Bringing Back Nonvoters [View all]

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-07-21-bringing-back-nonvoters/



One of the great mysteries of recent politics is why some 19 million Americans who voted in 2020 sat out 2024. This was the opposite of what happened in 2018, when revulsion against Trump and a huge upsurge in organizing increased Democratic turnout and flipped 41 House seats. About 67 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 voted Democrat for the House. The surge lasted just long enough to elect Joe Biden and narrowly flip the Senate.

So why the collapse in 2024? Contrary to a lot of conventional wisdom, the explanation was not voter apathy. A new poll by Celinda Lake conducted for the group Way to Win finds that a large majority of these disaffected nonvoters hold progressive views on the economy. Forty-nine percent said they would have voted for Kamala Harris, compared to just 25 percent for Donald Trump. But they were not motivated to vote for Harris because they found her views on key pocketbook issues too feeble.

These findings complement those reported by my colleague Harold Meyerson today. On pocketbook issues, most Americans are economic progressives. What’s missing is compelling leadership. Lake’s poll reached 833 Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 and did not vote at all in 2024. The top reason, cited by 31 percent of such voters, was that Harris “didn’t have a strong enough plan to get the cost of living down” and failed to address “deeper issues like poverty and inequality.” Another 15 percent said she “didn’t have the leadership qualities the country needed.”

Interestingly, this was not a case of these nonvoters being tuned out of politics altogether. Fully 49 percent said they checked the news several times a day. And 75 percent said they closely followed politics. There were just underwhelmed by what the Democrats were offering. Today, 62 percent would vote for a Democrat for Congress compared with just 19 percent for a Republican—if they voted at all. What leaders did these 2024 nonvoters admire? The top two in the poll were Bernie Sanders, approved by 78 percent, and AOC with 67 percent.

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