Enough about Trump supporters. What happened to our side? (Edit)

[TwilightZone]

Harris is about 13.5 million votes behind Biden's total from 2020. She's on pace to get another 4.5 million or so in California, leaving her around 9 million short of 2020.

Trump is about 2 million short of his 2020 total.

With the understanding that 2020 was a unique set of circumstances, what happened to our turnout?

Did Democrats and other liberals cross over and vote for Trump? One would hope not, though I guess that would be ironic.

Did people stay home? Did the enthusiasm wane? Sexism? Racism? Again, one would hope not.

The result remains inscrutable.

This election is going to take a long time to deconstruct, and there will likely be myriad reasons.

Edit: hat-tip to Zeitghost below for helping me realize that I inadvertently missed part of the picture.

I was looking at this from an "our" side perspective, i.e. why didn't Democrats and liberals show up in Biden-like numbers. The obvious part that didn't register is that the gap between 2020 and 2024 is not just Dem/liberal voters, it's Biden coalition voters. Biden amassed a wide coalition, including moderates, independents, and probably a few crossover Rs. A significant part of the 9 million missing votes could be that outside component from 2020. Harris may simply not have appealed to them as well as Biden had.

It doesn't make the end result any better, of course, but it makes me feel a little better about turnout from our base.

[Kaleva]

1. Kamala's vote is close to what Hillary got in 2016 I think

[TwilightZone]

2. Trump's current total is nearly 10 million higher than he got in 2016.

Kamala's current total is about 2 million higher than Hillary's total in 2016.

[Kaleva]

3. Which explains the outcome of this election

If Harris got about 2 million more then Hillary did in 2016 but Trump got 10 million more then he did in that same year, it's no wonder he won this year

[TwilightZone]

4. Of course.

What I can't figure out is why we didn't show up.

Turnout was everything, and it seems that millions didn't bother.

[Kaleva]

6. I think I fooled myself

Taking the large crowds that attended Harris's rallies as evidence that there was going to be a massive turnout for her on election day.

[Takket]

25. heard a lot of staffer interviews for harris before the election

they kept saying driving turnout was the most important thing. they had to turn out philly, pittsburgh, detroit, madison....... all the big cities in the blue wall. it all fizzled. there are millions of people that supported biden and abandoned harris, and i'm sure there are a million reasons why.

[Faux pas]

57. Wonder who he called

this time asking for just 10 million more votes so he can win?

[bdamomma]

5. What I heard today

which is very troubling people did not go to vote. Very troubling indeed.

And not enough white women did not even vote against abortion and women's health care issues.

Sad.

[TwilightZone]

9. Turnout near 2020 levels would have completely changed the race.

The FL abortion amendment would have passed, we might have held the Senate, and the top line race would have certainly been different.

In 2016, many didn't vote because they thought Hillary was a shoe-in (even though late events like Comey muddied the waters) to win.

That certainly shouldn't have been an excuse this time unless people bought into the talk that she'd win in a landslide. I didn't see that much outside of here and a few lefty blogs, though.

[bdamomma]

13. the most

consequential election and people sat it out?????? Why???

This could be our last election to vote in, after all did the felon say just vote this time and you won't do it again.

[Takket]

27. people are stupid. and they think every politician is the same.

sorry to say, that's a a disappointing reason, but all i can offer you

[RJ_MacReady]

7. This article explains some of it

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/06/kamala-harris-us-elections-donald-trump-victory

[TwilightZone]

12. That might explain why Trump gained some votes.

But the gap between 2020 and 2024 on our side is much larger than can be explained by disaffected lefties who might have voted for Trump. It appears that millions - maybe 10 million - just stayed home.

[Takket]

31. biden was 80 million. kamala looks like she is going to top out around 70

so 1 out of every 8 people that went for biden abandoned the Dems for this election.

and interestingly We lost PA, MI and WI, but won senate seats in MI and WI (PA still pending but probably going rethug), but it seems telling the majority of voters went Blue for the Senate (despite the depressed turnout), but even from those that DID show up, a subset STILL, specifically, abandoned Harris for president.

i wonder how many couldn't vote for a black woman but voted for Senate/House hoping to check drumpf by giving the Dems congress. well to those who were hopeful of that, LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!!!!!

