Trump’s Popular Vote Victory Was Small by Historical Standards

[Akita Suggagaki]

To be honest your post below didn't strike me as being particularly polite.

Aha. What seems a truth to me seems rude to you. I guess we have to be comfortable with disagreement.

 

[ozso]

Aha. What seems a truth to me seems rude to you. I guess we have to be comfortable with disagreement.

The truth can be delivered politely. You failed to do so. Rather instead you lashed out. And you'll likely lash out again or be sarcastic or snide or derogatory like the rest of us are from time to time.

 

[Michie]

When every single thought ties to Trump, then there is your first clue it’s an exercise in futility. Then clumsily trying to tie your obvious political bias in with Christianity… there are too many issues to count. Topping it off by trying to take the moral high ground is just not palatable on any level imo. Obsession is not pretty.

Everyone thinks the government should do their work for them.

 

[Lukaris]

Trump received about 10 million more votes in 2020 vs 2016 and lost in a “landslide.” He gets about the same amount of votes in 2024 as in 2020 & wins the popular vote by a small margin.

I know millions sat home….

 

[dogs4thewin]

Trump received about 10 million more votes in 2020 vs 2016 and lost in a “landslide.” He gets about the same amount of votes in 2024 as in 2020 & wins the popular vote by a small margin.

I know millions sat home….

which is fine that they sat home, but what gets me is when they they complain about the results.

 

[JSRG]

I think "Liberals" know that their main issues have all been rejected by the voting public. No question about that.
But as SJRD pointed out, 89, million eligible voters stayed home. Probably, as you say, because of the dismal choice.

But if numbers are correct they are disturbing.
77.2 M Trump
74.9 M Harris
4.0 M Other

89 M did not vote at all. Why is that? Access? Apathy? Hopeless?

The thing is, this level of non-voting in elections is typical. Trying to ascribe it to "the dismal choice" doesn't work all that well unless one thinks there's a dismal choice every election (which to be fair, some do), and it especially doesn't work when one considers that there was greater turnout in 2024 than normal.

Voter turnout in United States presidential elections - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Information on voting eligible populations only goes back to 1980, but the only year that had higher turnout than 2024 was 2020 (59.0% vs. 62.8%). If we switch to voter age populations (which goes back to 1932), we have to go back to 1968 to find another year with higher turnout than 2024 (and go back to 1964 to top 2020).

So 2024 was actually an unusually high turnout, even if a reduction from 2020. Now, I do think the "dismal choice" played a part in the reduction from 2020 (a memorable comment I saw someone make was, paraphrasing, "in 2020 my family voted for Biden because we hated Trump and were ambivalent about Biden. But now we hate both so we're not sure what to do"), but again 2020 was still on the higher end of turnout compared to the last four decades. Fact is, a large percentage of the population just doesn't vote in presidential elections.

It should be noted that this isn't some kind of US exclusive thing. In a previous discussion on this, I looked at what turnout was like for a number of different country's recent elections. Going by the turnout data mentioned on the Wikipedia articles for the applicable elections, here is the turnout for some other countries' most recent major national elections: Mexico had 61.05%, India 66.1%, France 66.71%, and Japan 53.84%. Germany did get a rather impressive 82.5% in its election, though (its prior one was 76.4%, still higher than the others. I'm not sure if these numbers are voting eligible or voting age, though). On the other hand, these might be comparing apples to oranges; I do not know if these numbers are from the number of votes of voting eligible, voting age, or registered voters, so these might actually be poor comparisons.

Regardless, 2024 certainly didn't have a low turnout by US standards. I'm not so sure if it's low by international standards given the fact I'm not sure if the percentages I noted above from other countries are actually measuring the same thing as the US, but at any rate it's obvious that a notable percentage of the population in those countries are also not voting. Even Australia, which requires everyone to vote, is listing as only getting 89.82% turnout in its last (2022) election.

 

[expos4ever]

And Trump winning hasn't stopped the Democrats from crying out in anguish, gnashing their teeth and renting their garments for 8 years. You guys lost, why not accept it?

There is a big difference between claiming an election was stolen, which many Trump supporters did even though it is an obvious lie, and simply bemoaning the outcome of an election.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

The truth can be delivered politely. You failed to do so. Rather instead you lashed out. And you'll likely lash out again or be sarcastic or snide or derogatory like the rest of us are from time to time.

Let us agree to try and do better.