said.

“You could have built things 2 feet (0.6 meters) higher, 3 feet (0.9 meters) higher, and they still might have gotten taken down,” he said.

President Trump has targeted the citizens of a dozen countries as part of a new ban on travel to the United States and restricted travel from several more.

The restrictions touch more parts of the world and will most likely affect more people than similar travel bans that were introduced during the first Trump administration.

All travelers who are citizens of countries in the first tier will be barred entry, while those countries in the second tier face the suspension of certain visas.

Shortly after he first took office in 2017, Mr. Trump tried to bar travelers from seven mostly Muslim-majority countries. Five of those countries are on the new list, plus several more countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.

What happened under the previous travel bans?

The introduction of the 2017 travel ban led to immediate chaos and confusion as hundreds of travelers were detained at airports across the country and more than 60,000 visas were provisionally revoked. Federal judges blocked the ban within a week.

Overall, travel from the countries banned in 2017 was relatively low to begin with, though people from Iran and Syria had arrived in the thousands each month. A back-and-forth in the courts throughout 2017 delayed implementation, and then the Covid pandemic hit, halting travel globally.

But after President Joseph R. Biden Jr. lifted the bans in January 2021, travel from those countries — and from Chad, Libya and Yemen — more than rebounded.

Mr. Trump ended up issuing a series of four travel bans in his first term, with each version modifying its predecessors in order to pass legal scrutiny. It took almost a year before any ban actually took effect.

Here is a look back at the evolution of the travel bans under the first Trump administration from 2017 through 2020:

More of Mr. Trump’s advisers and confidants occupy rooms on the basement level, one floor beneath the Oval Office. Thomas D. Homan, the border czar in charge of the administration’s deportation operation, has an office there, as do several members of the National Security Council. Paula White-Cain, Mr. Trump’s longtime personal pastor who is leading the White House faith office, also works on this level.

In the stretch of rural Kentucky that borders West Virginia, voters reliably send Republicans to Congress. Representative Hal Rogers, who represents the area, did not even face a Democratic challenger in 2024. More than 40 percent of the population there relies on Medicaid, the public health insurance plan for low-income Americans.

In eastern Louisiana, where Representative Julia Letlow, a Republican, was elected in 2024 by a wide margin, about one-third of the population is enrolled in the program.

And in California’s Central Valley, Republicans control a district where two-thirds of the population is on Medicaid, one of the highest rates in the nation, according to an analysis of federal enrollment data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank.

Some of those places could bear the brunt of steep Medicaid cuts that are expected to be central to Republicans’ budget plans. The budget passed on Tuesday night by House Republicans directs Energy and Commerce, the committee that oversees Medicaid, to cut spending by $880 billion over the next decade, which would amount to an 11 percent reduction in the program’s planned spending.

In its 60 years, Medicaid has swelled from a small program that provided medical care to poor Americans receiving cash assistance to the largest source of public insurance. It covers 72 million Americans, about one-fifth of the population. It pays for about half of all nursing care in the United States, and 40 percent of all births.

The program has grown especially quickly over the last 15 years, as millions joined through the expansion of the Affordable Care Act to cover healthy adults who earn less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line, about $21,597 for an individual and $36,777 for a family of three. The rolls swelled again during the coronavirus pandemic, when Medicaid extended emergency coverage to millions.

Republicans have not yet specified what policy changes they would make to Medicaid. Options discussed include requiring enrollees to be employed, or dialing down funding for the Affordable Care Act’s expansion, which made millions of adults eligible for coverage. A work requirement would be expected to cut Medicaid spending by about $100 billion over the next decade, as those unable to comply — or to file the correct paperwork showing their employment — would lose coverage.

In a statement, Representative Rogers of Kentucky described claims his party would gut the program as “lies promoted by House Democrats.”

“We are on a mission to cut waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars, so that we can protect the future of programs like Medicaid for years to come,” he said.

Large cuts to Medicaid would likely hit dense urban areas that tend to vote for Democrats. The congressional district that covers part of the Bronx in New York, for example, has one of the highest Medicaid enrollment rates in the country, with the program covering 67 percent of the people who live there. A district that covers part of Los Angeles has more than half its residents enrolled in the program.

Of the 10 congressional districts with the highest share of residents enrolled in Medicaid, nine are held by Democratic legislators.

Districts with the highest Medicaid enrollment rates

District	Representative	Medicaid enrollment	Margin
Calif. 22nd	David Valadao	68%	R+7
N.Y. 15th	Ritchie Torres	67%	D+55
Calif. 21st	Jim Costa	61%	D+5
Calif. 37th	Sydney Kamlager-Dove	56%	D+57
Calif. 25th	Raul Ruiz	55%	D+13
Calif. 13th	Adam Gray	55%	D+0.09
N.Y. 14th	Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez	53%	D+38
Calif. 34th	Jimmy Gomez	53%	D
Calif. 29th	Luz Rivas	52%	D+40
N.Y. 13th	Adriano Espaillat	52%	D+67
Show 40 more +

Note: Margin of victory not shown for representatives who faced another member of the same party on the November ballot.

There are also pockets of the country that rely significantly on the program where voters favor Republicans. Of the 218 seats Republicans control in Congress, 26 are in districts where Medicaid covers more than 30 percent of the population, according to a New York Times analysis of federal enrollment data.

All 26 of those representatives voted in favor of the House budget this week.

