2024 Election Voter Participation Map: See What…

It may seem like an obvious story: Donald Trump won the election by winning the most votes. He increased his tally, adding about 2.5 million votes over the past four years. But as a result of the result was the loss of Kamala Harris: She got about 7 million fewer votes compared to the performance of Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020.

Ms. Harris failed to find new voters in three of the seven swing states and in 80 percent of counties across the country, according to a New York Times analysis. Where he matched or exceeded Mr. Biden’s vote total, he failed to match Mr. Trump’s advantage.

We don’t yet know how many Biden voters supported Mr. Trump or did not vote this entire cycle. But the decline in support for Ms. Harris in some of the most liberal areas of the country is particularly notable. Compared to Mr. Biden, he lost hundreds of thousands of votes in major cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, and overall won about 10 percent fewer votes in districts that Mr. Biden won four years ago.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, found new voters in many counties, with significant gains in red states like Texas and Florida and also in blue states like New Jersey and New York.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, acknowledged that Biden voters who swung to Mr. Trump played a role in Ms. Trump’s loss. Harris, however, pointed to low Democratic turnout as a bigger factor.

“They’re just not excited,” Mr. Sabato said of Democratic voters. “They may be disillusioned by inflation, may be the border. And they are not motivated to get up and go out to vote.

The national rightward shift is a continuation of the electoral pattern seen in the last two elections. Even in defeat in 2020, Mr. Trump found new voters across the country. (Both parties won more votes in 2020 than they did in 2016.) And even if the Democrats exceeded expectations in 2022, when some had predicted a “red wave,” they lost many voters who were dissatisfied with rising prices, pandemic-era restrictions and immigration policy.

At the local level, three different patterns help predict the overall results in 2024:

1. Where both candidates gained votes, but Trump gained more.

In hard-fought Georgia, both parties found new voters, but Mr. Trump outperformed Ms. Harris. For example, in Fulton County, which contains most of Atlanta, Ms. Harris got about 4,500 votes, but Mr. Trump got more than 7,400.

How vote totals changed in the Atlanta area

Where each candidate gets
other votes
or
low voice in 2024, compared to 2020

Trump

Harris

By Eli Murray, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart and Christine Zhang

In addition to the gains in the Atlanta area, Mr. Trump won new voters in every other part of Georgia. He flipped the state back to the Republicans after Mr. Biden won there in 2020. He also outperformed Ms. Harris where she made gains in Wake County, NC, Lancaster County, Pa., and Montgomery County, Texas.

2. Where Trump gained a little and Harris lost a little.

In Milwaukee County in the swing state of Wisconsin, Ms. Harris lost 1,200 voters compared to Mr. Biden’s total in 2020, while Mr. Trump gained more than 3,500.

How vote totals changed in the Milwaukee area

Where each candidate gets
other votes
or
low voice in 2024, compared to 2020

Trump

Harris

By Eli Murray, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart and Christine Zhang

Mrs. Harris still won the district at large, but his margins there and in other liberal enclaves in Wisconsin were not enough to hold off Mr. Trump’s victory in rural, blue-collar counties that voted Republican in 2016 and 2020.

The Democrats’ inability to maintain vote totals in battleground states was also evident in key areas around Charlotte, NC, Flint, Mich., and Scranton, Pa.

3. Where Trump gained a little and Harris lost a lot.

Mr. Trump won Florida’s Miami-Dade County, becoming the first Republican to do so since 1988. But again, the loss of Ms. Harris is just as much of a story as a gain: Mr. Trump won about 70,000 new votes in the county. when he lost nearly 140,000.

How the vote total changed in Miami precincts

Where each candidate gets
other votes
or
low voice in 2024, compared to 2020

Trump

Harris

By Eli Murray, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart and Christine Zhang

Other counties that Mr. Trump swept away had similar vote differences. In 21 of these 77 counties, Mr. Trump won fewer votes in this election than in 2020, but the Democratic vote was steeper. It’s happening from coast to coast, from Fresno County, California, to Pinellas County, Fla.

Joel Benenson, chief pollster for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, said he thought the Democratic turnout was hurt by the party’s lack of a presidential primary. (Mr. Biden dropped out of the race in July.) That process, he said, helped the core voters who participated in volunteering, calling and knocking on doors earlier in the year.

“This is a real challenge for Vice President Harris, who has a short runway and will benefit from a real primary season,” Mr. Benenson said. “Republicans have a contested base — even with the former president, they’re not just giving up on him.”

Mr. Trump could clearly use enthusiasm beyond his bottom line. He made gains in almost every group ranging from demographics, education and income, including those who usually make up the Democratic coalition. Harris failed to compete with Mr. Biden among the same group.

Pre-election polls show minority voters swinging toward Mr. Trump, and he appears to be making gains with that group. They picked up votes in majority-Hispanic counties and in Black neighborhoods in major cities, a preliminary analysis of precinct data showed. But he lost his voice, like Ms. Harris, in the majority-Black district, especially in the South where the turnout dropped overall.

Mr. Trump found new voters in more than 30 states, including in battleground states that were strong campaign sites. His gains are low in many other places. Ms. Harris was able to improve on Mr. Biden’s performance in only four of the seven battlegrounds and only five states.

John McLaughlin, Mr. Trump’s campaign pollster, said the campaign is focused on finding supporters that voters don’t trust and making sure they turn to the polls. He said an internal poll showed that voters who voted in 2024 after not voting in 2022 or 2020 supported Mr. Trump, 52 percent to 46 percent.

“This strategy is very similar to 2016, to bring out reckless voters who thought the country was on the wrong track,” McLaughlin said. “These voters blame Biden and Harris and generally have positive approval of Trump.”