[tulipsandroses]

29. I'm calling Bullshit on this article. I stopped reading when he said that she was policy lite.

Ugh as if trump ever articulated a coherent policy.

[tulipsandroses]

8. Maybe 2020 was an aberration, not only because of COVID, but anger about George Floyd's death was still fresh?

That might have encouraged people who do not normally vote to come out in 2020?
That might be an interesting # to find out. Were there first time 2020 voters that did not vote in 24.

[BootinUp]

10. Yes there had to be crossover. nt

[TwilightZone]

18. Seems like it.

Trump received 20% of the black male vote, 54% of the Latino male vote, and 52% from white women.

All were gains and some could be from voters who were on our side in 2020. And some from other groups, as well, of course.

That's part of the gap but probably not enough for those kinds of numbers, so it also looks like potentially millions stayed home.

[LeftInTX]

24. Check the down ballot races.

In 2020, white R women crossed over for Biden. However they voted R on down ballot races.

In Bexar County, it does not appear to be the cross over that we had in 2020. The sheriff and Kamala's percentages are the same. Also the Supreme Court and court of criminal appeals are also about the same. Collin Allred got 56% and Kamala got 55% . In 2020 Biden got 58%.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

49. He narrowed the margins for young voters as well

18-29 age group
2020: 60-36 Biden
2024: 52-46 Harris

[msongs]

11. still several million outstanding in CA if trends continue nt

[TwilightZone]

15. Thanks.

She's on pace for around 10 million. That would leave her about 9 million short of 2020.

I edited my OP to reflect.

[lapfog_1]

16. I have no evidence other than the numbers seem waaaay off

I refuse to believe that either Democrats switched over, or that Trump grew his vote totals.. or that Democrats stayed home now instead voting DURING THE WORST OF COVID to kick the cheating lying scum out.

So what happened?

Some are trying to point fingers at the under 30 males, especially Latino males. I don't think that was the reason.

I think 15 million Democratic ballots simply disappeared. The big "secret" that Trump shared with Bible Mike. It wasn't some scheme to do insurrection #2. Remember Trump even told an audience "we don't need your votes, we have plenty votes."

If 15 million ballots went poof, would we know? Could anyone prove it?

The only way would be an in person revote with everyone voting and checking that their vote was counted. Not going to happen.

also remember that everything the repukes accuse us of doing... is something they have either considered doing or will justify to themselves that they have to do it too.

[TwilightZone]

21. If elections were national, I supposed that would be possible.

But they're not. When ballots are processed at local, precinct, county, state, etc., levels, I'm not sure where in the process you could get them to just disappear. It would have to be at the polling location or the first level after that, and I don't see how you'd coordinate thousands of locations.

Poll workers match up ballot counts, so the machines wouldn't be able to just make them disappear without it being noticed.

I think it may end up being a combination of crossover and people who didn't vote. There are other factors, of course, but those are the most likely.

As for the secret, there was no secret. If there was a secret, they wouldn't have been talking about it. Trump does stuff like that all the time as a distraction. He always has some big thing coming up that never arrives.

[Zeitghost]

22. Yes, there are checks to the vote total

You have to reexamine how you are looking at the situation.

It's not 5M-10M fewer "Democrats" showing up, it's "Biden Voters". Successful campaigns like the Biden 2020 run build large coalitions. He didn't get 81M votes from DU posting, died in the wool, I vote blue no matter who party activists. It included a large chunk of moderates, swing voters, and apolitical people who need to be motivated to get out and vote. We failed to get as many of those people. Elections are won and lost on the margins, not at the base.

[TwilightZone]

35. Excellent point.

While there are surely many factors involved, a smaller coalition could account for much of the gap.

Many thought Harris would bring in a larger coalition, but I'm not sure that was ever realistic. Biden was about as seasoned as a politician ever gets and he appealed further than just the base or other left-leaners. It's that outside that may be the missing component here.

