Trump Won Because These Democrats Stayed Home. Here's Why they sat out

If You, Like A Lot of Us, SPEND Your Days Comparison Each Fresh Horror This Administration Manufactures and Marveling, “How the Fuck Did Americans Let This Happen Again?” – Well, We Can Help You With The 'How' Part, At Least. Data from the 2024 voter file is Finally Coming in, and a picture of the American electorate that use in a second donald trump ter is starting to emerge.

There are two categories of voters whose decisions in November helped bring about our present and ongoing nightmare: swing voters who flipped from joe biden to trump, and 2020 biden voters who sat the last election out Entirely. The Progressive Donor Network Way To Win World With The Democratic Data Firm Catalist and Pollster Lake Research Partners in An Effort To Get a Better Handle On The Second Group, Biden Voters in Battleground States Who Opted Out in 2024, The Results of Which the Group Has Shaded Exclussely with Rolling Stone.

Across the Four Sunbelt Battleground States – Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina – There Were More Than 2.1 Million Voters Who Supported the Democratic Ticket in 2020, But Didn't Show Up For Vice President Kamala Harris Four Years Later. That's a Meaningful Drop, and One That Was Large Enough On Its Own to Swing the Element: Trump Only Won Those States by A Combined 531.539 Votes.

Analysis of Catalist Data Showed That Democrats (Both Registered and Modeled) Sat Out of the 2024 Element At A Higher Rate Than Their Republican Counterparts. Across Every State and Almost every Demographic Group Analyzed, Democrats' Vote Share Declined Compared to 2020-and left-leaning voters removing themselves from the voting pool meant that the electorate would reder than it would have had any participted.

Some Pundits and Democratic Opemptions have interpretated the election results as an hemphatic endorsement for trump's message. But in Focus Groups, These Voters Paint a Very Different Picture.

“If you listen to them You Really Undersand That, On The Whole, These Voters Didn'T Skip Voting Because They Viewed Kamala As Too Liberal or Too Woke, and the Vast Majority of Them, If These Had Shown Up, would not have voted for trump. They are not swinging to the the RIGHT, IT'S More That The Democrats lost Them, “Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, The Co-Founder of Way to Win Explains.” they're deeplico disappointment with the Democratic Party. They're skeptical of government. They're skeptical of politics in General – But they are getable. They're persuadable. ”

The Focus Groups Included Biden Voters Who Didn'T Vote in 2024 Across Those Four Sunbelt States As Well the Same Voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with A Particular Emphasis On Groups That Constitted the Democrats' Lungest Losses in 2024: voters of all races and Genders Under 35, Latin Men and Women Under 65, and Black Men Under 65.

The Data Collected in These Groups Helps Equal Some of the MiseCations People Have About Why Those Voters Stayed Home in November. For One Thing, they are not politically apathetic – The voters interviewed reports they were engaged with politics, but unhappy with their choices and unconvinced that either candidate couuld make -like a positive change in Their Lives. But they are open to persuasion – One Woman Shared a Story about Harris Rally, Which She Left Early After Harris Failed to Address The Issues that MatTed Most To Her.

Non-Voters Had Other Gripes with the Harris-Walz Campaign Too: “A Surprisingly Common Frame was that the Campaign 'wasn't Serious,' With Many City The Haris's Celebrity Endorsements and Event Appearances and Framing Them Negatively.” Voters Across Groups indicated to Belief That Democuts Were Focused On the “Wrong Things,” with Black Men in Particular Express Their Feeling “That Dems Cared More About Immigrants, Trans People, and Waging War in Ukraine and Gaza Than Domestic Priorities or Their Daily Economic Realities.” (Young Voters, On The Other Hand, Took Issue With Harris' Perceived Silence on Gaza, with a majority of voters in that focus group Saying Her Unwillinnified to take A Take Affected Their decision not to vote.)

It's Also Worth Noting That the Word “Woke” Didn'T as Up in Any of the Focus Groups, but therere was an overwhelming feeling Expasted across at the Groups that the Democratic Party is “Weak,” That Democrats “Need to Grow a Backbone,” and “Stand Up, and not Just Talk” -and that the party, and its candidates, are not concerned enounts with the realities of voters' day-to-day lives.

“It's not a question of left versus center, which is the question that has dominate the discourse. It really is a question of, 'are you going to fight for me, or are you going to fold and capitulated?' And, The Economic Element of: 'Are you for the oligarchs and the status quo? Or are you for disrupting these Systems that have not worldd for me, and helping me to get life?' “Ancona Says. “That is the crux.”

There was a note of Hope: The Same Voters That Sat Out Last Mayber Have Been Horrified by What They've Watched Trump and Elon Musk Do Since Janogey – And Most of the Focus Group Participied Report that are feeling Strongly Motivated To Vote in 2026. The Groups Also Offer Some Insight Into What Kind of Leader Might Be Able To Draw These Voters Back to the Democrat Party. Hint: That person is more in the Mold of Rep. Alexandria OCASIO-CORTEZ THAN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER CHUCK SCOMER, WHO INFURATED The Democratic Base When He Helped Advance The Gop's Parisan Spending Bill.

“There's Such a disgust for the business-as-USual mentality, and I think it reality sticks with people,” Ancona Says. “When they see's What's Happening, they feel what's Happening, and then Just Don't Understand Why Some of the Democrats they see SEM STUCK IN SORT OF CIVILITY POLITICS – they're just they're Just Going Along with it. These voters are like: This isn't a game. My Life Sucks! Fix This Stuff! “