the real answer shines through when you step outside of US politics. The global recession had people in every country questioning the incumbent party. It doesn't matter if it was left or right, conservative or liberal, whoever was in office was being blamed - because the public in general has no idea how the world works and has the collective memory of a goldfish. The US is performing better than most countries [1][2][3][4][5] in regards to the impact covid-19 had on the world, but Americans are too uneducated to realize they had it good, as the road to recovery is never easy.
With the public angry at the incumbent government (globally, not just in the US), the Trump/Putin hate machine decided to to stoke fear, uncertainty and doubt in Americans. This clearly worked as people's views on the nations economy have been trending down [6], so now we're left to deal with the Magagenda, which all seem to align with everything Putin ever hoped for.
You would think people would learn that republicans tend to wreck the economy just for democrats to fix it, and republicans to shit all over any progress that's been made again, but just like dogs aren't smart enough to learn that a snake bite's venomous bite could kill them an hour later, Americans can't seem to grasp the concept of economic momentum and that changes made in one term may not be immediately fixed - especially if the previous guy smeared his shit all over the bathroom walls before he left. It's understandable it will take some time to clean up.

Anyways, Trump took advantage of these economic hard times by stoking fear and hatred with claims that the incumbent party is to blame, that it's all corrupt, and somehow immigrants and trans people are to blame.
In summary, we've got a known rapist/conman/cheater with a history of rape, conning, and cheating and we're supposed to believe he won fair and square? I don't buy it.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68203820
[3] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-recovery-from-covid-19-in-international-comparison/
[4] https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-us-economy-in-global-context
[6] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/05/23/views-of-the-nations-economy-may-2024/
wouldn't implementing ranked choice voting in blue states just further fracture them and weaken them against red states? I would think it would make sense to initiate ranked choice in red states first.