Thanks for that. I fixated a bit too much on liberals/Democrats, myself.

[LeftInTX]

36. I am also comvinced they are lost by reaching out

to extremely low turnout voters. (Those who had not voted in 2016 AND 2020)

[yourout]

37. That many missing ballots would show up because...

Poll book entries would greatly outnumber actual ballots counted.

[LeftInTX]

39. Exactly!

[yourout]

40. I'm hoping someone like Greg Palast is at least verifying that the pollbook counts are reasonably close to the ballot co

[LeftInTX]

44. They check where I live.

Our EA even said that a few ballots weren't counted because the voter took them home instead of depositing them in the tabulator!

[lapfog_1]

42. I didn't go to a polling location

I, like millions of others, dropped mine in a drop box. Same with mail in.

And how many voters were excluded by the last minute right to vote challenges?

[Polybius]

43. A lot of first-time voters voted for Trump

Not sure of the age breakdown, but I'd imagine most are under 25. I only know one first-time voter that's older. He's 61, Arabic, Muslim, and voted for Trump.

[John1956PA]

17. I think that, in PA, the 2024 vote total is about the same as the 2020 total.

I think that in both 2020 and 2024 the total of all votes cast was about 6.8 million.

In 2020, Joe Biden's winning margin was about 80,000 votes.

In PA (where the counting is continuing) Trump's 2024 lead is presently about 130,000.

[TwilightZone]

19. Yeah, almost exactly the same. That's a lot of potential crossover.

Thanks. I've looked at a lot of the numbers but hadn't realized just how close the totals were there to 2020.

[ecstatic]

20. maybe more people died than we are aware of? maybe the slew of voter suppression laws worked?

I'm looking back at my posts from 2021, and I was begging Democrats to do something about all the voter suppression laws and the coup plot. Instead we were forging ahead with infrastructure etc etc... and none of it was appreciated, btw.

[TwilightZone]

23. 9 million?

Nah. Besides, COVID (allegedly) killed off more right-wingers than left, so I would have thought we'd make slight gains there. (I'm mostly being facetious). Plus, newly-eligible voters would mostly replace dead ones.

Democrats have been consistently fighting voter suppression initiatives for decades. There's nothing we can do about the laws passed by GOP legislatures in the states without taking over the legislature. We're sure not going to do that if people don't bother to show up to vote.

[summer_in_TX]

26. I was encouraged by the enthusiastic students who registered to vote at campuses in my county.

I'm a voter deputy registrar so participated in quite a few. Far more registered this year than ever before. In hindsight I probably was mistaken to take their votes for granted. I thought more would vote for Kamala than Trump. As first-time voters who don't know the process, unfamiliarity can be a barrier. So quite a few may have registered but then didn't vote. Plus they were undoubtedly influenced by social media and friends, which could have gone either way depending on their social group and their feeds.

[Quiet Em]

28. We don't have full control of our message or the narrative

Most people are not as in tune, politically. Most are politically exhausted so they just listen to small bits. With most social media platforms being designed to amplify the Republican message, and with most major media outlets being more critical of Democrats and more sympathetic towards Republicans this was bound to happen.

[PortTack]

30. White older men, and women did not want a woman as president...especially a WOC. That's how sick this country is

[lees1975]

32. I say this all the time and I get a lot of agreement with it.

It's messaging and controlling the narrative.

We can't seem to do that in a way that gets voters out.

Rachel Bitecofer, who is an expert at this, had a couple of interviews and basically said that this wasn't a traditional campaign, and that Democrats had a chance if they didn't run a traditional campaign. But for the most part, that's what they all were doing. And now we have had a sad election day and on the other side is Trump.

Combine that with the fact that we ran a female candidate, who is not white. And the bigotry which is as American as apple pie came out.

[Meadowoak]

33. Elon and Putin hacked the tabulators iny opinion

The numbers don't add up, nor match exit polls.

[Quiet Em]

41. It was weird that Charlie Kirk was concerned about lack of turnout

and then Elon tweeted that "the calvary was coming".

But they are weird and delusional so I don't know.

