Democrats Lost Support from Latinos, Black Men, and Young Voters in 24

For years leading up to the 2024 election, the conventional wisdom about Donald Trump in Democratic circles was that he had ‘a high floor, but a low ceiling’: an unshakable base of support, but one that didn’t have much potential to grow. A new, in-depth examination of 2024 voter data — the most detailed autopsy yet of the November election result — eviscerates that notion once and for all.

Every four years since 2016, the progressive data firm Catalist has done the painstaking work of compiling the voting history and census data for every precinct in America to understand who voted for whom, who stayed home, and how those voting patterns have changed over time. 

The “What Happened in 2024” report confirms that 30 million voters who showed up to the polls in 2020 failed to materialize in 2024. That is a big number, and it represents the largest number of drop-off voters dating back to 2012, when 27 million voters failed to return to the polls. The difference is that in 2012 — and every election since, up until 2024 — those “dropoff voters,” who overwhelmingly skewed Democratic, were replaced by new voters, who also overwhelmingly skewed Democratic.

In 2016, the 24 million dropoff voters (57 percent of which voted for the Democrat) were replaced by 33 million new voters (55.3 percent of which were Democratic). In 2020, 21 million dropoff voters (54.9 percent Democratic), were replaced by 40 million new voters (a group that was 55.3 percent Democratic).

In 2024, for the first time since Catalist began their post-election analyses, not only were there fewer new voters (26 million) than dropoff voters (30 million) — fatally, also for the first time, those new voters were not mostly Democrats. Just 48.5 percent of new voters in 2024 supported Kamala Harris. Trump, it turns out, did have room to grow. 

Catalist’s “What Happened in 2024 report” is a sobering document for Democrats: Not only does it demonstrate Trump’s ability to persuade new voters, it shows that Harris lost ground among almost every single demographic group compared to Joe Biden’s performance in 2020, including groups that have, historically, been very loyal to Democrats.

The Democrats’ largest losses in 2024 were among Latino men (whose support declined 12 points from 2020), Black men (whose support dropped seven points), and young voters. Support for Democrats among voters ages 18 to 29 dropped a whopping six points overall between 2020 and 2024 — even as young voters grew as a share of the electorate.

The report shows that only group among whom Harris overperformed Joe Biden was white, married women — an improvement of a single percentage point. Meanwhile, declining support for Democrats among Latina women (a seven point drop), and AAPI women (a four point drop) meant that the second female nominee for president lost support among women overall (a one point drop) compared to her predecessor. 

One of the few bright spots for Democrats in the report is the fact that Harris did better among the most engaged voters — voters who showed up in all of the last four presidential elections — than then either of the last two Democratic candidates. At the same time those voters, called “super voters” in Catalist’s report, made up a larger share of the electorate than they have since 2016. 

Unfortunately for Democrats, Trump outperformed Harris with both new and sporadic voters, i.e. those who voted in one, two or three of the last four elections. 

The Catalist report appears in the midst of a heated intra-party debate over what exactly happened in 2024. The report with its thousands of different data points will be used to justify different arguments and agendas. At the end of day, progressive campaign strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio says, “The major takeaway is that the source of the loss was both/and: both fewer people turning out on the Democratic side, and vote-switching.”