A friend asked me yesterday if turnout was really down this year. The answer is yes, but it's a bit trickier than it seems.
Turnout was 158 million in 2020 and looks like it will end up around 154 million this year. But 2020 was a big spike year and might not be a fair comparison. My preference for "expected" turnout is to ignore 2020 and instead draw a trendline through 2016. Then extend it through 2024 and see what you get:
That's a drop from the record high of 2020, but not much of one. So even if this is a better way of estimating turnout, 2024 fell short by three million voters. Enthusiasm just wasn't there like it was in 2020, when Donald Trump's antics were fresh in everyone's minds.
Daily Kos reports that turnout was actually up in the swing states, though.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/12/2285360/-You-can-t-blame-turnout-for-Harris-loss?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_6&pm_medium=web
The article mentions that Harris "underperformed" in the battlegrounds, but that's compared to four years ago. The blue-to-red headwinds this year were felt almost everywhere (WA, UT, Atlanta metro exceptions) but the drift was smaller in the battleground states. That implies Harris overperformed in the battlegrounds, where the campaigning was heaviest and where voters got to know her, and Trump, best.
What we can learn is, the easier we make it to vote, the more people will vote, the more Republicans will try to pull back on such things.
Democrats have a distinct advantage in lower turnout elections. They should crush the GOP in 2026, although it's obviously too early yet to know what national conditions will be like.
It's now objective political malpractice for Republicans to try to limit turnout unless they can be 100% certain their efforts will hurt only those voters who are highly likely to vote Dem.
Not just Trump, but also nigh-universal vote by mail.
People just aren't as likely to vote if they're in a solid one-party state (NY, CA, IL, etc.) and they have to actually trek to the polls instead of just mailing it in. It looks like about 700K fewer votes in NY state alone, for example. I'd pick CA as the most obvious example of this but for the inexplicably slow counting reasons, that would be silly.
Seriously though: it was 125K voters in WI (30K margin), MI (80K), and PA (140K) that won for the Republicans this year. Despite the electoral vote margin, this election was extremely close.
That is a truly terrible way of looking at voter turnout.
(YR) % of voting age population that voted.
1976 54.8
1980 54.2
1984 55.2
1988 52.8
1992 58.1
1996 51.7
2000 54.2
2004 60.1
2008 61.6
2012 58.6
2016 60.1
2020 66.6
We're on track for 2024 being about 65.5% turnout. (The NY Times currently has the Presidential vote tally finishing at about 156.4 M.) That last digit for turnout rate depends upon how accurate the current numbers are for percentage of vote in, and how much the voting population has grown since 2020. If anything, Kevin's number is probably a *little* high if we had the turnout of 2020 (we're probably more like 2.5M short of that turnout rate), and it's way off if you average the turnout rates of 2004-2016; this election will probably end up 13 M *higher* than the 60.1% average of those 4.
So, turnout isn't really the big story here. It's just that a majority of the voters preferred a racist/rapist/felonious/insurrectionist candidate over a center left mainstream candidate.
I agree that percent of voting population that voted is a much better metric. It's pretty much the same result though because Kevin's extrapolation to 157 million is the equivalent of saying 60% turnout of the 262 million potential voters.
Does this voting age population include the millions of people who are not citizens, and not eligible to vote?
No, it doesn't count non-citizens. But it's not like they went up by much compared to overall population.
Why do you ask?
I do think voting by mail may have increased turnout in 2020. And like right wing media this cycle, left wing media was poppin with daily mocking of trump's poor covid response
One of the few things to take solace in is that Trump will end up with both fewer votes and a smaller percentage of the votes than Biden in 2020. (Similarly, Harris will likely end up with more votes and a higher percentage of votes than Trump in 2020. The latter guaranteed, the former will be close.) There's even a fair chance of Trump ending up with a hair under 50% of the vote when all is said and done.
He should be reminded of this at every opportunity -- it will drive him batshit crazy.
You don't think that he's already there? The thought that he might be imprisoned & that he will likely die as his father did may well have been behind his increasingly deteriorating speech & frenzied behavior this year.
.You don't think that he's already there? The thought that he might be imprisoned & that he will likely die as his father did may well have been behind his increasingly deteriorating speech & frenzied behavior this year
This may change a bit as CA votes are counted, but as of yesterday, the 2024 totals are 75 million for Trump and 72 million for Harris. 2020 totals were 74 million for Trump and 81 million for Biden.
This is pretty simple math: Trump's vote total increased by 1 million and the Democrat's vote total dropped by 9 million. Therefore, Democratic voter turnout CRASHED this year.
Will that difference get wiped out by the remaining CA votes? Give me a break. Despite all the punditry about a "realignment" and all the hot air about inflation and woke culture and the "working class," it looks like this election hinged on getting Democrats off their asses to vote. And they didn't.
This. This. This. All respect to Kevin, these are the ONLY numbers that matter. Trump gained ~900,00 votes over 2020, a modest gain. As you note, Harris dropped ~9,300,000 votes from 2020. Trump didn't gain anything. He got his peeps. That's it. No Red wave, no massive realignment. Trumpitarians have locked in their 45%. That's it. The only question that matters, and it matters more than any of the bullshit flying around the bullshitosphere, is why did over nine million people who voted Democratic in 2020 not even vote in 2024?
My first guess is that a lot - a fucking shit ton - of people who aren't dedicated Democratic voters who voted against Dump in 2020 stayed home. Why? How many of these were men who are never going to vote for a woman against a man, especially a black woman? How many were pissed at Harris for reasons? How many votes were lost because of the hobbled campaign? Etc etc.
There is still about 4.2% of the vote outstanding. The total is only going to be ~2 M shy of the 2020 totals. Both candidates are going to get a few million more votes. There's still 3.5 M outstanding in California alone, and another 3 M in the rest of the country. There isn't going to be a 9M drop for Harris compared to Biden 2020. (5 M drop?) There will be something like a 4 M vote gain for Trump compared to 2020.
Final numbers will tell us a lot more.
how about some numbers about eligible voters who did not participate in 2024.