Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Annabel Richter, and Milan Vaishnav
Introduction
When it comes to voters exercising their franchise at the ballot box, there is no doubt that 2024 was a banner year. With the benefit of hindsight, it was not simply a year of critical elections but also one with a distinct, anti-incumbent tenor. According to the Financial Times, “the incumbent in every one of the 12 developed western countries that held national elections in 2024 lost vote share at the polls, the first time this has ever happened in almost 120 years of modern democracy.” The November U.S. election fits this pattern perfectly, with challenger and former president Donald Trump returning to power and Democratic candidate and sitting vice president Kamala Harris losing.
The developing world was not completely immune from the anti-incumbent backlash. In India, which held the world’s largest election in recorded history, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power for a third consecutive term, albeit in a much weaker position than in the previous two elections. In contrast to the parliamentary majorities the BJP obtained in 2014 and 2019, the ruling party won 240 seats in 2024, comfortably making it the single largest party in the Lok Sabha but short of the 272 seats needed to form the government without the help of coalition allies.
These two developments took place against a backdrop of growing ties between the United States and India. The countries have built increasingly stronger linkages in areas including national security, energy cooperation, intelligence-sharing, and education over the past four years.
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