Missed yesterday's continuation of the long running discussion on low propensity vs high propensity voters, whether good or bad turnout is better for Dems these days, etc. A nuance I think gets missed sometimes is that turnout is not just a sliding scale that will deliver a fixed result depending where it lands. I think objectively in 20…
Missed yesterday's continuation of the long running discussion on low propensity vs high propensity voters, whether good or bad turnout is better for Dems these days, etc. A nuance I think gets missed sometimes is that turnout is not just a sliding scale that will deliver a fixed result depending where it lands. I think objectively in 2024 Democrats suffered from poorer base turnout than 2020, but at the same time Republicans hit and may have even exceeded their 2020 turnout (which was already quite high, but just swamped by Democrats plus Gary Johnson or Trump voters that flipped to Biden). So in 2024 we would have preferred for higher turnout among Dems, but lower turnout among Republicans. I don't think it's a given that lower 2024 turnout would have been immediately better for us (could have come from even greater Dem dropoff) or that higher 2024 turnout would have meant a GOP landslide (Republicans might have been close to maxed out).
But yes the pattern is clear that with *very* low turnout (like the OH-06 special we got within single digits) that partisan engaged Democrats made up a disproportionate share and dropoff hit Republicans harder, so it would not shock me to see this dynamic continue for WI-Supreme Court and other races. Another note: trying to parse early vote statistics remains murky at best in states with partisan voter registration; in a state without it like Wisconsin, good luck. County comparisons don't tell you who's turning out in those counties.
Yes! Any examination of turnout must be coupled with the question "Turnout of whom?" What genuinely surprises me about the 2024 Presidential Election is this:
2020: While Republicans had a fairly extensive groundgame operation, the Biden Campaign and Democrats severely restricted their direct contact with voters due to Covid precautions.
2024: The Harris-Waltz Campaign invested heavily in GOTV efforts. This was complemented by the work of scores of unaffiliated grassroot organizations, postcard and call and texting campaigns, and voter registration efforts by Field Team 6* and other groups.
According to the various media I read, Democratic GOTV and groundgame efforts** in 2024 were dramatically more extensive than in 2020, and also more extensive than corresponding Trump Campaign / Republican efforts.
And yet the results do not reflect this. Turnout of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents was far lower. How could al these efforts have failed so miserably?
.
*) Has Field Team 6 released a state-by-state breakdown of its voter registration efforts? I think such data would be really helpful – but I have yet to see it.
**) Also helpful would be really granular voting data and GOTV info for far mor voter groups/demographics, e.g. Ukrainian-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc etc etc.
I think the turnout efforts were pretty effective. Dem turnout was vastly better in the contested states with active turnout operations than in the uncontested states. The problem was that in 2020, most voters were already inclined to vote against Trump. In 2024, too many of those same voters were angry at Biden and not inclined to vote for Harris a priori.
That's an excellent point. Democrats managed record turnout in 2020 even when they ceded conventional GOTV operations to the other guys because of COVID. I wasn't quite sure how they pulled it off then, and it's even more impressive to behold in contrast to the diminished turnout this year even with GOTV firing on all cylinders.
I think it boils down to two factors: 1) still further realignment of blue-collar Democrats who the Harris campaign was counting on but either didn't vote or went Trump this year; and 2) new voters entering the electorate were far more likely to have voted Republican than any other election since the Reagan years, with the collapsing numbers of college enrollment driving the realignment as much as the podcast bros.
Regarding your #2, Shor had an interesting hypothesis that, given left-leaning Millennials were children of Boomers (relatively liberal generation), a lot of GenZ's right shift can be explained by them being the offspring of the more conservative "Reagan Youth" GenX (who have also turned out to be the most Trumpy generation themselves). While I don't think that's the whole story at all, I've found that usually the simpler macro-explanations prove better than the micro-dissections provided after every election.
Yup. Such detailed "predictions" are always easier after the fact – never mind that they’re utterly artificial and rarely voiced beforehand. I think Yogi Berra had something to say about that.
I strongly believe it was because of 4 factors: Biden-his flubs, age, approval and him not allowing primaries; global post COVID inflation; border crisis and a global anti-incumbent wave due to distrust generated by COVID and aftermaths.
I actually think it wasn't that bad a result; HW Bush got butchered due to a smaller bout of inflation (again something that he couldn't control) and a tax raise.
I mean, it wasn't that bad a margin compared to results around the world, but the U.S. economy was by far the best in the world, and the results of this election are so extremely dire!
