ANALYSIS | What does the drop in election turnout reveal about the Democratic Party and Trump?

( Spanish) – Donald Trump has returned to the presidency of the United States, and he has done so on the back of a historic victory in Tuesday’s elections, in which he obtained a large majority of the electoral votes. But what does the level of participation tell us about what is coming?

The Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, failed to establish herself in the electorate after her short campaign, which began after President Joe Bien abandoned the candidacy in a context of low popularity in the polls.

Much has been made about Trump’s growth in key demographic groups. According to a reportthe Republican candidate maintains an advantage among men that has manifested itself in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections. And in these recent elections this advantage has largely extended to Latin men, who as a trend joined Trump in despite having supported Biden in 2020, de according to the same report.

But beyond how the vote for Trump is made up, the data on participation in these 2024 elections, compared to 2020, show a different image of what happened on November 5 at the polls and that may qualify the scope of this apparent Republican “red wave.”

And, election after election, Trump does not seem to have significantly increased his electoral base. Democrats, on the other hand, have experienced a historic collapse in their voters.

Trump won the 2024 elections, reaching 312 electoral votes, over Harris’ 226, and obtained 50.4% of the popular vote, that is, 74,532,699 votes. according to the latest count from . The definitive data They will not be available until December.

How much did he get in 2020, when he lost to Biden? A similar and slightly smaller number: 74,224,319.

This small growth in Trump voters suggests consolidation rather than a boom, especially considering US population growth between 2021 and 2023, which was around 0.4%, according to data of thea United States Census Bureau.

And what happened to the Democrats?

When Biden won the 2020 elections he was voted for 81,284,666 Americans, a historical record for the popular vote in the United States. And 7 million more than Trump.

What comes after the elections?

But this mass of voters did not accompany the Democratic Party, at the helm of a Government afflicted by economic problems and numerous conflicts in the world, in 2024: Kamala Harris barely obtained 70,856,199 votesa decrease of more than 10 million voters.

Just over 145 million people voted in 2024 (according to estimates, this would represent 62.3% of the electorate), against more than 155 million in 2020, or 66.4% of the electorate.

There is a significant drop in participation in these four years, although the data for 2024 is still up to date. above average.

But those 10 million voters who abandoned the Democrats were not towards voting for Trump but towards abandoning the electoral process. This shows that these elections are not only marked by a Republican resurgence but also a significant growth in apathy, at least in a certain part of the electorate.

For Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who usually competes allied with Democrats, “we should not be surprised that a Democratic Party that has abandoned the working class discovers that the working class has abandoned it.”

In a letter published after the election, Sanders emphasized the “pain and political alienation experienced by tens of millions of Americans.”

It seems that apathy and alienation, in the context of a Democratic Party disoriented by defeat, will be as much a part of these four years of Government as the assertive resurgence of the Republicans and the political realignment of the electorate.

With reporting by Zachary B. Wolf, Curt Merrill, and Way Mullery.