Big voter turnout this year benefited Republicans, contradicting conventional political wisdom

[dalton99a]

https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-voter-turnout-republicans-trump-harris-7ef18c115c8e1e76210820e0146bc3a5

Big voter turnout this year benefited Republicans, contradicting conventional political wisdom
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI
Updated 9:04 AM CST, November 17, 2024

The 2024 presidential election featured sky-high turnout, approaching the historic levels of the 2020 contest and contradicting long-held conventional political wisdom that Republicans struggle to win races in which many people vote.

According to Associated Press elections data, more than 152 million ballots were cast in this year’s race between Republican Donald Trump, now the president-elect, and Democrat Kamala Harris, the vice president, with hundreds of thousands of more still being tallied in slower-counting states such as California. When those ballots are fully tabulated, the number of votes will come even closer to the 158 million in the 2020 presidential contest, which was the highest turnout election since women were given the right to vote more than a century ago.

“Trump is great for voter turnout in both parties,” said Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Tufts University.

The former president’s victory in both the Electoral College and popular vote — Trump currently leads Harris by nearly 3 million votes nationwide — also contradicts the belief in politics that Democrats, not Republicans, benefit from high-turnout elections.

“The Harris campaign did a pretty good job getting voters out who wouldn’t have come out,” said Tom Bonier, a Democratic data analyst. “She did get her voters out. Trump got more.”

...


Compared to 2020 vote:



Compared to 2016 vote:

[bearsfootball516]

1. At this moment, high turnout benefits the GOP, a switch from where we were in the Obama years.

Dems used to benefit from high turnout elections, but that’s not currently the case. MAGA voters tend to only turn out in presidential years, which is why Dems do super well in midterms and special elections. The Democratic Party is the highly politically engaged voter party now, its base votes in every single election.

[yaesu]

2. Incels must have ran some get out the vote campaigns. nt

[Irish_Dem]

3. I don't believe it either.

[standingtall]

4. Doesn't contradict anything

2020 had the higher turnout and the Democratic candidate won and got for votes then anyone in history. Secondly most Presidential elections have more votes cast then the one before it, because of population growth and the U.S. population has grown by over 6 million from 2020 to 2024.

[Blue_Tires]

5. That still makes zero fuckin' sense...

NT

[Blue Owl]

7. Virtually nobody was flipping to tRump -- so many Rebublicans were flipping to Harris

It doesn’t seem to be reflected in the results

[kentuck]

6. I think more Democrats "bled off" to Trump than...

...Republicans that bled off to Kamala.

It was still a huge turnout, compared to previous elections before 2020.

[standingtall]

9. I don't know if it was a huge turnout compared to elections prior to 2020 or not

Population growth has to be factored into the equation. There is 6 million people more then there was in 2020. 12 million more than in 2016, 21 million more then in 2012, 31 million more then in 2008 and so on.

[MineralMan]

8. Conventional Wisdom is often neither conventional nor wise.

[uponit7771]

10. Still haven't heard about mail ins, seems like the missing link

[MaryMagdaline]

11. Trump lost voters. We lost more voters

I don’t know how we can find out why fewer people voted for us in 2024 than in 2020 but we have to find those missing voters.

[DiamondShark]

12. Could it be the last minute change one party made to the Presidential spot?

Naaa can't be it. Must be something else. Dig deeper.