Rick, I’ve been trying to figure out why so many previous democratic voters decided to stay home and not vote last year. Numbers to ponder, party affiliation from 2000-2020 the democrats averaged 4-point advantage over the republicans 33-29% with the rest classified as independents. Among those who actually voted the democrats averaged 37% of the electorate who went to the polls, the republicans 33% from 2000-2020. Independents are notorious for not voting as they don’t have the same stake in the elections as the two major parties do. The two major parties own the candidates, they chose the candidates, independents own nothing and choose no one.
Then 2024 happened. Party affiliation was even at 28% for each major party. The first time the democrats didn’t have a distinct advantage in party affiliation since FDR first came on the scene or should I say, Herbert Hoover. For the first time more republicans went to the polls and voted last year than democrats since Hoover. 35% of those who voted were republicans, 31% democrats, the rest independent which Harris won 51-48. But that was a far cry from the numbers Biden rang up in 2020 winning independents 54-41 over Trump with 5% voting third party.
Trump won because previous democratic voters stayed home, the drop percentage wise among those who actually voted dropped from 37% democrats in 2020 down to 31% in 2024. Some 8 million previous democratic voters didn’t vote. The republican percentages remained the same at 35% of those who voted in both 2020 and 2024. Throw in the fact Trump won first times voters last year, that explains Biden defeating Trump by 7 million votes in 2020 to Harris losing by 2 million.
I know what happened, that is in the numbers. I don’t know why approximately 8 million previous democratic voters would decide to stay home last year. I have theories, but no hard numbers or facts to back up those theories. I’m continuing to work on those. But some interesting tidbits.
Voter enthusiasm among democrats to get out and vote for Harris was much lower than the enthusiasm republicans had to go to the polls and vote for Trump. Party affiliation or the base of both major parties were even in 2024. That a first since Gallup and Pew Research began keeping track of party affiliation back in 1948. The democrats always have had the party affiliation advantage, some years as much as 20-point advantage over the republicans. But that was back in the big tent era of the democratic party when both major parties had their conservative and liberal wings. There’s plenty of other indications why previous democratic voters stayed home, but I’ll leave it as is for now.
