Does Higher Turnout Now Help Republicans? A Data-Driven Analysis of Partisan Turnout Dynamics (Part 1)

Data analysis reveals Democrats' problem isn't high turnout—it's losing the mobilization battle

A provocative claim has been echoing through Democratic circles since the 2024 election, recently amplified in a New York Times interview with prominent data strategist David Shor: "We're now at a point where the more people vote, the better Republicans do." This statement flips decades of conventional wisdom on its head. For years, the prevailing Democratic belief was straightforward: higher turnout translates to Democratic victories.

Is this new narrative accurate? Does a larger electorate favor the GOP now? If so, by how much? The implications for campaign strategy are profound – determining where Democrats should spend resources for years to come.

Understanding what actually happened requires grounding the conversation in data. Political consulting firms utilize extensive private polling, but verifying such a massive political shift demands corroboration using high-quality, publicly available data and publicly replicable analysis.

This is the first part of an analysis looking into voter turnout dynamics. It uses the best data currently available (voter files and the 2022 CCES). We'll be following up with Part 2 once the 2024 CCES data is released later this month, allowing for a direct test of the 2024 dynamics. For now, let's dive into what we can see so far...

The Ghost Voters of 2024: Who Stayed Home?

Let's start with the basics using national voter file data for 2024. 63.9% of eligible American voters cast their ballots in the 2024 presidential election. But what about the other 36.1%? How would these non-voters have supported Donald Trump or Kamala Harris had they participated?

For this analysis we use the most up-to-date version of the L2 voter file data, which includes 2024 turnout information for 41 states.¹ While this dataset doesn't cover all 50 states, the 41 states represented include a diverse mix of competitive and non-competitive states. As our analysis shows, restricting past election cycles to these same 41 states yields results similar to using all 50 states, suggesting this sample provides a reliable window into national turnout patterns.

Registered Democrats made up a much larger share of non-voters (15.2 million or 38.8%) than registered Republicans (7.7 million or 19.6%), with Independents/Other affiliations constituting the largest group (16.3 million or 41.6%). This means that nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans sat out the election—a stark contrast to claims that increased turnout would benefit Republicans.

Basic Analysis: Party Registration of Non-Voters

Let's begin with a baseline assumption that Trump would have won every Republican-registered non-voter, and Harris would have won every Democratic-registered non-voter. We can then calculate potential support based on varying levels of Republican performance among Independent non-voters:

• If Republicans win 0% of Independent non-voters, their share of total non-voter support would be just 19.6% (only those registered as Republicans).

• If Republicans win 100% of Independent non-voters, their maximum possible share reaches 61% (combining registered Republicans and all Independents).

• For the claim that 'non-voters now lean Republican' to be valid, Trump would need to win at least 73% of non-voting Independents to secure a majority among all non-voters.

Relaxing Partisan Voting Assumptions

Of course, party registration doesn't perfectly predict voting behavior. We can reasonably assume that at most 10% of registered Democrats would have voted for Trump, and at most 10% of registered Republicans would have voted for Harris—though these crossover rates were likely even lower. The critical variable remains how Independents and those with other affiliations would have voted. In this more nuanced scenario, Harris would have needed at least a 30% share of Independents to win the popular vote. Conversely, Trump would have needed Independents to break for him by more than a 2:1 margin to secure the popular vote. Notably, given the partisan composition of non-voters, a 10% crossover rate among opposition partisans would have benefited Trump more than Harris.

Furthermore, the specific R+14 Republican advantage claim, shown in the Times/Sienna figure and often linked to Shor's analysis, applies specifically to registered voters who didn't vote in 2020 but did vote in 2024. This describes newly mobilized voters in 2024, not the entire, much larger pool of citizens who remained non-voters. Applying such a heavy Republican lean to the entire pool of 2024 non-voters would require Trump to win an overwhelming majority of non-voting Independents – a level far exceeding observed past voting patterns among Independents.

Did Democrats Out-Mobilize Republicans in 2024?

One reason registered Democrats outnumber Republicans among non-voters in 2024 is simply that registered Republicans turned out at higher rates, leaving fewer of them in the non-voter pool relative to their share of registered voters. This difference is known as the partisan turnout gap.

