# Where did the 16 million Democratic votes go? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 6, 2024, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786 "2024-11-06T14:01:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/111 "2024-11-08T16:34:31Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The “Dem party” doesn’t decide who the nominee is. Well, they did in 2024. Out of necessity, and per party rules, but they did. Kamala Harris wasn’t nominated in primaries. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/112 "2024-11-08T17:23:15Z")
Is California still counting votes? I’m curious to see what that 16 million number drops to once all the votes are counted. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/113 "2024-11-08T18:18:43Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > They just weren’t as hyper-motivated to vote as they had been in one unique election in 2020 Good answer. But one I just can’t grok. Voting is literally both the easiest and most important activity a citizen can engage in. Wait in line, maybe, for up to 15 minutes. Take as long as you need to make your choices. Feed your ballot into the box. At least that’s the situation where I live, so YMMV. If that’s too much effort, arrange for a mail in ballot. If _that’s_ too much effort, I don’t know what to tell you. There’s no one to blame but yourself. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/114 "2024-11-08T18:53:04Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Good answer. But one I just can’t grok. Voting is literally both the easiest and most important activity a citizen can engage in. Well, look, that’s your opinion. It’s also my opinion. I wouldn’t DREAM of not voting.\* But the inescapable fact is that tens of millions of people are lukewarm about voting, for whatever reason. In literally every single Presidential election that has happened during your entire lifetime - unless you’re damned old - with the exception of 2020, “I can’t be bothered” beat every candidate. And Biden only BARELY beat “I can’t be bothered.” 2020 was a weird outlier. - - I’m Canadian, of course. Canada federal election turnout is usually better than American but it’s still not good, and turnout to provincial elections - which are at least as important - is horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/115 "2024-11-08T18:53:15Z")
> [@StringsandHammers](#): > > People got really comfortable these past 4 years but they’re about to be reminded will quick how bad things can get. Schrodinger’s economy: Good enough that everyone got comfortable, bad enough that they all punished the Democrats for inflation and stagnant wages. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/116 "2024-11-08T19:10:46Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The number who voted was consistent with normal statistics. They just weren’t as hyper-motivated to vote as they had been in one unique election in 2020. Trumpists, on the other hand, are demonstrably very reliable turnouts. Yes, though the latest numbers (as of the morning of November 8) is that **Trump got 4 million FEWER votes than he did in 2024.** Harris lost even more (16 million as of today) than she got as Biden’s VP in 2020. But the fact that Trump lost so many undercuts the ‘Americans just don’t like women candidates’ argument, at least as being the sole factor here. There were lots of factors. Some people couldn’t deal with a female, especially a female of color. Some people who should have rejected white supremacism, instead embraced it (see Paola Ramos, linked below, on why many Latinos are “leaning into whiteness”). But the global trend toward anger at incumbents may be the biggest factor at all. The USA rejected the Harris-incumbency-identification with a SMALLER margin than have other nations, recently: > [@](#): > > … The small but consistent swing to [Trump’s] side matches up with global discontent about inflation and the aftermath. The particularities of the U.S. made that inflation hurt more. … > **[A Globally Predictable Result](https://prospect.org/economy/2024-11-06-globally-predictable-result-election-inflation-trump/)** > > Inflation is bad. This, I think, is fair, too: > [@WalterBishop](#): > > My hunch is that Biden’s turnout in 2020 was artificially inflated by Covid. People were scared and desperate for change in a way they never had been in any previous election. In my opinion, Biden didn’t beat Trump, Covid did. Biden was a deeply uninspiring politician who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. If Covid hadn’t hit, Trump would’ve crushed him. Biden had low favorability ratings almost from the beginning of his term despite real accomplishments, which (I think) supports WalterBishop’s position. Democrats didn’t bother to vote this year because they weren’t as energized by Trump’s awfulness as they were in 2020, when the evidence was fresh. The only thing that could have made ANY difference, I believe, was if Biden had nominated someone other than Merrick Garland for Attorney General—someone who would have had the courage to pursue justice and indict Trump—for both the federal cases—back in 2022. By the beginning of this year Trump would have been already convicted and sentenced. And the results of his trials would have been assimilated–there would have been less plausibility to the GOP claim that his indictments were political. Without Trump, the GOP would have had to run DeSantis, probably. And a Democrat could have bucked the anti-incumbency trend to beat a candidate who—unlike Trump—didn’t provide voters with ‘he’s a good business-man’-like excuses to vote for him. (The existence of those excuses have always been one of Trump’s strongest appeals for his fans. No one has to admit they love his being an indecent bully–they can pretend that ‘he can run the country like a business.’) . . . The commentary on white supremacy: > **[Why did more Latinos vote for Trump this election than 2020? ‘Values have...](https://www.msnbc.com/jose-diaz-balart/watch/why-did-more-latinos-vote-for-trump-this-election-than-2020-values-have-changed-says-ramos-223831109531)** > > While Donald Trump increased his share of the Latino vote this election, migrants are anxious about his return to power. Paola Ramos, former Deputy Director of Hispanic Media for Hillary Clinton, and Washington Post National Political Reporter... ---
**Author:** ![StringsandHammers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stringsandhammers/32/17933_2.png) [@StringsandHammers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StringsandHammers)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/117 "2024-11-08T19:10:54Z")
Sometimes you’re the windshield and the other times you’re the bug ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/118 "2024-11-08T19:25:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > tens of millions of people are lukewarm about voting, for whatever reason. Exhibit A: > **[Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for May 18, 1992 | GoComics.com](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/05/18)** > > Calvin: When I grow up, I'm not going to read the newspaper and I'm not going to follow complex issues and I'm not going to vote. That way I can complain that the government doesn't represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can... ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/119 "2024-11-08T19:37:12Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Is California still counting votes? I’m curious to see what that 16 million number drops to once all the votes are counted. The AP is listing it as 58% counted with about 10m votes, 6m for Harris (58%/40%/other) In 2020, there were about 17m votes in California, split about 63%/43%/other. Assuming that about 60% will end up being for Harris, to average between those two breakouts, we’d expect another 4.2m for Harris still to come in from the state of California. ETA: Washington, Oregon, and Colorado are also all fairly behind in the count, so that is liable to be where most of the the missing blues are. Maryland is a bit behind as well. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/120 "2024-11-08T20:05:26Z")
