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ELECTION 2024: THE PATH FORWARD  
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Michael Podhorzer
July 22, 2024
Weekend Reading [[link removed]]

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_ There are 106 days to reconsolidate the Anti-MAGA majority. We, not
just Democratic campaigns, but also civil society, the free press, and
everyday Americans, have a big task ahead of us. We have risen to the
challenge before, and we can do it again. _

The Path to Unknown Destiny: Life, by д§mд (CC BY-NC 2.0)

 

For the last few weeks – the last few months, really – there has
been much catastrophizing that the election might be all but lost for
Democrats
[[link removed]],
given President Biden’s already-poor poll numbers before the
disastrous debate, especially with young voters and voters of color
[[link removed]].
Now, Biden has made the right and patriotic choice to withdraw from
the presidential race; as this post will indicate, it does improve our
chances to defeat Trump. With Biden’s endorsement of Kamala Harris
(and an avalanche of other endorsements from prominent Democrats,
including some potential rivals for the nomination), she seems most
likely to be the new Democratic nominee. 

However, we are some time away from having _reliable_ polling data
pitting the eventual Democratic nominee against Trump. Moreover, we
need to resist the temptation to take the initial polls at face value
– whether they are good or bad. We are in such uncharted waters that
literally no one has experience polling a last-minute change in
nominees, much less one who will run against a thrice-nominated former
president, convicted felon, and immunized insurrectionist. But, we
don’t need polls to tell us _what we need to do_ to defeat Trump
and MAGA fascism.

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A “MAGA ELECTION” OR A “NORMAL ELECTION”?

Instead of making much ado about _who_, it’s time to make much ado
about _what_ the stakes of this election are. WHILE THE PERSON AT
THE TOP OF THE DEMOCRATIC TICKET WILL MATTER, IT IS SECONDARY TO THE
FACTOR THAT WILL MOST DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT TRUMP WINS IN
NOVEMBER: _WHAT VOTERS THINK THIS ELECTION IS “ABOUT” IN
OCTOBER._ 

There are two basic possibilities for what the election will be
“about.” We could have what I call a “MAGA Election,” where
the election is “about” what Trump will do if he is returned to
the White House, and how his MAGA allies on the Supreme Court
[[link removed]] and Project
2025
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help him do it. Or we could have what I call the “Normal
Election,” where the election is “about” anything else –
Democrats’ governing record, crime rates, “the economy,” you
name it. 

_IF IT’S A MAGA ELECTION, TRUMP WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY LOSE. IF
IT’S A NORMAL ELECTION, DEMOCRATS WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY LOSE. _But
that’s something we can collectively influence. By “we,” I mean
everyone who wants to stop American fascism – not just Democratic
campaigns, but also civil society, the free press, and everyday
Americans. I’m not saying we have nothing to worry about, or that we
don’t have a big task ahead of us; far from it. _THIS IS A TASK WE
HAVE RISEN TO BEFORE, AND A TASK WE KNOW HOW TO COMPLETE._

This post will explain why I am so confident this is the case. It will
also more generally try to make sense of where the race is now, what
we can expect, and why.  

Here are some of the most important points I’ll cover in more detail
in this post:

*
_THE 2022 MIDTERMS WERE A STRIKING NATURAL EXPERIMENT THAT SHOWED THE
DIFFERENCE IN OUTCOMES BETWEEN A MAGA ELECTION AND A NORMAL
ELECTION._ I’ve made this case before in “Red Wave, Blue Undertow
[[link removed]].” Today, I
will present new evidence that strongly indicates it was
the _stakes_ of the election – not other factors such as
demographics, vote history, or partisanship – that made the
difference between Democratic wins and losses in 2022. (SECTION I) 

*
The anti-MAGA majority is as solid as ever, but not consolidated
behind Biden or Democrats. _BUT THEY DON’T SUPPORT TRUMP
EITHER._ Trump is doing no better in the polls now
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he was four years ago
[[link removed]].
Disaffected anti-MAGA voters constitute the majority of the voters
that Biden had in 2020, but that he doesn’t have in the most recent
polls, and also represents many of those who didn’t vote in 2020 and
are not currently supporting either candidate
[[link removed]]. (SECTION
II)