We calculate this gap by taking the turnout rate for registered Republicans (Validated Republican Voters / Total Registered Republicans) and subtracting the turnout rate for registered Democrats (Validated Democratic Voters / Total Registered Democrats) within a given election cycle and sample definition.

To examine whether the partisan turnout gap has changed over time, we calculated partisan turnout rates for recent election cycles using three different modeling approaches:

1. Full Sample: All 50 states for past elections, 41 states with available data for 2024

2. No Party Modeling: Only states that officially report party registration

3. Consistent Sample: Limited to the same 41 states with 2024 data for all cycles

The data reveals that Republicans consistently turn out at higher rates than Democrats—often by substantial margins—regardless of which sample definition we use. The gap fluctuates over time, shrinking somewhat in the 2018 midterm before widening dramatically, reaching its peak in the 2022 midterms. Indeed, across all three modeling assumptions the partisan turnout gap favored Republicans more in 2024 than in previous presidential election cycles. These are not the trends we would expect if Democrats were outmobilizing Republicans. If anything, the mobilization advantage for Republicans is increasing.

Again, these results are difficult to reconcile with the narrative that Republicans do better when more people vote. Rather, they suggest Republicans have performed well largely because they have successfully mobilized their registered base at higher rates than Democrats have, especially in the crucial 2022 and 2024 cycles.

Survey Evidence on Non-Voter Preferences

Party registration alone doesn't tell us who non-voters would have supported. For that, we need survey data that captures political preferences. The Cooperative Election Study (CCES) provides exactly this—a large-scale academic survey that interviews tens of thousands of Americans and validates their voting status against official records.

Using CCES data with voter file validation, we analyzed three groups across recent election cycles:

1. Validated Voters: Confirmed to have voted

2. Registered Non-Voters: Registered but did not vote

3. Unregistered Individuals: Not found in voter file records

We examined the last three election cycles (2018, 2020, and 2022) to detect any evidence of non-voters becoming more Republican-leaning over time, comparing partisan preferences across all three voter status groups.

Note: This table presents voting preferences across different population groups derived from the Cooperative Election Study (CES) surveys for the 2018 and 2022 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. For registered voters, data reflects stated voting behavior from validated voters using vvweight_weights. For non-voters (both registered and unregistered), data represents party preference weighted by commonweight weights. The "All Non-Voters Combined" category represents the weighted average of both non-voting groups. Partisan advantage shows the percentage point difference between Democratic and Republican support.

Three clear patterns emerge from this data:

1. Non-voters consistently favor Democrats — In all three recent election cycles, non-voters showed substantial Democratic preference, with margins ranging from D+7.1 to D+10.8.

2. Largest voter/non-voter gap in 2022 — The partisan gap between actual voters (R+2.7) and non-voters (D+10) reached 12.7 points in 2022, the widest gap observed across these cycles.

3. No evidence of a Republican shift — The data shows no trend of non-voters becoming more Republican-leaning. In fact, registered non-voters showed their strongest Democratic preference (D+11.9) in the most recent 2022 midterms.

These findings run counter to claims that higher turnout would benefit Republicans. While 2024 patterns may differ from previous cycles, the historical evidence is clear: across multiple recent elections, non-voters have maintained a consistent and substantial Democratic lean—often by substantial margins.

We'll have more definitive evidence when the 2024 CCES data is released, but the existing survey data provides no support for the narrative that non-voters now favor Republicans.

Survey Data Limitations Apply to All Analyses

Importantly, the limitations of survey data apply equally to our analysis and to Shor's. All survey-based conclusions about non-voters face inherent challenges:

1. Response bias — People more enthusiastic about politics are more likely to answer surveys, including non-voters. This created polling errors in 2016 when Trump support was underestimated.

2. Differential non-response — Surveys may have greater difficulty capturing left-leaning non-voters than right-leaning ones. Right-leaning non-voters might report Trump support before ultimately not voting, while left-leaning individuals might not engage with surveys at all. If these non-responsive left-leaning citizens were forced to vote, they would likely choose Harris or a third-party candidate, not Trump.

These limitations only reinforce our skepticism about claims of a dramatic Republican shift among non-voters. Any analysis making such claims—including Shor's—must address these methodological challenges and explain the contradiction with validated CCES data showing strong Democratic preference among non-voters through 2022. This is precisely why we've drawn evidence from multiple sources—combining survey and voter file data provides a more complete picture than relying on any single data source.

