Democrat Debacle Began With a Drop in Turnout
Across every core Democratic bloc, voters didn’t turn out—and those who did shifted toward President-elect Donald Trump, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of preliminary vote data including counties where nearly 100% of the votes had been counted as of Thursday evening.
Nationwide turnout notched down slightly from 2020. But among counties that President Biden won in 2020, declines were sharp—and voters moved away from the Democrats. While Vice President Kamala Harris’s efforts successfully moved voters to the polls in battleground states, voters overall shifted toward Trump. Across the rest of the U.S., Democratic turnout plummeted.
Party switching alone doesn’t explain Harris’s defeat. “Democrats sat out the election,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
Support sagged despite efforts by Harris’s campaign to shore up Black and Hispanic votes with targeted rallies and policy proposals. Harris also came up short in the most-educated communities, a now-core part of the Democratic base.
Her attempts at offense likewise failed. She tried to make inroads with Republicans skeptical of the former president, but didn’t make sufficient gains in the suburban communities where many live.
Harris also lost ground in historic Democratic hotbeds. In Trump’s 2016 run, he transformed white working-class counties into Republican strongholds. On Tuesday, he deepened his support. Democratic vote share further declined in blue-collar counties with lower educational attainment and income levels.
