In a reversal of one of the best-known patterns in American politics, it appears that Donald Trump, not President Joe Biden, would benefit from everyone in the country turning out to vote.
In last year’s New York Times/Siena College polls, Biden has a wide lead over Trump among mainstream primary and midterm voters, but he lags behind the rest of the electorate, giving Trump an edge among registered voters in general.
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The pattern is the latest example of how Trump’s conservative populism has transformed American politics. His candidacy galvanized liberals to defend democracy and abortion rights, giving Democrats an edge in low-turnout special elections and midterms. But at the same time, early polls show, many less committed and infrequent voters have become deeply dissatisfied with Biden.
Disengaged voters don’t necessarily like Trump, the polls show. But they are motivated by pocketbook concerns, are more eager for fundamental changes in the political system and are much less concerned about democracy as an election issue. Many low-turnout voters — including many who consider themselves Democrats — now say they will support Trump.
This unusual turnout dynamic is one of the central forces shaping the 2024 campaign. It helps explain why recent polls and election results appear so divergent, and why Trump has won among young and non-white voters, who are less likely to vote than older white voters. It creates a challenge for the campaigns, who are finding that proven strategies for mobilizing illegal voters may not work quite the same way as they have in the past.
With five months to go until the election, there is still time for less engaged voters to adjust and return to Biden. Many irregular voters are not yet tuned into the race and their preferences appear highly volatile. If the polls are right, they are up 20 percentage points since 2020, but some changed their answers when interviewed again after Trump’s conviction in New York. Even if Trump maintains his lead among the withdrawn, it’s not clear that many of these low-turnout voters will ultimately show up to vote.
But if they do vote, Trump could make gains — something unthinkable for a Republican just a few years ago.
In the Obama era, Democrats’ electoral fortunes seemed to depend on attracting young and non-white voters to the polls. The party excelled when Barack Obama helped mobilize that turnout in the 2008 and 2012 presidential years, but suffered from low turnout in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.
Even today, the assumption that Democrats benefit from higher turnout remains deeply entrenched in the American political consciousness, from the progressive dream of mobilizing a new coalition of voters to new Republican laws to restrict voting.
The new turnout dynamics have already disrupted these known political goals. Suddenly, many voters that Democrats took for granted are now viewed as “persuasion targets,” as if they were traditional “swing voters.”
Republicans, meanwhile, watched as a widely expected “red wave” failed to materialize in the 2022 midterm elections, despite a wave of new voting laws enacted by Republican state lawmakers. Last summer, Republicans in Ohio scheduled a referendum on an irregular date, hoping to circumvent the public’s ability to vote for abortion rights, but the referendum lost by double digits.
Evidence of Democrats’ strength among high-frequency voters was on regular display Tuesday night as they cheered the results of a special election. While Trump has struggled to unite highly committed Republican voters, Democrats have excelled in such elections, in an environment that may seem unfriendly: the electorate is disproportionately white, half of the voters are seniors, and virtually no young people show up .
The signs of Democratic weakness among the infrequent voters, who skip special and low-turnout primaries, are harder to find. It’s clearly visible in the polls – and not just the Times/Siena polls – but there is evidence of it everywhere if you look closely.
While Democrats exceeded expectations in the 2022 midterm elections, they fared worse than in special elections held in the same districts just a few months earlier. Similarly, Trump managed to exceed expectations and nearly won in 2020 – in the election with the highest turnout in a century – due in no small part to surprising strength among lower-turnout Hispanic voters. New voter registration trends have also become increasingly favorable to Republicans, even though new voters are disproportionately young and non-white.
In Pennsylvania, where Democrats introduced automatic voter registration last year, new registrants joined Republicans over Democrats by 6 percentage points. Before automatic registration was implemented, Trump sent an all-caps message on social media denouncing the law.
Demographics do not explain Trump’s strength among the few voters. While these voters are less likely to have a college degree, they are still disproportionately young and non-white. They would be expected to be Democratically oriented if they had the same preferences as demographically similar voters who attend elections more regularly. Instead, voters from any demographic group appear less likely to support Biden in the early polls.
On paper, many of the disengaged voters behind Biden’s weakness look like they should be loyal Democrats. Many are registered as Democrats and still identify as Democratic-leaning voters. They support abortion rights, support Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate and come from Democratic-leaning constituencies, such as young, black and Hispanic voters.
But their attitude is more complicated. They are much more likely to say the economy is “poor” than the Democratic primary, and much more likely to disapprove of Biden’s performance. They want fundamental change in America, not just a promised return to normalcy. Some even wrongly hold Biden more responsible than Trump for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — perhaps out of a sense that the president should have done something about it. They get their news from social media, not MSNBC.
While the Biden campaign hopes to overcome low approval ratings by focusing on abortion rights and the threat to democracy, less committed Democrats don’t necessarily share the concerns. Almost by definition, low-turnout Democrats were not as driven to vote to stop Trump in 2018, 2020 or 2022. After all, many of them didn’t vote.
Virtually none of the low-turnout Democrats say “democracy” is the most important issue in the election, while about 20% of regular Democratic primary voters say the same.
As the campaign progresses, a crucial question is whether these voters’ lack of concern about democracy and abortion is because they feel disengaged, or because they are genuinely more concerned about non-ideological issues, such as the economy or the age of Biden.
If it is because they are retreating, perhaps they will gradually shift toward Biden as they tune in and focus on the stakes of the election. If not, Biden faces a tough challenge.
Whether they ultimately decide to express their dissatisfaction by voting for Trump is another question — one that has the potential to decide the election.
c.2024 The New York Times Company