Republican districts with highest Medicaid enrollment rates

District	Representative	Medicaid enrollment	Republican Margin
Calif. 22nd	David Valadao	68%	R+7
Calif. 23rd	Jay Obernolte	47%	R+20
Ky. 5th	Hal Rogers	44%	R Uncontested
Calif. 1st	Doug LaMalfa	42%	R+31
Ore. 2nd	Cliff Bentz	40%	R+31
Wash. 4th	Dan Newhouse	38%	R
Alaska At-Large	Nick Begich	36%	R+2
N.Y. 11th	Nicole Malliotakis	34%	R+28
La. 5th	Julia Letlow	34%	R
La. 3rd	Clay Higgins	34%	R
Calif. 20th	Vince Fong	33%	R
La. 4th	Mike Johnson	33%	R
Show 14 more +

Note: Margin of victory not shown for Republican representatives who faced another Republican on the November ballot.

Their districts are scattered across the country, from Alaska to West Virginia. The list includes the Louisiana district held by Speaker Mike Johnson, where 33 percent of residents are enrolled. All are in states that participate in the Medicaid expansion. Republicans have considered scaling back funding for that program, which would save the federal government about $500 billion over the next decade — but also leave people in many states without coverage.

While President Trump has repeatedly said over the last week he would not cut Medicaid, Republican legislators don’t have many options for looking for those cuts elsewhere. Some have already expressed concern about cuts to the program. Last week, seven Republican members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference sent Speaker Johnson a letter warning that “slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities.”

As the second Trump administration has gotten underway, health care has not been a top issue for the president’s voters. It ranked as the fifth-most-important issue to them in a January poll from The New York Times and Ipsos, behind immigration, the economy, inflation and taxes.

In January, Michael Perry, a founder of the polling firm PerryUndem, conducted three focus groups with Medicaid enrollees who voted for President Trump, noting that most did not list health care among their top voting issues.

When he brought up the idea that Republicans were exploring cuts to Medicare, some said they did not think the president would ultimately cut their health coverage because he would want to avoid a backlash. But other voters, he said, expressed concern. “They liked Medicaid, said it made a difference in their lives,” Mr. Perry said. “It wasn’t hard for them to put their finger on what Medicaid had done.”

It may seem like a clear story: Donald Trump won the election by winning the most votes. He improved on his totals, adding about 2.5 million more votes than four years ago. But just as consequential to the outcome were Kamala Harris’s losses: She earned about 7 million fewer votes compared with 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 across the country, a New York Times analysis shows. In the places where she matched or exceeded Mr. Biden’s vote totals, she failed to match Mr. Trump’s gains.

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

Mr. Trump, by contrast, found new voters in most counties, with significant gains in red states like Texas and Florida and also in blue states like New Jersey and New York.

Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, acknowledged that Biden voters who swung toward Mr. Trump played a part in Ms. Harris’s loss, but pointed to low Democratic turnout as the larger factor.

“They just weren’t excited,” Mr. Sabato said of Democratic voters. “They were probably disillusioned by inflation, maybe the border. And they didn’t have the motivation to get up and go out to vote.”

The national rightward shift is a continuation of voting patterns seen in the last two elections. Even in his 2020 defeat, Mr. Trump found new voters across the country. (Both parties earned more votes in 2020 than in 2016.) And although Democrats outperformed expectations in 2022, when some had predicted a “red wave,” they lost many voters who were dissatisfied with rising prices, pandemic-era restrictions and immigration policy.

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

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

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

How vote totals changed in Atlanta precincts

Where each candidate got
more votes
or
fewer votes in 2024, compared with 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 flipped the state back to Republicans after Mr. Biden’s win there in 2020. He similarly outran Ms. Harris where she made gains in Wake County, N.C., Lancaster County, Pa., and Montgomery County, Texas.

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

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

How vote totals changed in Milwaukee precincts

Where each candidate got
more votes
or
fewer votes in 2024, compared with 2020

Trump

Harris

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

Ms. Harris still won the county at large, but her margins there and in other liberal enclaves of Wisconsin were not enough to hold off Mr. Trump’s victories in rural, blue-collar counties that voted Republican in 2016 and 2020.

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

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

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

How vote totals changed in Miami precincts

Where each candidate got
more votes
or
fewer votes in 2024, compared with 2020

Trump

Harris

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

Other counties that Mr. Trump flipped had similar vote disparities. In 21 of these 77 counties, Mr. Trump received fewer votes in this election than in 2020, but the Democratic vote drop-off was much steeper. This happened from coast to coast, from Fresno County, Calif., to Pinellas County, Fla.

Joel Benenson, the chief pollster for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, said he thought Democratic turnout was hurt by the party’s lack of a presidential primary. (Mr. Biden dropped out of the race in July.) That process, he said, helps energize core voters who get involved with volunteering, 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 with a former president, they didn’t just hand it to him.”

Mr. Trump was clearly able to harness enthusiasm beyond his base. He made gains across almost all groups ranging in demographics, education and income, including those that traditionally made up the Democratic coalition. Ms. Harris failed to match Mr. Biden among the same groups.

Pre-election polls showed minority voters swinging toward Mr. Trump, and he appeared to make gains with those groups. He picked up votes in majority-Hispanic counties and in Black neighborhoods of major cities, a preliminary analysis of precinct data shows. But he lost votes, as did Ms. Harris, in majority-Black counties, especially those in the South where turnout dropped overall.

Mr. Trump found new voters in more than 30 states, including in the battleground states that were the sites of robust campaigning. His gains were modest in most other places. Ms. Harris was able to improve on Mr. Biden’s performance in only four of the seven battlegrounds and just five states overall.

John McLaughlin, Mr. Trump’s campaign pollster, said the campaign was focused on finding supporters who were not reliable voters and making sure they turned out to the polls. He said that internal polling showed that voters who cast a ballot in 2024 after not voting in 2022 or 2020 supported Mr. Trump, 52 percent to 46 percent.

“The strategy was very much 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 generally had positive approval for Trump.”