Trump Outshines Harris Among 2024 Voters
A recent survey from the Pew Research Center has revealed that President Donald Trump experienced a greater advantage from high voter turnout in the 2024 presidential election compared to former Vice President Kamala Harris. This finding, published on Thursday, challenges established norms of voter behavior in U.S. elections.
Trump secured a higher percentage of voters who had abstained from the 2020 election, while the support for both candidates among eligible nonvoters in 2024 appeared nearly balanced. This marks a notable shift in historical voting trends, as past analyses have suggested that Democrats typically hold sway over nonvoters. In 2020, for instance, nonvoters leaned towards former President Joe Biden, favoring him over Trump by 11 points.
The Pew analysis posits that “if all eligible Americans had participated in the 2024 election, the popular vote margin would likely not differ significantly,” as reported by the authors.
In the 2024 election, Trump garnered 52 percent of voters who either did not participate in the 2020 presidential election or were ineligible to vote at that time, while Harris attracted 45 percent of that demographic. This represents a positive trend for Trump, who previously lost voters who had skipped the 2016 election by eight points.
Pew’s “validated voters” survey, which meticulously matches survey participants with commercial voter files to confirm actual voting behavior, has been a cornerstone of electoral analysis since 2016. The 2024 election saw a remarkable 64 percent of the electorate casting their votes, marking the second-highest turnout since 1960, surpassed only by the record set in 2020.
The Trump campaign strategically targeted voters who had previously abstained, with particular emphasis on young men. Trump achieved a 55 percent approval rating from voters who missed both the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms, compared to a mere 41 percent for Harris. Notably, 12 percent of the 2024 electorate consisted of individuals who had not voted in the prior midterm and presidential elections.
The survey further revealed that 44 percent of nonvoters indicated they would have supported Trump had they participated, whereas 40 percent would have favored Harris.
This data complicates the narrative that emerged immediately following last November’s election, where Democrats were left pondering the unexpected shift of traditionally blue regions toward Trump. Some speculated that a progressive movement advocating for withholding support for Harris due to the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict may have suppressed turnout among core Democratic voters.
Moreover, the survey indicated that Trump’s voter base in 2024 was more racially diverse than in previous elections. Notably, Trump received 48 percent support from Hispanic voters, closely rivaling Harris’s 51 percent. Additionally, Trump’s support among Black voters rose to 15 percent, a seven-point increase from 2020.
Among naturalized citizens, Trump garnered 47 percent of the vote, nearly splitting the demographic with Harris, who received 51 percent approval.
The Pew Research Center conducted this comprehensive survey involving 8,942 U.S. citizens aged 18 and older, utilizing its American Trends Panel and confirming turnout through commercial voter files that compile public state voting records. The survey was conducted from November 12-17, 2024, boasting a sampling error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points for the entire dataset.