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A MAGA Election – one where the stakes of electing MAGA are
clear and credible
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voters – results in Democratic wins because it motivates America’s
anti-MAGA majority to turn out. _FOR THE LAST THREE CYCLES, THE
SUCCESS OF THE ANTI-MAGA MAJORITY HAS DEPENDED ON HISTORICALLY HIGH
TURNOUT AND LOPSIDED OPPOSITION FROM YOUNG VOTERS AND VOTERS OF
COLOR – _the demographics Biden had lost the most ground with
[[link removed]] in
polls_. HOWEVER, THESE VOTERS WERE NEVER REALLY “FOR”
[[link removed]] BIDEN
OR DEMOCRATS GENERALLY;_ in fact, they are much more likely to think
the country is on the wrong track
[[link removed]] and
lack confidence in Americans institutions and political leaders. But
since 2018, they have been motivated to turn out by _LOSS AVERSION
[[link removed]] _– fearing
(correctly) that they could lose their freedoms if MAGA wins.1
[[link removed]] (SECTION
III)

Thus, the most important misapprehension in the conventional analysis
is that Democrats have been doing well in recent elections where they
have overperformed because regular voters have become more
Democratic._ IN FACT, DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN DOING WELL BECAUSE VOTERS
WHO ARE DISENCHANTED WITH THE POLITICAL SYSTEM, BUT REJECT THE MAGA
AGENDA, HAVE BEEN VOTING MORE OFTEN._ (For more, see “A Cure for
Turnout Terror.”
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It’s worth revisiting what Ezra Klein said
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he argued in February for Biden to step aside: “_If you think Donald
Trump is going to win, you have to do something about it. Otherwise,
you’ve kind of just been lying to people and lying to
yourself.”_ As I’ve been writing for years, for the most part,
Democrats have been effectively lying to themselves and their voters
about the urgency of the crisis we face. They have continuously
undermined the power of their all-too-accurate warnings about the
dangers of Trump and MAGA fascism by doing too little, too late, and
by shirking from the uncomfortable. Biden’s decision to step down
does a great deal to redeem the Democratic Party on this front.

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WE ARE NOT HUNGARY

Many commentators have pointed to horse race polls to argue that Trump
has been “Cutting into Biden’s Lead
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with younger voters and voters of color, and that this proves America
is undergoing a historic political realignment. Many fear that this
realignment portends America falling prey to the same autocratic
trends that have compromised or toppled democracies in Hungary,
Turkey, and elsewhere. 

However, neither Trump nor the MAGA agenda are becoming more popular
– in striking contrast to the ethno-nationalist dictators Trump is
compared to when those dictators were elected to office. Consider: 

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In Hungary, Orbán’s Party had a 33 point margin in the
parliamentary elections;  

*
In Turkey, Erdoğan was directly elected in 2014 to presidency with a
13.35 percent margin;

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In India, Modi's party won by a 11.7 percent margin in 2014 when he
was named Prime Minister;

*
In the Philippines, Duterte's margin was 15.57 percent in 2016; and

*
In Italy, Berlusconi's party's margin was 13.3 percent in 1994 when he
first came into power.

But, in the United States, Trump has lost the popular vote twice, and
in the 9 years since he descended his golden escalator, has never won
the approval of a majority of Americans.2
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However, sit with this: The voters in the “Red Nation
[[link removed]]” slice
of our country preferred Donald Trump (twice) to Hillary Clinton or
Joe Biden by a greater margin than any president in our lifetime has
won by, other than Reagan, Nixon, and Eisenhower. At the same time,
Clinton and Biden defeated Trump by two dozen points in “Blue
Nation” states – and there is not a single ethno-nationalist MAGA
Republican holding a state-wide office in any Blue State, where more
than a third of Americans live. 

I. A TALE OF TWO 2022 MIDTERMS: ONE WITH, AND ONE WITHOUT, THE
ANTI-MAGA MAJORITY

_WHEN PEOPLE BELIEVE THE MAGA THREAT IS REAL, THEY ARE MORE LIKELY TO
CAST A BALLOT._ Again, the reason it seems “frequent voters” are
more Democratic now is that _DEMOCRATIC-LEANING PEOPLE ARE VOTING
MORE FREQUENTLY. _However, they are doing so _IF AND ONLY IF THE
THREATS OF MAGA WINNING ARE CLEAR AND CREDIBLE. _To support this
finding, in this section I’ll dig into the voter file to rule out
other possible confounding factors – further corroboration that the
“Red Wave, Blue Undertow
[[link removed]]” pattern
in the 2022 midterm was, in fact, caused by the salience of the MAGA
threat. 

