Has Democratic voter turnout basically hit a ceiling and can't go any higher?

Politics & Elections
1

In 2020 and 2024, there was seemingly every motivator or incentive there could possibly be to get Democratic voters to turn out and vote. Nobody could claim the stakes weren’t high - the stakes were immensely high. Nobody could claim they didn’t know what 4 more years of Trump would do - there was overwhelming proof of how horrid Trump was. Nobody could claim that there was insufficient spending to get the vote out - Democrats spent enormous sums in 2020 and 2024. Nobody could claim Democratic voters weren’t personally going to be affected - an enormous number of women, LGBT people, racial minorities, etc. were going to be seriously affected by a second Trump term. Nobody could claim there wasn’t enough advertising - there was a tsunami wave of campaign ads, PACs, lawn signs, etc. Nobody could claim that it was because “Biden is too old” - Biden wasn’t the candidate anymore by that point.

Yet, despite all that, the Democratic vote turnout was meager relative to what was at stake. Sure, it was high enough to beat Trump in 2020 - but that was only by a whisker. (A mere 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin was all that separated Biden and Trump - a large high school football stadium’s worth of people.) And in 2024, of course, it fell totally short of and Trump again swept the swing states and won.

Sure, the Electoral College discourages Democrats in safe blue or safe red states from voting, and there is voter suppression going on, but even then, the turnout by (D) voters in swing states was anemic. They literally had no election in their lives more important than this, and yet still couldn’t be bothered to turn up to vote in numbers that would make a decisive difference.

So, what else can the DNC possibly do to get the Ds out to vote in higher numbers? Have they hit a ceiling? Every single possible incentive and motivator was there in 2024, and the D rank and file - even in the swing states - still didn’t crack a ceiling of around 65% at most. It was like having a five-alarm fire and only three firefighters show up.

2

I this this is overstating the point, because as countless threads at the time pointed out, there were large numbers that DIDN’T support Harris because of singleton wedge issues, most noticeably Israel. And in swing states such as Michigan, they DIDN’T vote, cutting off their nose to spite their face, despite the stakes, because they wanted to make a statement.

So no, we haven’t hit a ceiling, what we’ve reached is a failure of the ability to evaluate consequences of choices. Far too many people (and we have other threads on this) would rather claim the moral “high ground” by NOT voting for a flawed candidate, despite the fact that by doing so then enable the far worse, no, lets not mince words, Evil candidate win.

But somehow, by their morals, their hands are more “clean”.

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

Freewill, by Rush

3

And, no small number of low-involvement, low-information independent voters, who aren’t MAGA supporters, probably voted based on their own personal wallets more than anything else. “Inflation sucks, interest rates are higher, so why would I vote for more of that, when the other guy says he’ll fix it.”

4

I totally agree @kenobi_65, but was trying to stay true to the definition of “Democratic” turn out rather than the many undecided or undeclared who vote, exactly as you said, based on what sounds best to them at the time. And that group, as you point out, is normally going to blame the group in office for anything bad going on, so yes, they’ll vote for the guy who says he’s going to “make it all better”. And then they’ll spend the next 4 years doubling down to excuse their poor choice, or throw up their hands and scream both sides are bad and not vote again, or (apparently an infinitesimally small fraction) learn to do better.

5

This article looks at research on D non-voters:

According to the research, Democratic non-voters are less progressive than D voters, but still broadly support progressive policies. They are poorer, less white, less educated, more likely to feel the economy was doing worse than last year.

Their conclusion:

My conclusion: these are all characteristics of less politically engaged voters, who probably vote more based on what they think will benefit them and their families rather than according to ideology. But the conclusion is the same: focus on economics and telling voters what you are going to do for them.

6

I believe that’s probably corrected for the non-politically engaged voters, but it leaves two distinct problems.

First, is that a number (by no means all) of Democratic voters didn’t turn out because they (in addition to wedge issues) felt that Biden and Harris didn’t do ENOUGH to push forward a more progressive policy, instead making incremental improvements when they could in front of a markedly hostile opposition. So ignoring the progressive element turns around and causes core supporters to once again not bother despite the consequences.

The second issue though, is similar to our current thread on “Democrats go low” - claiming Democrats are going to do the sun, the moon and the stars for those struggling or hoping for a bit more financial security is going to be darn hard when MAGA is and has sworn they’ll be putting Big Checks in their pockets any day now. And possibly literally doing so (Musk) even if wasn’t actually beneficial in the long run.

I’ve encountered MAGA faithful who swear any day now that yeah, prices may go up from Tariffs but Trump’ll be sending us checks reeeeal soon now (two weeks?) from all the money he’s getting back from Chy-na or those socialist European countries. :roll_eyes:

These people fundamentally DON’T understand how the economy works, so explaining it makes them feel like they’re being talked down too.