It's Not About Overall Turnout—It's About Differential Turnout

The critical insight that eludes many political strategists is that overall turnout isn't what determines electoral outcomes. What matters is the differential turnout between parties—which side more effectively converts their registered supporters into actual voters.

The impact of differential turnout is best understood through concrete examples. To illustrate, imagine a perfectly balanced district with 100 registered Democrats and 100 registered Republicans. Based on 2024 turnout patterns:

• 90 Republicans would cast ballots (90.1% turnout)

• 83 Democrats would cast ballots (82.8% turnout)

Without changing a single voter's party preference, this district becomes R+4 simply due to turnout differences. The same district with equal mobilization rates for both parties would be perfectly balanced. The same district with Democrats outmobilizing Republicans by the same margin would be D+4.

This dynamic becomes even more pronounced in midterm elections. The 2018 Democratic wave wasn't primarily about persuading opponents but about out-mobilizing them. Democrats successfully mobilized their lower-propensity voters, achieving extraordinary turnout while maintaining progressive positions. The result: flipping 41 House seats and gaining 7 governorships—the largest Democratic House gain since 1974.

One reason to be concerned about embracing the narrative that increased turnout hurts Democrats is that it would discourage the party from adopting the vocally pro-voting messaging that helped fuel their success in the 2018 midterms. In that election, Democrats successfully mobilized their lower-propensity voters, achieving extraordinary turnout for a midterm election—even as measures of ideology showed Democratic candidates as a group veering to the left.

Balancing Base Mobilization with Voter Persuasion

These findings reveal an often-overlooked truth: base mobilization and swing voter persuasion aren't opposing strategies—they work hand in hand. Momentum from strong base turnout creates an environment where persuadable voters are more likely to break in your direction.

Even if non-voters have become more Republican by 2024, it wouldn't change the fundamental imperative for Democrats to focus on turnout. In fact, that scenario would make base mobilization even more critical.

For success in 2026, Democrats need to:

1. Give their base compelling reasons to turn out

2. Give disaffected voters currently unhappy with both parties reasons to support them

If Democrats follow a strategy that successfully does both of the above, they are all but guaranteed a strong election cycle in 2026.

A third source of gains could come from winning over swing voters. However, while moving to the right will yield some modest gains, it's an approach that could be difficult to manage without upsetting large shares of the base. It also seems unlikely that moving to the center will either win over or motivate non-voters on the sidelines because they are disaffected with the system.

We should be cognizant that voters who have an opinion of whether the Democrats are too far left are different from voters who feel abandoned by politics and see nothing to gain by supporting either party. An anti-establishment, reform-oriented platform is more likely to appeal to those who have abandoned politics because they feel the political system has abandoned them. This type of platform is difficult to pair with pursuing a moderation-oriented approach that signals that the party intends to change by becoming a little more like Republicans. That may appeal to voters in the center, but it seems less likely to appeal to either the base or those on the sidelines who have disengaged from the political process entirely.

Looking Ahead: The Data Will Decide

Ultimately, this debate will be settled by data, not theory. When the 2024 CCES results become available, we'll be able to directly test whether non-voters have indeed shifted toward Republicans as dramatically as Shor suggests.

For now, the evidence from voter files and recent survey data points to a different conclusion: Democrats' primary challenge isn't that high turnout inherently favors Republicans, but that they're consistently losing the mobilization battle with their own registered supporters.

In politics, the winners aren't necessarily those with the most resources or the best policies—they're the ones who most effectively convert potential into reality. For Democrats looking toward 2026, closing the turnout gap represents the most direct path to electoral success.

So, what's the takeaway for now? As we've seen in this Part 1 analysis, the available voter file and survey data suggest the narrative that higher turnout automatically hurts Democrats might be missing the real story: a persistent mobilization gap where Republicans have been more successful at getting their registered voters to the polls.

However, the debate isn't settled. The real test comes with the 2024 CCES data, which should give us a much clearer picture of non-voter preferences in the last election. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we'll dive into those numbers as soon as they're available to see if the patterns hold.

1. The states missing updated records are CT, ID, IN, KS, KY, MD, NH, NM, and NY.