[This is not an Original Post, But a Repost]
I’ve seen this narrative going around recently saying “16 million people didn’t show up and that’s why she lost” and it’s wrong for two reasons.
1, Half of California hasn’t even been counted yet. By the time we’re done counting, we’re going to have much closer vote counts to 2020. I’d assume Trump around 76-77 million and Kamala around 73 million. This would mean about 6-7 million people didn’t show up not 18 million.
2. Trump is outperforming Biden 2020 by a pretty significant Margin in swing states, lets look:
Wisconsin:
2020 Biden: 1,631,000 votes
2020 Trump: 1,610,000 votes
2024 Trump: 1,697,000 votes.
2024 Harris: 1,668,000 votes.
Michigan:
2020 Biden: 2,800,000 votes
2020 Trump: 2,649,000 votes
2024: Trump: 2,795,000
2024 Harris: 2,714,000
Pennsylvania:
2020 Biden: 3,460,000 votes
2020 Trump: 3,378,000 votes.
2024 Trump: 3,473,000 votes
2024: Harris: 3,339,000 votes
North Carolina:
2020 Biden: 2,684,000 votes
2020 Trump: 2,759,000 votes
2024 Trump: 2,876,000 votes
2024 Harris: 2,685,000 votes.
Georgia:
2020 Biden: 2,474,000 votes
2020 Trump: 2,461,000 votes
2024 Trump: 2,653,000 votes
2024 Harris: 2,539,000 votes.
Arizona and Nevada still too early to tell, but as you can see, if Trumps support remained completely stagnate from 2020, Harris would’ve carried 3/7 swing states with a shot to flip Pennsylvania too. Moreover, if she had maintained Bidens vote count in swing states she would’ve lost most states even harder with the exception of maybe flipping Michigan and Pennsylvania being closer than it was. These appear to be the only states with a genuine argument for apathy/protest votes.
The turn out is NOT lower where it actually matters. The news articles that said swing states had record turn out were genuinely correct, you were just wrong for thinking it was democrats and not republicans. Almost all the popular vote bleeding comes from solid blue states deciding not to vote and it would not have changed the outcome of this election if they did show up to vote.
I’m one of those people. I’m glad to see that more votes are coming in, and the margin compared to 2020 is smaller. Still, it’s too large. If 81M people had shown up for Kamala, it would have beaten even Trump’s increased numbers.
The Biden/Harris campaign raised over a billion dollars this cycle. They couldn’t use that to ensure turnout was higher than during a pandemic? Why should we give them any money at all?
If 71+ million people hadn’t shown up for Trump, he wouldn’t have won either.
It actually was higher in most swing states which are the only ones that matter in a US election. She outperformed Biden in most of them.
This is exactly the point I was trying to make elsewhere (e.g. https://lemmy.world/comment/13326636 )
As you say, turnout was high where it mattered, but there was more red than blue. The part I don’t get, is why there was more red than blue, and vote suppression doesn’t seem to have had much effect considering how high the blue numbers are.
Btw, curious as to your sources for those numbers. I have no reason to dispute the accuracy or anything, I’m just wondering so I can refresh that page for myself when the counting is finally done.
It kinda looks like the entire election came down to Pennsylvania alone. Except even if she had Biden’s 2020 numbers, it would have been insufficient (unless Trump likewise had Trump’s 2020 numbers).
Beyond that, other stuff would have mattered only if Pennsylvania would have been won?
So the apathy argument is valid, but only for that one state’s electoral college votes? Which ended up turning the tide, but still means that it’s not due to people in blue states everywhere?
Well, maybe I missed something, it’s just a thought. Also, hindsight can be 20/20 but foresight is rarely thus.