The idea that a larger voter turnout among Democrats would have enabled Vice President Kamala Harris to overcome President-elect Donald Trump in the November election is inaccurate, according to The New York Times.
A decline in Democratic voter participation, particularly in major Democratic-leaning cities, played a role in Harris securing over 74 million votes — about 7 million fewer than President Joe Biden’s total in 2020, as reported by a Times/Siena poll.
In comparison, Trump garnered 77 million votes in this election, an increase from the 74 million he received four years earlier.
Once all the votes are counted, the total number will likely approach the 158 million cast in the 2020 presidential race, which saw the highest voter turnout since women gained the right to vote over a century ago.
Nonetheless, many Democrats believe that if voter turnout had been higher, Harris would have fared better.
However, the turnout drop among Democrats did not extend to the seven critical battleground states, where Trump actually received more votes than Biden did in 2020, The Times reported on Tuesday.
“The Harris campaign did a pretty good job getting voters out who wouldn’t have come out,” said Democratic data analyst Tom Bonier, as reported by The Associated Press. “She did get her voters out. Trump got more.”
Furthermore, there’s no assurance that voters who opted not to cast their ballots in states that weren’t competitive would have supported Harris. The lower Democratic turnout, particularly among nonwhite voters, suggested that Harris may have had less support.
Had those who stayed home participated, Harris likely wouldn’t have gained much benefit, according to Times/Siena polling. In fact, some Democrats who voted in 2020 ended up supporting Trump this time.
“In Las Vegas and elsewhere, our data suggests that most voters who turned out in 2020 but stayed home in 2024 voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but about half of them, and maybe even a slight majority, appear to have backed Mr. Trump this year,” wrote Times reporter Nate Cohn.
“Regardless, there’s no reason to believe that they would have backed Ms. Harris by a wide margin, let alone the kind of margin that would have made a difference in the election.”
In presidential elections, The Times noted, voters who may or may not turn out tend to be less ideologically driven than other voters. Simply being registered with a party holds less significance for them.
“They’re less likely to have deep views on the issues. They don’t get their news from traditional media,” Cohn explained.
“Throughout the cycle, polls found that Mr. Trump’s strength was concentrated among these kinds of voters.”
{Matzav.com}