And that’s leaving out, since Trump has just threatened to send the military into cities he doesn’t approve of for “law-enforcement” (without even the Federal City of DC figleaf), if voter turnout is going to mean a darned thing going forward. Honestly? I think it’s not even a 50/50 chance, I fully expect if Trump is still alive for the next presidential election that he’ll continue to declare emergencies to prevent any counting, or demand his VP just pick Trump. That’ll keep him in power until he croaks.

7

The Democrats nominated a woman, which is a loser in misogynist America. That no doubt depressed Democratic turnout, and probably convinced some to switch to Trump just to spite women by putting a rapist into office.

And on top of that it’s been a long, long time since the Democrats stood for anything but being the “not the Republicans” party, and that just doesn’t get people fired up to vote. Not even the “stand agaisnt the Republicans” party, as they are demonstrating they lack the spine for that; just empty placeholders to stick in office to keep Republicans out. Most Democrats could be replaced with a mannequin and they’d stand for as much politically, they are the epitome of “empty suits”.

8

That’s the problem of being a heterogenous coalition rather than representing a more unified block like “the working class”. But the die is cast there, and I don’t think there’s much they can do about this issue other than pick which groups to disappoint.

There is 0.0% chance any of the Maga faithful will vote for Dems, so you can forget about appealing to them. In an environment of high polarisation, most of the swing voters are low-engagement, low-information voters. You’re right about the difficulty of explaining economic issues, and likely part of the problem is that Biden was too old and going senile, and was not able to come out and make speeches to reassure people/look like they were doing something about inflation. The other part of the problem is that some of his policies probably worsened it, and when people are unhappy about the economy, they don’t vote for the party in power.

IMO the bigger issue is that Dems can promise the sun, the moon, and the stars, but they can’t deliver them. Neither can Trump, but he doesn’t need to; he just needed to win one more time.

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Not just a woman, but a Black Asian woman married to a white Jew. Toxic combo.

BUT there was no other charismatic candidate standing head and shoulders above the crowd like Obama did. And, sadly, there still isn’t.

10

I think most people here would agree trying to appeal to the MAGA faithful is a lost cause. My MAGA mother, ostensibly pro-choice, blames the Democrats for Roe v. Wade being overturned. During COVID, I knew MAGA faithful who died while their families continued to deny COVID was a thing. Any negative news about Trump can be dismissed as fake news or they deflect it by saying “He’s better than a Democrat.” It is amazing the mental contortions they’re able to accomplish to preserve their world view. MAGA is a core part of their identity, and it’s hard to get people to change a core part of their identity.

So I guess Democrats need to figure out how to attract people who voted Republican but aren’t MAGA. What about the Make America Healthy People? I didn’t have health wingnuts on my political bingo card for the 2024 election, but some of them might have made a difference.

11

Given how horrid Trump is, it’s quite alarming that Democratic voter turnout still can’t be (sufficiently) high unless an Obama-charismatic candidate is on the ballot. It’s not like Harris was running against Romney.

It’s like giving the (D) voters a choice between:

A normal sandwich,

A sandwich made with rat feces.

And a significant chunk of (D) voters shaking their heads, “No, I’m only willing to vote for a GOURMET sandwich.”

12

But the conclusion is the same: focus on economics and telling voters what you are going to do for them.

I feel this is basically it. Outside of the hardcore MAGA and extreme progressive fringes, Republicans sell a vision of the future and Democrats do not. Yes, any political vision that is sold will be a lie, but at least you have an understanding of what the snake oil is. Republicans sell low taxes, low government involvement, relative homogeneity of human interaction (appealing due to cognitive ease). Like a good salesman, they conveniently avoid speaking about the negatives of such a system; high debt, concentration of social power, weak social safety nets, and so on.

But the Democratic Party, what image are they painting of the future? I have no idea. And if you don’t define yourself, others will define you; e.g. "big government”, “high taxes”, “no freedom as the state tells you what to think, say, and do”, and all the other negative tropes.

Political “discourse” is a PR/sales job at present, for better or worse. You have be clear in what you’re selling. Hopefully, what you’re selling has some basis in reality. But even if it doesn’t, the image of what you’re selling has to be desirable to majority of voters.

I still have no idea what the Democratic Party’s vision of the future is beyond “Trump sucks.”

13

Of course, what I did notice though is that it is a double edge sword that the Republicans used, IMHO the Republicans are assuming that the same group that was dissapointed by the lack of economical help and opportunities is happier with the current rulers. They are wrong, and it is one reason that midterm elections in the USA usually go against the party currently in power.

Because, even more groups are getting dissapointed now when the ruler they did go for turms to be tone deaf.

14

The problem is that most Democratic candidates, when attempting this, come off as a professor teaching Economics 101 to a bunch of college freshman. The Democrats running for office still haven’t figured out how to handle this.

