Harris, Trump and demographics in the US election
In the US presidential election in November, roughly 244 million people are eligible to vote. What demographic groups make up the country's voting population? And how have they voted in the past?
In 2024, election day in the United States falls on November 5 — the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Roughly 244 million US citizens over the age of 18 are eligible to cast their votes, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, though some states strip that right from people who have been convicted of felonies.
The US has seen an increase in voter participation in recent years. In 2016, only about 59% of eligible voters cast ballots in the presidential election. In 2020, that number stood at 66% — the highest rate for any national election since 1900, according to the Pew Research Center.
Race in the US election
Race is a key factor in US electoral politics. And there are large disparities between different races when it comes to how many people show up to vote: In the 2020 election, almost 71% of white voters cast ballots compared to only 58.4% of non-white voters, according to the Brennan Center for Justice law and policy institute. That election saw 62.6% of Black American voters, 53.7% of Latino American voters, and 59.7% of Asian American voters cast ballots.
Over the years, the Brennan Center reports, several states have made registering to vote harder ― specifically, states that were governed by Republicans and that had seen an increase in non-white voter turnout in the years prior.
Traditionally, Black US-Americans are more likely to vote Democrat, and 2020 was no exception: In all, 87% of Black voters cast their ballot for the Democratic Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket. The majority of white voters in the 2020 election, 58%, cast their ballot for Republican Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence, while 65% of Latino voters and 61% of Asian American voters cast their ballot for Biden, according to exit polls.
While it's unclear whether these groups will vote for the same party again in this presidential election, we do know that there will be more eligible Black voters in 2024 than there were in 2020. According to the Pew Research Center, their number will stand at an estimated 34.4 million, which is a 7% increase compared to 2020. This also means that a larger part of the US electorate is Black. In 2000, 12.1% of all eligible US voters were Black. In the 2024 election, the Pew Research Center projects that 14% of eligible voters will be Black.
Whether this will be an advantage for Kamala Harris, who was voted the Democratic candidate for president after Biden dropped out of the race, remains to be seen. As mentioned above, turnout among Black voters is lower than among white voters. And the percentage of Black voters casting their ballot for the Democratic candidate has been decreasing slightly since 2012, when Barack Obama last ran. The fact that Harris, who is Black and South Asian-American (her father is Jamaican American, her mother was Indian American; both came to the US as young adults) was on the ticket in 2020 could not reverse that trend. It's unclear as of yet whether it will make a difference this time around, when she is the candidate for president, not just vice president.
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