Missed yesterday's continuation of the long running discussion on low propensity vs high propensity voters, whether good or bad turnout is better for Dems these days, etc. A nuance I think gets missed sometimes is that turnout is not just a sliding scale that will deliver a fixed result depending where it lands. I think objectively in 2024 Democrats suffered from poorer base turnout than 2020, but at the same time Republicans hit and may have even exceeded their 2020 turnout (which was already quite high, but just swamped by Democrats plus Gary Johnson or Trump voters that flipped to Biden). So in 2024 we would have preferred for higher turnout among Dems, but lower turnout among Republicans. I don't think it's a given that lower 2024 turnout would have been immediately better for us (could have come from even greater Dem dropoff) or that higher 2024 turnout would have meant a GOP landslide (Republicans might have been close to maxed out).
But yes the pattern is clear that with *very* low turnout (like the OH-06 special we got within single digits) that partisan engaged Democrats made up a disproportionate share and dropoff hit Republicans harder, so it would not shock me to see this dynamic continue for WI-Supreme Court and other races. Another note: trying to parse early vote statistics remains murky at best in states with partisan voter registration; in a state without it like Wisconsin, good luck. County comparisons don't tell you who's turning out in those counties.
Yes! Any examination of turnout must be coupled with the question "Turnout of whom?" What genuinely surprises me about the 2024 Presidential Election is this:
2020: While Republicans had a fairly extensive groundgame operation, the Biden Campaign and Democrats severely restricted their direct contact with voters due to Covid precautions.
2024: The Harris-Waltz Campaign invested heavily in GOTV efforts. This was complemented by the work of scores of unaffiliated grassroot organizations, postcard and call and texting campaigns, and voter registration efforts by Field Team 6* and other groups.
According to the various media I read, Democratic GOTV and groundgame efforts** in 2024 were dramatically more extensive than in 2020, and also more extensive than corresponding Trump Campaign / Republican efforts.
And yet the results do not reflect this. Turnout of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents was far lower. How could al these efforts have failed so miserably?
.
*) Has Field Team 6 released a state-by-state breakdown of its voter registration efforts? I think such data would be really helpful – but I have yet to see it.
**) Also helpful would be really granular voting data and GOTV info for far mor voter groups/demographics, e.g. Ukrainian-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc etc etc.
I think the turnout efforts were pretty effective. Dem turnout was vastly better in the contested states with active turnout operations than in the uncontested states. The problem was that in 2020, most voters were already inclined to vote against Trump. In 2024, too many of those same voters were angry at Biden and not inclined to vote for Harris a priori.
This is the first time I've seen someone say this, and it makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.
That's an excellent point. Democrats managed record turnout in 2020 even when they ceded conventional GOTV operations to the other guys because of COVID. I wasn't quite sure how they pulled it off then, and it's even more impressive to behold in contrast to the diminished turnout this year even with GOTV firing on all cylinders.
I think it boils down to two factors: 1) still further realignment of blue-collar Democrats who the Harris campaign was counting on but either didn't vote or went Trump this year; and 2) new voters entering the electorate were far more likely to have voted Republican than any other election since the Reagan years, with the collapsing numbers of college enrollment driving the realignment as much as the podcast bros.
Regarding your #2, Shor had an interesting hypothesis that, given left-leaning Millennials were children of Boomers (relatively liberal generation), a lot of GenZ's right shift can be explained by them being the offspring of the more conservative "Reagan Youth" GenX (who have also turned out to be the most Trumpy generation themselves). While I don't think that's the whole story at all, I've found that usually the simpler macro-explanations prove better than the micro-dissections provided after every election.
Yup. Such detailed "predictions" are always easier after the fact – never mind that they’re utterly artificial and rarely voiced beforehand. I think Yogi Berra had something to say about that.
I saw an Atlasintel poll where voters who didn't turn out disapproved Trump 80-20.
thank you; i have been saying this from the day after the election(our messaging was off)
I strongly believe it was because of 4 factors: Biden-his flubs, age, approval and him not allowing primaries; global post COVID inflation; border crisis and a global anti-incumbent wave due to distrust generated by COVID and aftermaths.
I actually think it wasn't that bad a result; HW Bush got butchered due to a smaller bout of inflation (again something that he couldn't control) and a tax raise.
I mean, it wasn't that bad a margin compared to results around the world, but the U.S. economy was by far the best in the world, and the results of this election are so extremely dire!