It’s not really expanding the swing state map when the reasons those states were closer was because of the people who didn’t go out to vote. They’re still solidly blue when people actually vote.
2020 was a massive outlier and trying to frame 2024 as a low turnout election is dishonest. 2024 is the second highest turnout of any election in decades and the third highest since 1900(only behind 2020 and 1960). The gap you see floating around is days outdated, even in this comment section people are saying Trump got less votes than last time which isn’t true anymore.
Also how do you know some of those people didn’t defect? Trump is beating his 2020 numbers despite losing twice as many supporters to COVID, where did the new guys come from? (Especially that latter point, between old age and COVID Trump probably had another 2 million voters in 2020 who are dead now if not more)
I never said it was low turnout. I said that if more people voted, particularly people who voted in 2020, then it wouldn’t have been as close in those states. Millions of democratic voters sat out the election this time and that is undeniable. And many because they didn’t think it mattered or didnt think the candidate was perfect. If they had voted because of whatever would have gotten them to vote then things wouldn’t been as close in those solidly blue states.
There were definitely people that defected but that doesn’t negate my point. 2024 was high turnout but it was particularly and mainly high for the republican party and that’s a key reason things were closer with the solidly blue states that you are claiming are swing states. And most defectors had a single issue for why, mainly things like inflation and housing costs, and also because they were simply rebelling against the incumbents as others have been doing around the world.
If more people voted in those states then things wouldn’t have been as close and calling them swing states is disingenuous. That’s all I’m saying.
Swing State is 5 point margin or less. Virginia is like 5.1 right now so it’s arguably stretching the definition, but still.
Also as I pointed out, that argument doesn’t hold up nearly as well in New Hampshire or Minnesota. Trump basically ignored NH despite giving Virginia and New Mexico plenty of attention. NJ got more attention. Hell, NY and Cali got more attention. He visited it with Vance once at the literal last minute because of how hard the polls tightened in the last week(see 538). Not to mention the third party spread there was horrible for him, RFK Jr and Chase Oliver both there(and New Hampshire Republicans are very libertarian), and just Jill Stein on the left, no Cornel or Claudia or one of the fringe Socialists.
Take out RFK Jr, add in Claudia or Cornel, get Trump to give them the same level of attention he gave Virginia or New Mexico, maybe make a speech with those clips of Democrats calling to end New Hampshire and Iowas Primary lead spot vowing to protect their first primary role. I genuinely think it would have flipped Red in that scenario.
The other two no, but Minnesota had their Golden Boy as the VP and only held by less than 4 points. Without him? With more Trump visits? Ehhhh. New Mexico was mostly fine, I’m pretty much entirely citing 1.1% of the vote going to RFK Jr. Probably past the Swing State margin without that. Also there’s a new Liberal Party there made from moderate Libertarians.
I said this earlier and got downvoted. 2024 was literally the perfect storm for Dems between everyone being home and the election coming during an unwinnable set of circumstances for Trump (or arguably any president).
BUT, it’s ridiculous to say that Trump’s base didn’t grow between now and then. In 2024 he got a higher percentage of almost every voter class than he did in 2016 or 2020. Whether or not that’s defections or just new voters, I don’t know and it’s probably too soon to tell, but I’ve seen things saying that more first-time Gen Zers voted for Trump much higher than predictions.
I really am worried that Dems (the party and the voters) are going to go through a third election cycle without learning anything, bury their head in the sand, and scream “it’s just the white, flyover rednecks voting for him.”
It’s not just that.
One thing that the Republicans got real good at was piping the idea of election fraud into their base. Part of what they’ve been doing is getting devoted citizens to target individuals they suspect to be democrat friendly and pouring over their registration paperwork. If they find anything amiss they report it which has made it nessisary to show up and defend one’s right to vote to the administrative bodies on a schedule.
https://youtu.be/CkK3W0lOKcc?si=OT4mOCnlZosTGbld
It’s meant that relatively small wildcat groups of citizens have managed to target literal tens of thousands of voters in swing states to cause confusion and delegitimize voters based on minute errors.
They find new ways to rig the game because they believe that they are owed this.