I actually forgot to vote last time (before the present cycle). I was busy at home, and before I looked at the clock, the polls had closed. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/121 "2024-11-08T21:00:15Z")
Male Dems get 81 Million, female ones get 65-66. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/122 "2024-11-08T21:08:57Z")
66M Democratic votes in 2016 81M Democratic votes in 2020 65M Democratic votes in 2024 I don’t believe that the 2020 election was stolen but damn that’s suspicious Or 15M Democrats are misogynists and would rather have Trump in the White House than a woman. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/123 "2024-11-08T21:28:55Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > 66M Democratic votes in 2016 > 81M Democratic votes in 2020 > 65M Democratic votes in 2024 > > I don’t believe that the 2020 election was stolen but damn that’s suspicious > Or 15M Democrats are misogynists and would rather have Trump in the White House than a woman. Or 2020 was a horrific year and memory of how bad it was is being dulled with time. And a lot of people had time on their hands to think about things like politics when they were sitting at home making sour dough bread. It’s really hard to fit 2020 into any discussions about what is normal. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/124 "2024-11-08T21:29:49Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > It’s really hard to fit 2020 into any discussions about what is normal. I expect that will change, going forward. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/125 "2024-11-08T21:30:16Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Loach](#): > > > > It’s really hard to fit 2020 into any discussions about what is normal. > > I expect that will change, going forward. As soon as there is another pandemic ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/126 "2024-11-08T21:30:33Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > It’s really hard to fit 2020 into any discussions about what is normal. If it only took 4 years for 15M Democrats to forget about the Trump Administration, then that’s speaks very poorly on the Democratic voters. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/127 "2024-11-08T21:35:02Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > As soon as there is another pandemic Soon, in other words, once he puts anti-vaxxers in charge of national health care. COVID is still there. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/128 "2024-11-08T22:20:13Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > People changing their mind, perhaps? That seems unlikely except for those who changed their minds about voting at all. Trump got 73.4 million votes this year which was actually about a million _fewer_ than he got in 2020. Despite what they keep telling us about young ethnic male voters switching to Trump, that simply can’t be true. It doesn’t add up; if it did, then Trump would have pulled in millions more in the popular vote. I also don’t think that any of the third party candidates got enough votes to sway anything, but even if they did in some very tight swing-state races, that still doesn’t explain the missing votes. My impression was that the Democrats were even more motivated to vote this year than they were in 2023, but I was wrong. To take an example at random I looked at California for 2024 and 2020, and the overall turnout was far lower this year. Harris still overwhelmingly won the state’s popular vote, but with far fewer voters on both sides. The decline in voting was greater on the Democrat side. This is why voting is important even if you don’t live in a swing state. If more Democrats had bothered, we might have seen a repeat of 2016, with Harris handily winning the popular vote even while losing the Electoral College vote. We would have had a much more secure standpoint from which to protest the Electoral College. I think now everyone is devastated and close to despair. No matter what Trump said or did, he never, ever faced consequences. His two federal cases, for illegally taking classified documents home to Florida and for fomenting insurrection, will be quashed on January 20. Most or all of the rioters who were convicted, will be pardoned. They are no longer insurrectionists; now they will be honored as patriots and heroes. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/129 "2024-11-08T22:24:47Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > > [@Loach](#): > > > > It’s really hard to fit 2020 into any discussions about what is normal. > > If it only took 4 years for 15M Democrats to forget about the Trump Administration, then that’s speaks very poorly on the Democratic voters. As I’ve said (maybe elsewhere hard to keep track of where sometimes) if all they had to worry about were Democratic voters they would never lose. In order to win you can’t just rely on those that will always vote and always vote D. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Loach](#): > > > > As soon as there is another pandemic > > Soon, in other words, once he puts anti-vaxxers in charge of national health care. COVID is still there. It won’t help but it takes more than that to have a global pandemic. I know more than most that Covid is still there. My sister recently spent a month in the hospital with it. But she is severely immune compromised. It’s not the same as 2020. The strains aren’t as severe. The treatment protocols are better. People will die from Covid. People die from influenza. In order for there to be another 2020 there would need to be another novel virus. It’s possible for there to be bad outcomes without it being apocalyptic. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786/130 "2024-11-08T22:30:13Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > As I’ve said (maybe elsewhere hard to keep track of where sometimes) if all they had to worry about were Democratic voters they would never lose. In order to win you can’t just rely on those that will always vote and always vote D. And that’s what bothers me about blaming Harris loss just on Trump voters. They expect Republican to cross party lines and vote Dem but yet don’t hold their own party responsible to get off their butt and vote. > [@Loach](#): > > As soon as there is another pandemic It’s due in 2118 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-16-million-democratic-votes-go/1009786.md?page=7)