“The Ezra Klein Show” shone a spotlight on a post-election analysis conducted by Democratic pollster David Shor and his firm Blue Rose Research. While Democrats don’t agree on what went wrong in 2024 and where to go from here, Shor’s data provides interesting takeaways on the current state of the electorate and the two parties.
By The Numbers:
The shift in low propensity voters is the most interesting finding. In 2020, voters who stayed home would have supported Joe Biden if they’d voted. In 2024, however, the analysis shows that if voters who stayed home had shown up, Donald Trump would have won by an even bigger margin. In the precincts with the lowest turnout in the 2022 midterms, Trump increased his vote share by about six percent between 2020 and 2024. In the 2022 precincts with the highest turnout, Kamala Harris’s percentage increased.
Democrats’ challenges do not end with the 2024 election. Younger voters are becoming more Republican, with women of color the only group under 26-years-old to give Kamala Harris majority support. Additionally, Trump made huge gains among immigrants. The analysis showed the immigrant vote swung from Biden +27 in 2020 to Trump + 1 in 2024.
Voters also said they trusted Republicans more than Democrats last fall on their most important issues: cost of living, the economy, inflation. When voters were asked which presidential candidate they thought would make their lives better, Trump bested Harris by eleven points overall, 40 points with white non-college voters, five points with Hispanic voters and three points with Asian voters.
The Bottom Line: The one bright area for Democrats in an otherwise morbid report was that many down-ballot Democrats overperformed the top of the ticket. The only state that didn’t see a Democrat U.S. Senate candidate do better than Harris was Maryland. While it’s clear where Democrats fell out of touch and which voters they are losing, there are many in that party who refuse to accept they’re in a bad place. Should Democrats continue down this path, not only will could the 2026 midterms provide only mild rebuke to Republicans, but the Democratic Party risks losing an entire generation of younger voters.
