The narrative that a higher Democrat voter turnout would have enabled Vice President Kamala Harris to defeat President-elect Donald Trump in the November election is wrong, The New York Times reported.
A drop-off in Democrat-vote tallies, especially in large blue cities, contributed to Harris receiving more than 74 million votes — roughly 7 million less than President Joe Biden in 2020, according to a Times/Siena poll.
Trump, meanwhile, received 77 million votes this year. That's an increase from 74 million four years ago.
When ballots are fully tabulated, the number of votes will come closer to the 158 million in the 2020 presidential contest, which was the highest election turnout since women were given the right to vote more than a century ago.
Still, many Democrats say a higher turnout would have helped Harris.
However, fewer Democrats going to the polls this year did not apply to the seven key battleground states, where Trump won more votes than Biden did four years ago, The Times reported Tuesday.
"The Harris campaign did a pretty good job getting voters out who wouldn't have come out," Democrat data analyst Tom Bonier said, The Associated Press reported. "She did get her voters out. Trump got more."
Also, there's no guarantee voters who stayed home in nonswing states would have supported Harris. That's because the low Democrat turnout, especially that of nonwhite voters, indicated lower support for the vice president.
If voters who stayed home had voted, Harris would not have been helped significantly, based on Times/Siena polling. In fact, some Democrat voters cast ballots for Trump.
"In Las Vegas and elsewhere, our data suggests that most voters who turned out in 2020 but stayed home in 2024 voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but about half of them, and maybe even a slight majority, appear to have backed Mr. Trump this year," Times reporter Nate Cohn wrote.
"Regardless, there's no reason to believe that they would have backed Ms. Harris by a wide margin, let alone the kind of margin that would have made a difference in the election."
In a presidential election, the Times said, voters who may or may not show up are less ideological than other voters. Their being registered with a party doesn't mean as much.
"They're less likely to have deep views on the issues. They don't get their news from traditional media," Cohn wrote.
"Throughout the cycle, polls found that Mr. Trump's strength was concentrated among these kinds of voters."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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