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Election 2024: Democrat Voters Stayed Home [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-20
The November 2024 presidential election is now history and Donald Trump will be inaugurated today. How did this come to pass ? There have been numerous articles analyzing why Kamala Harris lost since that election with much speculation. A common theme seems to be that large numbers of voters that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 defected to Donald Trump in 2024. I have looked at some hard data and this does not appear to be true. Rather, it appears that a large number of Democratic voters stayed home. These appear to be mainly Democratic voters from minority communities. First, a look at the hard data:
2020 Election
Democrat 81,284,000
Republican 74,224,000
Total all Candidates 158,430,000
2024 Election
Democrat 75,009,000
Republican 77,304,000
Total all Candidates 155,205,000
Change from 2020 to 2024
Democrat -6,275,000
Republican + 3,080,000
Total all Candidates -3,225,000
The increase in the Trump vote was only half of the decline in the Democratic vote.
However, the eligible voting population in 2024 is not the same as that in 2020. Every year, 3 million voters die and 5 million are newly eligible to vote (4 million who turn age 18 and 1 million who become citizens). Over 4 years there were an additional net of 8 million who were eligible to vote. Not all would vote and I estimate that no more than 5 million voted. We do not know how they voted but opinion polls have shown that younger voters and new citizens are more likely to vote Democratic. I estimate 3 million voted for Kamala Harris and 2 million for Donald Trump. Accounting for the 2 million new voters that would have voted for Trump would mean that the Republican vote increased 1,080,000 from 2020 from voters that switched their vote from Democrat in 2020 to Republican in 2024. It also means that with 2020 voter turnout percentage that the Democrat vote should have increased by 3 million. Thus, with 2020 turnout rate the Democrat vote should have been 84,284,000 instead of 75,009,000. That is a theoretical decline of 9,275,000 votes. Since Donald Trump’s vote only increased 1,080,000 it appears that over 8 million Democrat voters stayed home. Donald Trump’s victory was not due to any significant increase in support for Donald Trump or his policies. Rather, it was due to Democrat voters that stayed home.
Who are these Democratic voters who stayed home ? They appear to be mainly voters from minority groups including those from the Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American communities. Can this be proven ? In every state voter turnout is available and every registered voter has basic data such as age and gender. Voter registration data and turnout by race or ethnicity is only available in 2 states: Georgia and North Carolina. This data is very revealing for the 2024 election and this was the voter turnout by race and ethnicity for registered voters;
Georgia
White 80.8%
Black 65.6%
Asian 67.8%
Hispanic 59.8%
Other/Unknown 65.1%
It is clear that voter turnout was much higher among white voters compared to turnout among all minority groups. The Black community is the largest group accounting for almost 1/3 of all voters. Those voters also vote 90% Democratic. If the turnout among Black voters equaled that of white voters, there would have been an additional 360,000 Black voters in this election. If 320,000 voted Democratic and 40,000 Republican, Kamala Harris would have had an additional 280,000 votes. Donald Trump won by 118,000 votes. The other minority groups are much smaller than the Black electorate and do not vote Democrat in as high a percentages as Black voters. Even so, if Hispanic and Asian voters had voted at the same rate as white voters then Kamala would have won Georgia by almost 200,000 votes. + 16 electoral votes for Harris and -16 for Trump.
North Carolina
Voter turnout data by race and ethnicity is also available in North Carolina and this was the turnout:
White 78.2%
Black 66.0%
Asian 67.9%
Hispanic 56.2%
Donlad Trump won North Carolina by 183,000 votes. If turnout from the Black community had equaled the white turnout there would have been an additional 210,000 Black voters. If 190,000 vote Harris and 20,000 Trump, Trump’s margin would have been only 13,000. If the Hispanic turnout equaled the white turnout there would have been an additional 100,000 Hispanic voters. The Kamala plurality would have exceeded 13,000 among those voters and if Asian voters had also voted at the same rate as white voters Harris would have won by ~10,000+ votes. +16 electoral votes for Harris and -16 for Trump.
This was likely the turnout story throughout the southern states. There is no hard data to prove this but I will also refer to the results in the state of Mississippi. Kamala Harris received 38% of the vote. In 2 recent Senate elections, Mike Espy (also from the Black community), received 46% and 44%. This indicates that the Black voter turnout declined dramatically in Mississippi in 2024.
Michigan
Detroit City
The demographics of Detroit are almost 80% Black and 11% Hispanic and Asian. In the 2024 election 246,000 voted out of 525,000 voters for a turnout of 47%. Outside of Detroit in Michigan the voter turnout was 68%. In Detroit, 89% voted for Harris and 9% for Trump. If the voter turnout in Detroit had equaled that in the rest of Michigan there would have been an additional 110,000 votes and Harris would have had an additional 90,000 vote margin. Trump won Michigan by 80,000 votes.
+ 15 electoral votes for Harris and -15 for Trump.
Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan totals with higher voter turnout:
+ 47 electoral votes for Harris and -47 for Trump.
Final electoral vote
Harris 273 electoral votes
Trump 265 electoral votes
I have concentrated on states and cities with high concentrations of Black voters because that is where the hard data is. However, there is other data on turnout by Hispanic and Asian voters in neighborhoods in New York City that was compiled in a post-election analysis in the New York Times. In New York City, the overall Democratic presidential vote was down 573,000 while the Trump vote was up only 94,000. The vote was analyzed by the percentages of minority voters in neighborhoods and these were the findings:
Neighborhood >70% Hispanic: Democratic vote down 37%
Neighborhood >45% Asian: Democratic vote down 37%
Neighborhood >70% Black: Democratic vote down 21%
Neighborhood >90% White: Democratic vote down 19%
In New York City, there was a significant and similar decline in turnout among both white and black voters. However, the decline was also twice as high for Hispanic and Asian voters.
It is clear that Donald Trump’s victory was not due to any increase in his popularity or support for his policies. Rather, 8 million Democratic voters stayed home. The data provides no answers as to why they stayed home. That can only be answered by extensive polling of these non voters. The Democratic Party needs to do extensive polling of non voters to determine why they did not vote. Identify from the voter registration rolls those who voted in 2020 but not in 2024. The non voters in 2024 can be contacted and some will be willing to answer this all important question.
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