[ColinC]

34. It was the issue of an Israeli embargo. If Harris had supported an embargo, she woild have won.

[Polybius]

45. But then she'd lose the Jewish vote

She won it big.

[ColinC]

46. She would not have lost the Jewish vote. Frankly even if she did it was the right thing to do.

[Justice matters.]

38. Did the sad dejoy mess with the mail-in ballots?

Joe should have used his "official act" immunity status to just fire that %?*#

I hope he does it tomorrow.

[TwilightZone]

47. The immunity ruling did not give any president any new powers.

Including President Biden.

[Justice matters.]

50. The convicted felon posted to quote, "Terminate" the Constitution.

What makes you certain he won't do it, or just ignore it?

The worst of History is repeating, because too many ignore it...

[Silent Type]

52. Wish it were that simple. As far as ballots, don't think we can blame this on DeJoy.

[TheKentuckian]

54. What is the penalty for impotently trying to pretend to fire someone that immunity is supposed to head off?

[Jack Valentino]

48. Responding to your "edit"---

probably a significant part of those "missing voters from 2020" was due to easy mail-in voting being less available than in 2020...
(Not true in my own Michigan--- but in many other places, I'm sure. I don't know WTF happened in Michigan.... unless---)

sadly, the rest possibly just couldn't make it across that bridge of
voting for a woman, and an African-American woman on top of that...

They don't like Trump, but just failed to make the effort to go vote against him.

I think they'll regret it before another year is passed.

[TwilightZone]

51. Partly, yes.

But Trump is only around two million off his 2020 total. Obviously, the same would apply to his voters and most of them showed up. I'm sure it's a factor, though, especially for less motivated voters.

I think it's very possible that misogyny and racism played a part, perhaps a significant one. My mom, in her 70s and a lifelong Democrat, thinks the former was a primary factor, probably in combination with the latter.

[Jack Valentino]

55. Trump has a lot more "cult members" than Biden, Kamala, or

the Democratic party.... may account for him holding more of his votes.

Most people don't worship a political leader as if he is their messiah, but those people DO.
They do what they are told to do.... like Stepford wives...

[TwilightZone]

56. His support rarely varies and never really drops.

Many have had a really difficult time coming to terms with that concept, but it became clearer than ever this cycle. His support is historically stable. His theoretical peak is relatively low compared to many presidents, but it's also just high enough to wreak havoc.

[Jack Valentino]

58. They're like the freaking BORG---

except that they don't take in anyone else by assimilation....

And all these Republicans who publicly endorsed Kamala Harris were only a spit in the ocean with one vote each----
the Trump cult members have proven impervious to any outside influences

[LonePirate]

53. Not sure about liberals but plenty of people who voted Dem in the past voted for Trump this year.

Look at the red shift in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York. It wasn't Indies moving right or a major turnout problem. It was Dems or former Dems voting for Trump.

[TwilightZone]

59. Map from NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/politics/presidential-election-2024-red-shift.html?unlocked_article_code=1.X04.Qv1H.ecMqs_Wm3Hr8&smid=url-share

It's a little misleading because it's by county so it doesn't show metro areas or population variances very well, but the big picture is pretty disconcerting. It's incomplete but I haven't seen any update yet.

[bottomofthehill]

61. That map is exactly what a red wave looks like.

[bob4460]

60. Record turnout with fewer votes?

I hope in the coming days someone is able to explain how we had record turnout but 18M fewer votes than 2020. Both of those things can’t be true.

[muriel_volestrangler]

63. Why are you calling it "record turnout"? Why are you saying there were 18m fewer votes?

You are asking others to explain your own assertions. Why should others have to sort out your own contradiction?

[quakerboy]

62. from where i sit

It looks like the youth sat it out over palestine.

Which was unfortunately a lose lose for us. No matter what Kamala said, someone was gonna be angry and not vote for her.

And a lot of minority folk decided promises of cheaper eggs was worth dealing with legalized unrestricted racism.

And white folk, especially dudes, did what they predictably do.

And now bitter lessons will be learned and we all get to suffer for it.