Why Kamala Harris lost in 2024

Trump’s secret weapon wasn’t MAGA — it was his ability to mobilise non-voters

Credit: Catalist

Skipping the queue used to be frowned upon. The looks of disgust from those waiting their turn would do more to prevent line cutting than security guards or CCTV. As George Costanza might cry, “We’re living in a society!” Well, perhaps, no longer. From airports to theme parks, we inhabit a world in which anyone can steal a march on the competition. For a fee.

Fancy using fast track security at Stansted Airport? A mere £7.50. Want to skip the queues at Disney World on Christmas Day? A punchy $500 (£375) — in addition to the cost of entry. Or slightly more gruesomely, how about gaining access to the Covid-19 vaccine before everyone else? Back in 2020, one patient allegedly offered to donate $25,000 (around £18,000 at the time) to a medical centre for the privilege.

Such advances in market efficiency / collapse of social norms (take your pick) make the system in which we elect our leaders appear all the more quaint: that is, one person, one vote. Of course, as previously discussed, in many electoral systems, not all votes are equal. Meanwhile, those with means have plenty of opportunities to influence decision-makers. Still, the principle stands. No matter your wealth, social standing or political sophistication, we each cast one ballot.

Catalist, a Democratic-leaning data firm, has just released its review into the 2024 presidential election. Its analysis is considered gold standard, in the words of the Cook Political Report, because “it integrates data like vote history, Census data and Catalist’s own polling and modeling”. This provides both a wider and more granular view of who joined the electorate and who left it. You can find the whole thing here.

Unsurprisingly in a 71-page report into an election in which more than 150 million people voted, there are myriad reasons why Donald Trump won and Kamala Harris lost. The vice president did worse than her predecessor, Joe Biden, amongst various groups, including younger voters, men, voters of colour, urban voters and those living outside the major battleground states.

Those are disparate voter groups but, as the report notes, they are also interconnected. That is, all of them are less likely to have voted in previous elections. Put another way, Trump owed his victory in large part to less engaged voters. In contrast, Harris performed well amongst white, black and older women, three groups consistent with high political engagement.

The report finds that amongst deeply engaged voters (people who participated in the previous four federal elections) Harris outperformed Biden and Hillary Clinton. But amongst less engaged voters (people who voted in two or fewer of the previous four federal elections) Harris did significantly worse than her Democratic predecessors.

Credit: Cook Political Report

Clearly, all other things being equal, candidates would prefer to have the bulk of their support from people who vote regularly versus those who do not. Indeed, relying on convincing non-voters to vote is rarely a winning strategy (see Jeremy Corbyn, 2019). But sometimes, they prove pivotal. The 2016 Brexit referendum saw a turnout of 72.2%, well above that of recent general elections. Polling expert Matt Singh writes that the impact of those extra 2.8 million votes was “entirely to the benefit of Brexiteers.”

Similarly, Trump gets the voters out. In US mid-term elections, Democrats have done well (or in some cases, less badly) in recent years. This is partly because deeply engaged voters tend to turn out to vote at all elections, whereas less engaged voters only cast a ballot during presidential elections. But it also says something about Trump himself, and his ability to drag non-voters to the polls when his name appears on the ballot.

This is one of those good news/bad news situations. The bad news, for many reading this newsletter, is obvious: Trump is a bad man who does bad things and now he runs what is effectively a rogue superpower. But the good news is that he won’t be on the ballot in 2028¹. J.D. Vance may share his performative cruelty and disdain for democracy, but it remains unclear whether anyone else in the Republican Party can summon the same energy from disengaged voters.

Was Trump a one-off — or has he permanently expanded the electorate? That is the $37 trillion question.

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