ETA: From what I can tell, the Republican method of handling this, that is to tell the voters “your economic problems are due to the (socialists, immigrants, trans people, Blacks, big city liberals etc.)” works with their base. The only real alternative along this line of attack that Democrats have is “your economic problems are due to a small group of oligarchs hoarding all the wealth”, but for whatever reason, that message seems to not motivate voters the same way the Republican message does. Instead of trying to figure out how to make that message work, Democrats have instead chosen the Economics 101 professor let’s just teach the facts method of campaigning, and that obviously doesn’t work either.

15

This is the part that I just don’t get. I mean, I get that lots of people do feel that way, but how is explaining the economy to people “talking down to” them? The whole idea behind explaining something is that your audience consists of intelligent people who are capable of understanding it! Trying to fob them off with a bunch of sound bites and impossible promises, OTOH, strikes me as the essence of talking down.

16

I think that a leftward policy shift, while alienating moderate independents, would increase the registered Democratic turnout percent. Would this help the Democratic Party? I think not. However, it could slightly raise the ceiling.

Turnout percent is a mistaken focus when the number of Ds is declining:

The Democratic Party Faces a Voter Registration Crisis

I don’t know exactly how they do this, but I would think the DNC should emphasize recruitment of the sort of state legislature and House of Representatives candidates, in districts Trump won, who can appeal to centrists. Even if the Democratic House candidate loses, they will have brought out to the polls some additional number of voters who will also vote D in statewide races.

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My recently and frequently quoted line was largely about how the non-motivated voters tend to do things along with MAGA. IMHO (to be clear) it’s part of a long discussed anti-intellectual movement in the US especially, though I’ve seen similar trends worldwide. MAGA by it’s own name is a movement characterized by the assumption that everything was better, more simpler in a rose-tinted (or honestly, sepia toned Black and White Leave it to Beaver sord of way) perfect America that we’ve lost. Especially if you were a less educated, white male of a certain economic class.

Studying economics isn’t exactly hard, but you have to work at it. You have to look at a simplified graph and see what lies it’s telling you by how it’s structured. It’s not the “if I work harder/more hours I have more money” assumption of those “glory” days. And a fundamental incurious nature of how any of these things work. For the clearest example, it doesn’t take much to know that tariffs doesn’t mean we’re charging the other nations money directly, but a lot of people only get that as their soundbite and that’s the end of what they look at.

You, I and most of the sort of people this board did/does attract aren’t happy knowing that little @Fretful_Porpentine. But there are plenty (and many concentrated in MAGA) that find ignorance is bliss. Or rather (and back to our anti-intellectual movements) our search for experts and research, which they cannot or choose not to match (due to education, interest, time, or other factors) is seen as an attempt by those of our ilk to prove we’re better than them. Which, is in fact true from a certain POV.

So they instead find their own sources of hidden, superior knowledge, that they can claim WE don’t understand. Qanon, Sov. Cits, revealed Religions, Grace of God, Prophets, Podcasters, Pundits and so on. All sources of knowledge that give them a place where they can feel special, in-the-know, or otherwise superior to our “book-learning”.

And back to my original post on all this, is why JUST talking about the economy on direct, honest, and accurate terms isn’t going to win this otherwise politically uninvolved group. Or on those from the general category that have already given MAGA their loyalty. They don’t trust our sources of information, our motives on why it needs to be complicated/nuanced, and the more we try, the more many of them want to spite us.

18

As a counter to that, the generic ballot shows that people, no matter how they register, are not much amused with the Republicans.

19

The Democrats need to be shaken up and stirred because the old ways have lost their meaning in a new era. But I disagree that they’ve hit a ceiling. A plateau, certainly, but one can go either way coming off a plateau.

The numbers indicate that that voters are accessible, as long as they are not now committed Republicans. Every other grouping is showing significant downward approval ratings for Trump and his policies. He’s below 50% with people over 65. He’s lost approval among Hispanics and Asians. Even among those 18-34 who voted for him 2024, his approval has gone from 92% in February to 69% in August, an amazing decline. And this is before the tariff shocks hit.

I know that early polls don’t decide distant elections. They do show that voters are begging to picked up by somebody or something else, and no real alternative than the Democrats exists. (Musk’s new party might very well have drawn interest but that seems a non-starter.) It’s all ifs from here on but pronouncements about ceilings are way premature.

20

Mostly “your economic problems are caused by outsourcing, and by immigrants taking your jobs, which I will fix by putting tariffs on imports and being tough on illegal immigration”. It sounds like it should work, if you know absolutely nothing about economics.

I think specifically it was the fact Dems were trying to sell them on the idea the economy was actually doing quite well, eg that average wages had risen faster than inflation, lots of jobs had been created, etc. It just made people feel like the government was lying to them and they were being gaslighted.

For your low information voter, the economy was better under Trump and worse under Biden, and they wanted to go back to ‘better’. Plus nothing terrible happened in Trump’s first term (insurrection? What insurrection?), while illegal immigration rose alarmingly under Biden. And Trump is charismatic and a strongman, whereas Kamala Harris had no clear policy commitments and seemed to go with whatever her advisors told her. In short, I think the horridness of Trump just didn’t register.