Many Democrats failed to turn out to vote at the rate they did in 2020 when they ousted Donald Trump, according to an analysis of election data.
www.seattletimes.com
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The numbers help fill in the picture of Trump’s commanding victory, showing it may not represent the resounding endorsement of his agenda that the final Electoral College vote suggests. Trump won the White House not only because he turned out his supporters and persuaded skeptics, but also because many Democrats sat this election out, presumably turned off by both candidates.
Counties with the biggest Democratic victories in 2020 delivered 1.9 million fewer votes for Harris than they had for Biden. The nation’s most Republican-heavy counties turned out an additional 1.2 million votes for Trump this year, according to the analysis of the 47 states where the vote count is largely complete.
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The drop-off is an extraordinary shift for Democrats, who, motivated by Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, had turned out in eye-popping numbers for the three subsequent elections. They clipped his power in Washington in 2018, removed him from office in 2020 and defeated many of his hand-picked candidates for battleground races in 2022.
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In Pennsylvania, the biggest electoral prize on the battleground map, Trump’s victory received an outsize boost from an unlikely place — the five counties with the highest percentage of registered Democrats: Allegheny, Delaware, Lackawanna, Montgomery and Philadelphia.
Harris won these counties, but not by the margins needed to overcome Republican-heavy areas of the state. Total turnout was down from 2020 in all five Democratic strongholds, which could partly explain how Harris received 78,000 fewer votes than Biden. Trump added 24,000 votes to his total in these same counties.
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The warning bells are ringing for Democrats well beyond the battlegrounds. Harris won fewer votes than Biden in 36 of 47 states. (Results remained incomplete Sunday in Alaska, Arizona and California.)
In predominantly urban counties nationwide where most votes had been counted, Harris received 2 million fewer votes than Biden had four years earlier. Overall votes in these counties were down by about 1.7 million.
The trend was especially striking in Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city. Overall turnout there was down by 20%. Trump collected about his same 2020 total vote, but Harris’ total was more than 417,000 votes behind Biden’s.
In the nation’s suburbs, however, there was clearer evidence that Trump had successfully persuaded Biden voters to flip. Turnout in predominantly suburban counties held steady from 2020, but Harris drew about 940,000 fewer votes than Biden, while Trump added 1.3 million votes.
In counties where at least 40% of white adults hold a college degree, total turnout declined by about 230,000 votes, or 3%, from 2020. Harris won 271,000 fewer votes in such places, while Trump added 61,000.
In Texas, the party’s decadelong dream of turning it blue suffered a significant setback. While total turnout was about the same as four years ago, Harris won about 450,000 fewer votes than Biden. Trump enhanced his margin by 485,000 votes.
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