Trump still would have won in 2024 even if everyone had turned out to vote, Pew finds

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Even if everyone who is eligible to vote in the country would have voted, President Trump still would have won the 2024 presidential election, a new study out Thursday from the Pew Research Center finds.

Trump won in 2024 with just under 50% of the vote, 49.7%-48.2% over Democrat Kamala Harris.

Roughly 64% of the eligible-voting population turned out in 2024, the second highest since 1904. 2020 was the highest.

But even if everyone who could vote did, Trump would have won by an even wider margin, 48%-45%, according to Pew’s validated voters survey.

The survey of almost 9,000 voters was conducted in the weeks after the 2024 presidential election. Pew verified whether they had voted or not over the last five presidential elections using publicly available commercial voter files. For context, most well-conducted national polls include roughly 1,000 interviews.

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Pew asked non-voters how they would have voted and found they would have broken for Trump, 44%-40%. That’s a big change from 2020 and 2016 when they said they would have chosen Democrats. In 2020, they said they preferred Joe Biden 46%-35%. In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton, 37%-30%.

That upends a longstanding belief in politics that higher turnout generally helps Democrats. Younger and non-white voters, who tend to vote Democratic, are also among the least likely to vote.

But in 2024, Trump’s coalition grew – it got more ethnically diverse and younger.

In 2016, almost 9-in-10 Trump voters were white (88%). In 2024, it was 78%.

Meanwhile, Harris’ coalition got whiter – 64% of Harris’ voters were white compared to 60% in 2016 for Clinton.

Trump was also able to hold more of his coalition from 2020 than Harris did of Biden’s. Trump won 85% of his 2020 voters; Harris won 79% of Biden’s.

About 15% of Biden’s voters did not vote, 5% switched to Trump and 1% voted for someone else. That’s compared to 11% of 2020 Trump voters, who sat it out, 3% who switched to Harris and 1% who went for someone else.

Plus, Trump won more of those who didn’t vote in 2020 but decided to cast a ballot in 2024. Almost three-quarters of 2020 non-voters stayed home again. But by a 52%-45% margin, Trump won those 2020 nonvoters who voted in 2024.

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When looking at all eligible voters, including those who stayed home, Trump won 32% of that total population. Harris won 31%.