Could there be another “super-sized” turnout this fall or was 2020 an aberration, with turnout in 2024 dropping back toward a more “normal” total in the vicinity of 140 million? In this report, voting and elections expert Rhodes Cook analyzes how the actual turnout could have a great effect on the presidential outcome, as there is the question of not just how many people will vote this fall, but whom the turnout will favor.
Document Outline
2020: A Confluence of Factors
2024: Current Factors
The 2020 presidential campaign is remembered by many as one of the darkest in the history of the United States, loaded with mistrust and mean-spiritedness. The losing candidate, Republican Donald Trump, refused to admit that he lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Yet there was a positive story of major proportions in 2020 as voter turnout for the presidential election reached a record high. With the controversial Trump as the catalyst, nearly 160 million ballots were cast. That was 20 million voters more than four years earlier when the previous turnout record was set. Meanwhile, the turnout rate in 2020 of 66.6% of the voter-eligible population (a measurement based on the number of age-eligible citizens) was the highest since 1900. (This data is from Michael McDonald’s United States Elections Project at the University of Florida.)
Four years ago, Democrats benefitted more from the huge turnout than Trump, although both sides gained considerable ground from 2016. The Democratic presidential vote for Biden increased by 15.4 million votes from four years earlier, compared to a 11.2-million-vote increase in the Trump vote. That produced a solid 7 million-vote plurality for Biden in the popular vote and a clear-cut 306-to-232 triumph for the Democrat in the Electoral College.
Yet it was also a tenuous victory for Biden. He picked up five states that Trump had carried against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But even then, a shift of a few thousand votes could have re-elected Trump. Biden carried Arizona and Georgia each by less than 12,000 votes; Wisconsin by barely 20,000; and Pennsylvania by barely 80,000 votes. A swing of those four states from Biden to Trump would have handily reelected the latter in 2020 in spite of his large deficit in the nationwide popular vote.
In 2020, there was a confluence of factors at work to produce the record total of ballots cast. These factors may not be replicated in 2024. Both sides were fired up and ready to vote long before the last election, as Trump was a polarizing force that motivated voters in both parties and Biden was considered broadly acceptable to Democrats and independents.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic that swept the country in 2020 resulted in a number of states loosening their voting rules to allow individuals to cast their ballot from home or from some other safe facility without going to their polling place.
Votes poured in from absentee ballots and in-person early voting that were largely Democratic. Trump cried fraud because these ballots by and large were not cast in a public setting and were therefore, he claimed, more susceptible to cheating. He urged Republicans to participate only in traditional Election Day voting, which they largely did, although no notable signs of fraud were found anywhere in the early vote.
Reaching a turnout again in 2024 in the vicinity of 160 million could be difficult. After the last presidential election, many Republican-led states scaled back a number of their COVID-era rules, diminishing the ease of voting that was present four years ago. In protest, Democrats have called Republican changes “voter oppression.” Republicans contend that they have merely provided needed “election integrity.”
In addition, the passion to vote does not seem as high as it was in 2016. Polls show that most voters do not like the idea of a rematch between the fragile-looking Biden, age 81, and the legally beleaguered, but still bombastic Trump., who turned 78 on June 14. Other options in the form of independent and third-party candidacies are blossoming this year in a way they did not in 2020. The number includes independents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West; the Green Party’s Jill Stein; and the Libertarian Party with its standard-bearer, Chase OIiver, a party activist from Georgia. The winner this fall could triumph with a distinct minority of the popular vote.
To many voters outside the GOP, Trump is now damaged goods. In May 2024, he was convicted in a New York court for paying adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to keep her relationship with Trump quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign. He was found guilty on 34 felony counts, with sentencing scheduled for July 11.
To be sure, many Republicans have rallied around Trump over the course of 2024 as his legal troubles have increased. They blame his indictments (and convictions) not on his actions, but contend that Biden and his liberal allies are employing a “weaponized judiciary.” Increasingly, Trump and many in his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement are calling for retribution against his enemies if he is elected this fall.
Yet it is far from clear how the issue will play among crucial independent voters. They may not be so eager to embrace the former president with his loud and frequent calls for personal vengeance.
Meanwhile, voting in some other elections since 2020 has been on the decline. The midterm U.S. House vote dropped from a record 113.7 million in 2018 to 107.7 million in 2022, flipping from a pro-Democratic turnout to a favorably Republican one in the process.
The presidential primary turnout has also decreased in recent years, from a record 61 million voters in 2016 to 55.4 million in 2020 to less than 40 million this year (based on a combination of official and nearly complete but unofficial returns).
More Democratic than Republican primary ballots were cast in both 2016 and 2020. In 2024, it was the GOP that had a decisive edge in the primary voting, 21.9 million to 16.7 million on the Democratic side. Among individual candidates, Trump drew nearly 16.7 million votes during the primary season, while Biden took 14.5 million.
The GOP advantage at the ballot box in this year’s primaries was not surprising, given that Biden was cruising to renomination virtually unopposed. In contrast, Trump had a semblance of opposition from former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley. She drew nearly 4.4 million votes in the Republican primaries, including more than 1.3 million votes that were received after she quit the primary race in early March. Her voters could be a balance of power this fall in battleground states such as New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Virginia.
In summary, there are reasons galore for why the number of ballots cast this fall could be down from 2020. But any under tow could be offset by the fact that this is arguably the highest stakes election since the eve of the Civil War. Both parties pledge starkly different outcomes if they win the White House this fall. Democrats maintain they will protect democracy, whether here or abroad. Republicans argue they will end Democratic socialism and punish those who have gone after Trump. It is an election that makes many people anxious, and that just might be enough to ensure another high turnout.
Rhodes Cook 6/14/24