The 2022 midterms provide the most important evidence that MAGA loses
when these anti-MAGA new voters vote, and MAGA wins when they don’t.
Not only did MAGA lose nearly across the board in the Electoral
College battleground states in 2022, they lost because those new
voters turned out at a much higher rate in those states than they did
elsewhere in the country. And, indeed, in the states where Democratic
underperformance was greatest — California, New York and New Jersey
— turnout was down the most. 

As I explained in “A Cure for Turnout Terror: Part I
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MAGA’s House majority was far slimmer than expected because of
record-high turnout in battleground states – and could have gone the
other way if not for low turnout in key blue states: 

MAGA came up empty in the Electoral College Battleground states, but
rode a Red Wave in the rest of the country, and so flipped control of
the House of Representatives. Again, turnout rates were key, equalling
their historic 2018 highs in the battleground states while dropping
down elsewhere. The following table compares the number of voters in
the all-time high in 2018 to the number voting in 2022. While 6
percent fewer people cast ballots in 2022 than in 2018, 4 percent more
did in the six Electoral College battleground states. Meanwhile, in
the three states I call “Blue State Blues,” fully 11 percent fewer
ballots were cast in California, New Jersey and New York, costing
Democrats six seats and control of the House of Representatives.

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In states where MAGA was competitive in 2022, Democrats now have four
more seats in the House and four more in the Senate than they did in
2018 with their Blue Wave gains. Yet they have 25 fewer seats in the
other states. In the MAGA Statewide Competitive states, turnout was
exactly the same as it was when turnout records were broken in 2018.
In the other states, turnout rates dropped 5 points. 

Now, let’s do more to confirm that it was the importance of the
stakes that account for that result, rather than something
idiosyncratic about the Electoral College states, or about their
demographic composition. 

The first test would be to see whether there were similar turnout
differences in 2020. The following chart shows otherwise. There are
only 3 points separating the three different state groups in 2020 –
but in 2022, the turnout rates in the Battleground states were 11
points higher than in the Blue State Blues, and 8 points higher than
in the rest of the United States. 

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Next, let’s confirm that this decisive turnout rate differential is
not due to the differences in demographics between the state groups,
or to the turnout rates of regular voters. 

Remember, _IF THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM IS CORRECT – THAT DEMOCRATS
WON BECAUSE OF THEIR INCREASING ADVANTAGE WITH WHITE COLLEGE VOTERS
DESPITE EROSION WITH VOTERS OF COLOR – THEN WE SHOULD EXPECT TO
SEE: _

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The turnout differentials should be driven by white college voters; 

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There shouldn’t be much difference in those differentials between
state groups (because if it’s being a white college voter that makes
you more likely to vote, there shouldn’t be a difference in turnout
rates for white college voters in battleground states compared to the
other states); and 

*
Turnout rate differentials should be higher for regular voters than
new voters (because Democrats are more dependent on regular voters
than new voters who definitionally constitute the participants in
high-turnout elections).  

_BUT WE FIND THE OPPOSITE TO BE THE CASE ON ALL COUNTS. _First, there
are significant differentials between the battleground and the rest of
the states, regardless of demographic group (the yellow horizontal
bar). Second, we see that the differentials are greater for those who
didn’t vote in 2016 than for those who did vote in 2016. And third,
we see that the differentials for white college voters are about the
same as for white non-college voters and Black voters. The
differentials for Latino and AAPI voters are somewhat less, but still
significant.  

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II. THE ANTI-MAGA MAJORITY IS STILL ANTI-MAGA, EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT
DEMOCRATS

Those who voted for Biden in 2020, but now prefer neither Trump or
Biden, are clearly the lowest hanging fruit for the Democratic
nominee. Remember, among the roughly 180 million people who cast at
least one vote over the last four cycles, _ABOUT 10 MILLION MORE
VOTED AGAINST TRUMP/MAGA THAN FOR THEM, WHICH MEANS THAT THE FIRST
ORDER OF BUSINESS IS RECONSOLIDATING THAT OPPOSITION BEHIND THE
DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE.  _

In the next graph, the solid lines reflect polling averages in 2020,
and the dashed lines reflect polling averages this year. As you can
see, there has been very little movement over the last five months. So
far, support for Trump in 2024 is nearly identical to what it was at
this time four years ago. The big change is how much less support
Biden had this month than he did in July 2020 – nearly 10 points
less. We see that difference reflected in the purple lines, which show
the doubling of the number of “neither Biden nor Trump” voters who
tell pollsters they are either undecided or would choose a third-party
candidate. In other words, _TRUMP HAS NOT GROWN HIS SUPPORT, BUT
BIDEN HAD LOST MUCH OF HIS_. 

