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Was There a Broad Drop-Off in Democratic Turnout in 2024? [1]

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Date: 2024-11-13  

I started immediately commenting on the drop-off in Democratic turnout in last week’s election. At the moment, with 96% reporting, Trump has 75.5 million votes, and Harris has 72.4 million. Which means they will end up with around 76 and 73 million, respectively, with a total of 149 million votes cast for them (not the total votes). Compared to 2020, where Biden got 81.3 million, and Trump got 74.2, with a total of 155 million. That’s a million and half or so more votes for Trump and a whopping 8 million fewer for Harris.

I’ve written in more than a few comments that why we got run out of Washington needs to take this salient fact into account, and any analysis that doesn’t must be flawed.

But perhaps it’s not so complicated after all. Per Kevin Drum:

[Total] 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 trend line through 2016. Then extend it through 2024 and see what you get: [see leading graphic]

Explanation: look at the expected total turnout based on decades-long trends going back to 1976, we get an expected 157 million voters in 2024. And it shows that 155 million voters in 2020 was an aberration from an expected 150 million total vote.

The trendline is, to be sure, a mathematical model, and, famously “All models are wrong. Some are useful.”

Another way to look at the data.

As far as useful goes, these data strongly suggest that in 2020, millions turned out because they were sick and tired of Trump’s bullshit, and not because they were reliable Democratic voters.

After four years, it seems that millions forgot about how much of a shit show he runs. Well, it looks like they are going to get reminded, and then some.

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