Tuesday marks the end of a tumultuous White House race that included everything from a sudden change at the top of the Democratic Party to two assassination attempts against the Republican nominee.

The heated contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden before her, has produced reams of data that shed light on U.S. public opinion and voters' attitudes on everything from the economy to foreign policy to the candidates' character .

Here are seven charts that defined the 2024 presidential election.

inflation

Inflation and the cost of living were key issues in the election campaign, with voters consistently citing the economy and high prices as their biggest concerns.

While inflation has cooled significantly from post-pandemic highs, voters remain angry about high prices — and Republicans have clearly shifted the blame to Democrats. Trump's most aired ads have attempted to link Harris to Biden's economic policies, or “Bidenomics.”

While Trump claims that “inflation will completely disappear” if he is elected, mainstream economists have warned that he will make the situation worse by imposing high tariffs on imports and deporting millions of migrant workers.

On economic issues, the two candidates are virtually neck and neck in the eyes of voters. According to the October FT-Michigan Ross poll, 44 percent of registered voters said they had more confidence in Trump to handle the economy, compared to 43 percent for Harris.

Candidacy, interrupted

After Biden's disastrous debate performance on June 27, he came under enormous pressure within his party to resign. He dropped out of his studies on July 21st. Harris replaced him as the Democratic nominee on August 5. This sequence of events drastically changed the poll picture of the race and wiped out a Republican lead.

Harris quickly overtook Trump's lead in the polls, although her lead has all but disappeared in recent weeks. According to the FT poll, the race is now statistically tied.

immigration

Record numbers of U.S.-Mexico border crossings in recent years have made immigration a weakness for Harris, which Trump has attributed in part to her role as “border czar” under Biden.

According to a CNN poll in October, more Americans said they trust Trump to handle immigration issues than Harris. A majority of U.S. voters also said they wanted immigration rates to be reduced.

Trump, whose immigration rhetoric included a debunked conspiracy about pet-eating immigrants in Ohio, has promised the “largest deportation effort in American history” if elected and said he would use the military to round up illegal immigrants.

Fears of illegal border crossings rose sharply through December 2023, but have fallen sharply since the Biden administration imposed restrictions on asylum seekers in June and are now in line with Trump-era numbers.

A more partisan version of the table above played an unexpected role in this year's campaign. At a July rally in Pennsylvania, Trump turned his head to look before he was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin. He credits the graphic with saving his life.

Trump's accusations

In May, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime when a New York jury found him guilty of covering up “hush money” paid to silence a porn actress in the run-up to the 2016 election . He will be sentenced after the election.

Trump was indicted in three other criminal cases that were either postponed or dropped.

One federal indictment accused him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost, and another accused him of mishandling classified documents. Prosecutors in Georgia have filed a separate case against Trump for interference in the 2020 election.

The documents case was dismissed by a judge in Florida – the Justice Department is appealing that decision – and the case in Georgia is on hold. The Justice Department's election case has yet to go to trial.

Trump says all of this makes him the victim of a partisan “witch hunt” and has vowed retaliation if he wins another four years in the White House. But the lawsuits were a huge boon to his fundraising efforts.

abortion

Protecting abortion access is a centerpiece of Harris' platform — and an electoral weakness for Trump, who nominated three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which had enshrined the nation's right to abortion.

The vice president has campaigned heavily on the issue, including widely aired commercials and a rally with Beyoncé in late October. Trump has boasted that he could “kill Roe v. Wade” while rejecting calls from the religious right for a complete national abortion ban.

The overturning of Roe handed control over abortion rules to the states, and since then Republican officials have introduced increasingly prohibitive regulations at the state level. Thirteen states now ban abortion under almost all circumstances, including for victims of rape and incest.

Some conservative lawmakers and judges are also calling for restrictions on access to contraception and fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization.

But public support for abortion rights has risen over the past 15 years, from a low of 47 percent who said abortion “should be legal in all/most cases” in 2009 to a high of 63 percent this year.

Foreign policy

Trump and Harris represent completely different worldviews. The former president advocates an “America First” agenda, including a comprehensive new tariff system. He is skeptical of NATO and says he would make a deal with Vladimir Putin to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

Harris emphasizes her commitment to Ukraine and US allies. It would likely keep pressure on Beijing through tariffs.

On Israel, Harris has expressed concern more than Biden about the suffering of Palestinian civilians, but also supports Israel's “right to self-defense.” The administration's stance has been a problem for some Arab Americans in the swing state of Michigan.

In a poll by FT-Michigan Ross, nearly half of respondents said the U.S. was spending “too much” on military and financial aid to the two countries.

Money

This election will go down as the most expensive in history, with presidential campaigns and support groups having raised nearly $4 billion as of mid-October: $2.2 billion to support Harris and $1.7 billion for Trump.

Individual donors were crucial for Democrats, especially after Harris entered the race. Her campaign received more than 600,000 donations on each of the first two days, more than any other day of Biden's 2020 campaign.

According to an FT analysis, Trump relied heavily on the super-rich, who accounted for about 34 percent of total revenue. Four donors – bank heir Timothy Mellon, casino developer Miriam Adelson, shipping owner Richard Uihlein and Elon Musk – donated around $432 million. About 6 percent of funding for pro-Harris groups came from billionaires.

Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington