What caused the drop in voter turnout?

[ThatRobGuy]

2004 John Kerry: 59M
2008 Obama: 69.5M
2012 Obama: 65.9M
2016 Clinton: 65.8M
2020 Biden: 81.3M
2024 Harris: 67.2M
(Source: Wikipedia)

Noting: Trump's numbers stayed the same between the last two elections...in the neighborhood of 72-73 million.

Obviously Trump picked up some voters in demographics that weren't expected, and the overall voter turnout percentages aren't in yet for this most recent one.

But if you take the officially reported numbers at face value, that would mean that a lot of Biden voters from 2020 declined to vote for a president this time (to the tune of over 10 million of them).

To be clear, I'm not wanting this to turn into a conspiracy theory thread about the 2020 election or theories about "secret powers inflating the Biden numbers"...I don't want this thread to get moved to the conspiracy theory section where nobody will see it.

And in the interest of disclosure, I'm one of that 10 million that declined to vote for a president this time around, so we do exist.

What do you think caused such a sharp drop in the numbers of people voting for the democratic presidential ticket?
(I'm sure this is the exact question that DNC members are asking themselves right now)

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The Young Turks (a progressive outlet) have a theory that doesn't follow "conventional wisdom", but it's worth hearing. They're certainly "anti-Trump", but they tell some harsh truths about the DNC that some on the Democratic side need to hear.

Cenk Uygur (about as progressive as they come economically): "The most important part to remember is, the democratic establishment and leadership... THEY did this to you. Don't tell me about how bad and crazy Trump is if you lost to him TWICE"

 

[IceJad]

2004 John Kerry: 59M
2008 Obama: 69.5M
2012 Obama: 65.9M
2016 Clinton: 65.8M
2020 Biden: 81.3M
2024 Harris: 67.2M
(Source: Wikipedia)

Noting: Trump's numbers stayed the same between the last two elections...in the neighborhood of 72-73 million.

Obviously Trump picked up some voters in demographics that weren't expected, and the overall voter turnout percentages aren't in yet for this most recent one.

But if you take the officially reported numbers at face value, that would mean that a lot of Biden voters from 2020 declined to vote for a president this time (to the tune of over 10 million of them).

To be clear, I'm not wanting this to turn into a conspiracy theory thread about the 2020 election or theories about "secret powers inflating the Biden numbers"...I don't want this thread to get moved to the conspiracy theory section where nobody will see it.

And in the interest of disclosure, I'm one of that 10 million that declined to vote for a president this time around, so we do exist.

What do you think caused such a sharp drop in the numbers of people voting for the democratic presidential ticket?
(I'm sure this is the exact question that DNC members are asking themselves right now)

Being an unelected last minute candidate might be one cause. Lack of a comprehensive strategy due to time constraints. Perceived replicability of Democrats candidates; it was Biden all the way before the sudden switcheroo. No solid economic, social and foreign policies besides point out Trump is racist, fascist and misogynist; in short shame tactics.

At least those are from my own analysis.

 

[Yttrium]

The economy had a lot to do with it. It was possibly the largest factor. It doesn't matter that the economy was messed up by COVID-19, people generally are just upset that the economy is messed up and will blame the current president. That's normal. I was expecting the Democrats to lose this time, but I was hoping that maybe Trump's baggage would be more than enough of a balancing factor.

It would have helped if Harris had focused on acknowledging the economic problems and promising to deal with them, rather than trying to paint a rosy picture.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

What do you think caused such a sharp drop in the numbers of people voting for the democratic presidential ticket?

There's not going to be one singular factor for something like this - it's likely a combination of issues:

1. "It's the economy, stupid!" - even if the national economy is doing pretty well in a statistical sense, the average American is still struggling thanks to high prices on groceries and housing and slow wage growth in the lower 50% of incomes. Democrats, I think, failed to recognize this - there was a lot of focus on how we recovered well from the COVID downturn as a nation and how well our GDP had rebounded, but that's meaningless to John Everyman who still has to buy groceries and pay the rent. To be clear, I don't know that there's anything that could have been done by the administration to fix this issue (inflation was a global issue, and we did generally come out of it better than most), but pretending that it didn't exist wasn't helpful and came off as callous at times.

2. Tying into #1, Harris failed to distance herself from Biden. If people are unhappy with how things are going under the current President, then his successor in the party probably shouldn't say that she'd do everything the same.

3. Culture war issues. I think that Republicans were able to successfully manipulate the messaging with regards to LGBT (mostly trans) rights in a way that angered a significant percentage of the population and forced Democrats to play defense on things that weren't really defensible. Supposedly the "Trans ad" was one of Trump's better-performing ads in this election.

 

[probinson]

It doesn't matter that the economy was messed up by COVID-19,

I believe this was a fundamental error by Democrats. The economy was not messed up by COVID-19. The economy was messed up by the response to COVID-19, which was largely driven by the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief-bill that Democrats passed.

Thus they [Democrats] passed, on a party-line vote, a $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill that wasn’t really needed, fueling the highest inflation in decades. This robbed millions of workers of real wage gains, which haunted Democrats on Tuesday as two-thirds of voters said they were unhappy with the state of the economy.​

​

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/kamala-harris-loses-donald-trump-democrats-2024-election-3b7bd713 ​

 

[QvQ]

That is an interesting question
What happened to 10 million voters? From whence did they appear and whither did they go?
Some other numbers don't add up either.
This is going to be an interesting question for historicans
And it is probably puzzling Trump enough to really investigate it.
Any puzzlement or question siince that election has been bracketed by the added word "lies" as in news accounts "Trump repeats his lies."
Notice the numbers posted for many elections all fall within a certain range, 59 to 69 million
Then 81 million.

 

[Belk]

I believe this was a fundamental error by Democrats. The economy was not messed up by COVID-19. The economy was messed up by the response to COVID-19, which was largely driven by the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief-bill that Democrats passed.

Thus they [Democrats] passed, on a party-line vote, a $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill that wasn’t really needed, fueling the highest inflation in decades. This robbed millions of workers of real wage gains, which haunted Democrats on Tuesday as two-thirds of voters said they were unhappy with the state of the economy.​

​

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/kamala-harris-loses-donald-trump-democrats-2024-election-3b7bd713 ​

Given the world wide inflation I find this claim hard to credit. Are you claiming that there was extra impact in the US? Everything I have heard says we came out better then most countries.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

2004 John Kerry: 59M
2008 Obama: 69.5M
2012 Obama: 65.9M
2016 Clinton: 65.8M
2020 Biden: 81.3M
2024 Harris: 67.2M
(Source: Wikipedia)

Noting: Trump's numbers stayed the same between the last two elections...in the neighborhood of 72-73 million.

Obviously Trump picked up some voters in demographics that weren't expected, and the overall voter turnout percentages aren't in yet for this most recent one.

But if you take the officially reported numbers at face value, that would mean that a lot of Biden voters from 2020 declined to vote for a president this time (to the tune of over 10 million of them).

To be clear, I'm not wanting this to turn into a conspiracy theory thread about the 2020 election or theories about "secret powers inflating the Biden numbers"...I don't want this thread to get moved to the conspiracy theory section where nobody will see it.

And in the interest of disclosure, I'm one of that 10 million that declined to vote for a president this time around, so we do exist.

What do you think caused such a sharp drop in the numbers of people voting for the democratic presidential ticket?
(I'm sure this is the exact question that DNC members are asking themselves right now)

Short answer: Democrats couldn't use COVID-19 as an excuse to harvest ballots and rig the election.

 

[RDKirk]

The economy had a lot to do with it. It was possibly the largest factor. It doesn't matter that the economy was messed up by COVID-19, people generally are just upset that the economy is messed up and will blame the current president. That's normal. I was expecting the Democrats to lose this time, but I was hoping that maybe Trump's baggage would be more than enough of a balancing factor.

Yes.

It would have helped if Harris had focused on acknowledging the economic problems and promising to deal with them, rather than trying to paint a rosy picture.

That didn't work for Carter.

 

[Postvieww]

2004 John Kerry: 59M
2008 Obama: 69.5M
2012 Obama: 65.9M
2016 Clinton: 65.8M
2020 Biden: 81.3M
2024 Harris: 67.2M
(Source: Wikipedia)

Noting: Trump's numbers stayed the same between the last two elections...in the neighborhood of 72-73 million.

Obviously Trump picked up some voters in demographics that weren't expected, and the overall voter turnout percentages aren't in yet for this most recent one.

But if you take the officially reported numbers at face value, that would mean that a lot of Biden voters from 2020 declined to vote for a president this time (to the tune of over 10 million of them).

To be clear, I'm not wanting this to turn into a conspiracy theory thread about the 2020 election or theories about "secret powers inflating the Biden numbers"...I don't want this thread to get moved to the conspiracy theory section where nobody will see it.

And in the interest of disclosure, I'm one of that 10 million that declined to vote for a president this time around, so we do exist.

What do you think caused such a sharp drop in the numbers of people voting for the democratic presidential ticket?
(I'm sure this is the exact question that DNC members are asking themselves right now)

You ask a question and present an anomaly wanting an explanation and then take one very real possible and most likely explanation off the table???? I guess you may never get your answer.

 

[Yttrium]

Yes.

That didn't work for Carter.

I don't remember anything about that. But Carter had other problems. He was a nice guy, with strong morals, but he wasn't much of a leader.

 

[RDKirk]

There's not going to be one singular factor for something like this - it's likely a combination of issues:

1. "It's the economy, stupid!" - even if the national economy is doing pretty well in a statistical sense, the average American is still struggling thanks to high prices on groceries and housing and slow wage growth in the lower 50% of incomes. Democrats, I think, failed to recognize this - there was a lot of focus on how we recovered well from the COVID downturn as a nation and how well our GDP had rebounded, but that's meaningless to John Everyman who still has to buy groceries and pay the rent. To be clear, I don't know that there's anything that could have been done by the administration to fix this issue (inflation was a global issue, and we did generally come out of it better than most), but pretending that it didn't exist wasn't helpful and came off as callous at times.

The government didn't really come to grips with the fact that the Covid lockdown was an artificially induced global depression. Just because it wasn't induced by a stock market crash doesn't mean it wasn't a real depression with all the effects on the economy and the average citizen of a real depression.

2. Tying into #1, Harris failed to distance herself from Biden. If people are unhappy with how things are going under the current President, then his successor in the party probably shouldn't say that she'd do everything the same.

She tried to do both things. At the same time, she tried to claim she totally endorsed everything Biden did, and at the same time claim to be different from him. People weren't buying it.

3. Culture war issues. I think that Republicans were able to successfully manipulate the messaging with regards to LGBT (mostly trans) rights in a way that angered a significant percentage of the population and forced Democrats to play defense on things that weren't really defensible. Supposedly the "Trans ad" was one of Trump's better-performing ads in this election.

Most people aren't accepting identity politics. As I've said in other threads, Harris has totally accepted Critical Theory, which is self-acknowledged Marxism applied to other issues than economics. It's intended to create cultural conflict, just as Marxism is intended to create economic class conflict.

But here is interesting data from the exit polling:

White men 24% for Harris 74% for Trump
white women 31% for Harris 69% for Trump
black men 81% for Harris 16% for Trump
black women 90% for Harris 8% for Trump
Latino men 53% for Harris 45% for Trump
Latino women 59% for Harris 40% for Trump

That datum of 69% of white women voting for Trump is a huge leap from the 53% of white women who voted for him in 2020. And it's a surprising leap, considering the women's issues in this election. If there is anything the Democratic party had better discover, it's why they are an anathema to white women despite all their special efforts to court and champion white women.

There is no blame for anything or anyone else if they couldn't get white women on board their bus.

 

[Fervent]

Biden was seen as a return to Obama which gave people something to vote for in addition to voting against, but the reality of a Biden-Harris administration reduced any excitement and led to the primary reason to vote for Harris for many people being opposition to Trump. People aren't as likely to vote if the only thing they're doing is voting against someone.

 

[the Vital One]

Perhaps many feel the rich and powerful will do whatever they want regardless of who or what we vote for.

 

[JSRG]

What caused the drop in voter turnout?​

The fact that there are millions of votes that haven't been counted yet is playing at least a partial role.

 

[ozso]

I can't come up with anything other than the 2020 election was more fishy than a sushi bar.

 

[Zaha Torte]

2004 John Kerry: 59M
2008 Obama: 69.5M
2012 Obama: 65.9M
2016 Clinton: 65.8M
2020 Biden: 81.3M
2024 Harris: 67.2M
(Source: Wikipedia)

Noting: Trump's numbers stayed the same between the last two elections...in the neighborhood of 72-73 million.

Obviously Trump picked up some voters in demographics that weren't expected, and the overall voter turnout percentages aren't in yet for this most recent one.

But if you take the officially reported numbers at face value, that would mean that a lot of Biden voters from 2020 declined to vote for a president this time (to the tune of over 10 million of them).

To be clear, I'm not wanting this to turn into a conspiracy theory thread about the 2020 election or theories about "secret powers inflating the Biden numbers"...I don't want this thread to get moved to the conspiracy theory section where nobody will see it.

And in the interest of disclosure, I'm one of that 10 million that declined to vote for a president this time around, so we do exist.

What do you think caused such a sharp drop in the numbers of people voting for the democratic presidential ticket?
(I'm sure this is the exact question that DNC members are asking themselves right now)

You already said the reason. There is no conspiracy.

 

[probinson]

Given the world wide inflation I find this claim hard to credit.

Why? The whole world enacted ineffective, draconian COVID measures that resulted in worldwide inflation. TONS of money was artificially pumped into the economy. Jobs were lost. The supply chain was decimated. This all happened as a result of the overreaching response to COVID.

 

[Nithavela]

Personally I think it's at least partially because people have forgotten the chaos of Trump's first term.

Good thing they're about to get a 4 year refresher course.