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NOW, LET’S DIVIDE THE EVENTUAL 2024 ELECTORATE INTO THREE BUCKETS:
THOSE WHO VOTED FOR BIDEN IN 2020, THOSE WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP IN 2020,
AND THOSE WHO DID NOT VOTE IN 2020. Using the most recent New York
Times/Siena survey
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likely voters, we can get a better understanding of the dynamics: 

*
DEFECTIONS ARE _DE MINIMIS_. Only 4 percent of 2020 Biden voters say
they will support Trump (compared to 1 percent of 2020 Trump voters
who say they will vote for Biden.) That means defections were costing
Biden only about 1 point in the overall race.3
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ABSTENTIONS ARE SIGNIFICANT. Here’s the real difference: 18 percent
of 2020 Biden voters now say they are supporting a third-party
candidate, or are undecided. That’s nearly double the 10 percent of
2020 Trump voters who have not recommitted.  

*
NEW VOTERS ARE WILD CARDS. Although Trump has a 10-point lead with
2020 nonvoters, nearly half, 43 percent don’t support either of
them. 

The following graph shows the levels of strong opposition to a series
of policies that Trump or MAGA support. As you can see, the levels of
opposition to these policies among 2020 Biden voters who are
abstaining from either Biden or Trump now are nearly as great as for
those who voted for Biden in 2020 and say they will again in 2024. And
even those who did not vote in 2020, which includes Republican voters,
are not that far behind in their level of opposition. 

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The next graph shows what distinguishes Biden 2024 voters from the
other two groups – the other two groups are much less likely to
believe that Trump will actually implement the MAGA agenda (or less
likely to believe that the proposed MAGA agenda would be damaging if
implemented). This is not surprising, since we also know that those
two groups are also very low information and much less likely to get
their news from mainstream news sources. 

[[link removed]]

_THIS DATA ALSO BELIES THE RARELY INTERROGATED IDEA THAT EVERYTHING
ABOUT TRUMP IS BAKED IN. _While that is fairly true with respect to
Trump’s _personal_ traits, the data shows that it is far from true
for _what those_ _voters understand and believe will happen if Trump
is returned to the White House._ 

III. WHO IS THE ANTI-MAGA MAJORITY?

Most Americans reject the theocratic, plutocratic agenda of Trump and
MAGA. But it’s not enough for a majority of Americans to reject
MAGA; a majority of American _voters _have to cast a ballot
accordingly. 

_THE ANTI-MAGA VOTERS DEMOCRATS MOST NEED TO WIN ARE NOT “SWING
VOTERS" IN THE SENSE WE TYPICALLY IMAGINE. THEY’RE NOT REALLY
UNDECIDED BETWEEN TRUMP OR THE DEMOCRAT – THEY ARE UNDECIDED ABOUT
WHETHER TO VOTE AT ALL._ They are profoundly disillusioned with our
political system, and with the idea that their vote matters. Whether
they cast a ballot depends on whether they believe their freedoms are
legitimately at risk if they don’t. 

Confidence in America’s institutions, its economic system, and its
political leaders has been consistently underwater in the 21st
Century. 

[[link removed]]

This is especially true among Millennial and Gen Z voters, who came of
age in the shadow of, and since, the Great Recession – and who have
been especially sour on Biden lately. 

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In _MOST_ times and places, such widespread disillusionment results
in depressed voter turnout. That’s what happened in 2016, our first
“double haters
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election; the turnout rate for the two-party vote was the lowest it
had been since 2000. 

_IN 2018, HOWEVER, SOMETHING UNPRECEDENTED HAPPENED._ Trump and
Republicans didn’t just lose their next midterm, which is typical
for the president’s party – they lost it by nearly 8 points,
as _TURNOUT HIT A RECORD HIGH FOR A MIDTERM._ Turnout jumped 14
points from 2014, as many of those who had been too disaffected to
vote in 2016 – liking neither Clinton nor Trump, and believing Trump
would lose – surged to the polls in 2018. 

