The less you vote, the more you back Trump

The less you vote, the more you back Trump
A new poll suggests it's Republicans who should be rooting for higher turnout.

ByDan Hopkins
April 10, 2024, 7:21 PM

https://abcnews.go.com/538/vote-back-trump/story?id=109090626

"SNIP............

In 2016, former President Donald Trump was a political outsider looking to win the GOP nomination for president. In part, his campaign sought to appeal to voters who were disenchanted with politics.

Despite that, though, Trump wasn't significantly more popular with infrequent voters than with consistent voters. In a poll I conducted in January and February 2016 via GfK's KnowledgePanel, respondents who hadn't voted in any of the three prior general elections (2010, 2012 and 2014) supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 3 percentage points. For respondents who had voted in all of those elections, Clinton's lead was only slightly larger: 6 points.

Today, though, this mild "participation gap" has become massive. Between Feb. 20 and March 18, 2024,* Gall Sigler and I oversaw a survey, fielded by NORC, of 2,462 English- and Spanish-speaking adults living in the U.S. According to public records, 63 percent of our respondents who reported being U.S. citizens turned out to vote in 2020.**

And when we broke out respondents by their voting history, we found dramatic differences in whom they support for president in 2024. President Joe Biden performed much better among frequent voters, while Trump had a large lead among people who haven't voted recently. Specifically, among respondents who voted in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 general elections, Biden outpaced Trump 50 percent to 39 percent. But among respondents who were old enough to vote but voted in none of those three elections, Trump crushed Biden 44 percent to 26 percent.

............SNIP"