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In 2020, Joe Biden won those who had voted in 2016 by the same 2-point
margin Hillary Clinton had four years earlier. But those who
had _not_ voted in 2016 favored Biden by 12 points. BECAUSE OF
UNPRECEDENTED TURNOUT BY THESE NEW VOTERS, BIDEN DOUBLED CLINTON’S
MARGIN. 

The following graph uses VoteCast data to confirm that _BIDEN WOULD
HAVE LOST FOUR OF THE FIVE STATES HE FLIPPED IN 2020, BUT FOR THE
LEVEL OF SUPPORT AND TURNOUT FROM NEW VOTERS._ 

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The following chart shows the difference in 2020 vote choice between
those who had voted in 2016 (“regular voters”), and those who
hadn’t (“new voters”). The states are arranged from most
Republican to most Democratic. The brown bubbles are regular voters;
the green bubbles are new voters. As you can see, _IN NEARLY EVERY
STATE, NEW VOTERS WERE MORE DEMOCRATIC THAN REGULAR VOTERS. MOREOVER,
THE BATTLEGROUND STATES ARE BATTLEGROUNDS BECAUSE THEIR REGULAR VOTERS
LEAN REPUBLICAN, BUT THEIR NEW VOTERS ARE DEMOCRATIC._ 

[[link removed]]

It is important to see clearly just how much _THE ANTI-MAGA MAJORITY
DEPENDS ON THE PARTICIPATION OF NEW VOTERS WHO HADN’T VOTED IN 2016,
ESPECIALLY YOUNGER AND BLACK, LATINO, AND AAPI VOTERS,_ who have
favored Democrats by double-digit margins. 

We’ll look at key racial categories first, then age, to show the
importance of new voter participation. As you can see in the first
three columns of the left panel, in each of the last three
presidential elections, voters of color constituted about the same
proportion of the electorate as they had in the previous election, and
that there was not much change in the relative shares of Black, Latino
and AAPI voters. But in the second three columns we can see
that, AMONG PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION VOTERS WHO HAD _NOT _VOTED IN THE
PREVIOUS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, VOTERS OF COLOR HAVE BEEN MAKING UP AN
INCREASING SHARE OF THE ELECTORATE. (Note: the decline in the Black
voters share after 2012 is mostly due to Obama not being on the ballot
in 2016 or 2020.)  

[[link removed]]

The panel on the right follows the same logic and shows how YOUNG
VOTERS CONSTITUTE AN INCREASING SHARE OF NEW VOTERS — CONSTITUTING
MORE THAN HALF IN 2020. 

Given Biden’s especially low approval among the youngest segments of
voters, a new nominee likely has substantial room to improve on his
numbers with this critical segment of the anti-MAGA majority. 

CONCLUSION

President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race makes it more
likely that we can make the 2024 election “about” the dystopia
Trump promises for a second term. It’s never been more important to
remember that the universe has no moral arc – only a thick rope for
an eternal tug of war between human freedom and dignity on one side,
and fascism, unfettered greed, and inherited caste on the other. If
Trump – or another MAGA nominee – wins in November of next year,
what we say and do now can and will be used as evidence against us by
future generations.

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1
[[link removed]] Pro-MAGA
voters also experience loss aversion, of course. But that’s also why
Republican turnout rates tend to be higher than Democrats’ in
general – they are primed by right-wing media to live in a constant
state of loss aversion, while the mainstream media tends to try to
talk Democrats down from theirs (e.g., “They’ll
never _really _overturn Roe!”).

2
[[link removed]] Source:
FiveThirtyEight - note, for a brief moment after he was inaugurated
Trump had a slim plurality, but never cracked 50 percent.

3
[[link removed]] For
the sake of illustration, we’ll assume those who voted in 2020 will
make up 80 percent of the 2024 electorate which is a moderately
conservative assumption, being slightly higher than the percentage of
2016 voters were in 2020, which is expected because turnout was
already historically high in 2020. This assumption could be
substantially off without affecting the calculations they’re used
for. It also assumes that the turnout rate is the same for 2020 BIden
and Trump voters.

_Michael Podhorzer @michaelpodhorzer
[[link removed]]
is former political director of the AFL-CIO. Senior fellow at the
Center for American Progress. Founder: Analyst Institute, Research
Collaborative (RC), Co-founder: Working America, Catalist. He
publishes Weekend Reading. (weekendreading.net
[[link removed]])_

* elections
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* MAGA
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* anti-MAGA
[[link removed]]
* Kamala Harris
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* Donald Trump
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* Joe Biden
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*
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*
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*
*
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