It All Comes Down to Turnout

…and the local issues driving it

As discussed in our companion piece on polling, 43 states will reliably vote for one party’s nominee or the other, leaving 93 electoral votes across seven states to decide who will win the presidency in 2024. Based on the 2020 election, these toss-up states in order of lean-Biden to lean-Trump are Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.

This circumscribed contest will hinge on two very fundamental political realities. First, all politics is local. Despite the national media driving a national narrative, local conditions and constraints will shape each of these seven statewide races.

Second, turnout will decide the winner in each of these states and thus in the Electoral College. Despite focus group after focus group exploring how voters who changed from one candidate to another from 2016 to 2020 will vote in 2024, there just aren’t that many swing voters. It’s more efficient for each campaign to identify its candidate’s voters and make sure they vote than it is to convert a fence-sitter.

Each of the following local conditions and constraints will factor into turnout more than almost anything you see on cable news, online and in the newspapers every day. That’s why these points bear watching in the coming months.

Money.

Money is the lifeblood of politics, and how those dollars are spent IS a campaign’s strategy. Campaign donations pay for advertising, staff, polling and get-out-the-vote efforts among other things. Fundraising shortfalls force difficult strategic choices between these expenditures and even in which states money should be spent.

As of April 22, President Biden has a $32 million lead in candidate committee fundraising, while Donald Trump has a $24 million lead in money from outside organizations such as super PACs. In addition to President Biden’s net eight-million-dollar advantage, a larger proportion of his contributors (47 versus 31 percent) are small dollar donors (giving less than $200). Biden’s proportion is a sign of a healthy grassroots fundraising operation, and the difference runs counter to the common perception that Donald Trump is buoyed by die-hard small-dollar contributors.

And while the Biden-Harris campaign can be laser-focused on the campaign, spending money on such things as building out a grassroots turnout operation in the toss-up states, Donald Trump has a myriad of competing financial demands, such as non-trivial court settlements and legal fees. Also, his family takeover of Republican Party organizations and their fundraising mechanisms to focus efforts on electing him rather than building a coordinated campaign in support of all Republican candidates is unlikely to sit well with Senate and House Republican candidates in competitive races.

Keep an eye out for fundraising reports generally but also for Republican candidates for Congress grumbling anonymously that the former president is stealing their lunch money.

Organization.

The role of a state party is to unify the party’s leaders and rank-and-file voters behind a slate of candidates and get everyone rowing in the same direction.

Democrats see themselves as a big-tent party. They don’t have a history of exemplifying unity, focus and organization. But in 2024, they have coalesced behind President Biden, motivated largely by their opposition to Donald Trump. In contrast, Republican parties in several of these toss-up states are bankrupt and in disarray. This is true in Michigan, Arizona and even Texas, according to a recent story in the Texas Tribune.

Some argue Trump’s ability to communicate directly to his followers limits the need for traditional campaign structure. That may have been true in 2016, but election results in 2018, 2020 and 2022, not to mention special elections, suggest otherwise. Getting out the vote requires money and organization at the state level. Without either, turnout will be an uphill battle. 

Intensity/Energy. 

Party identification is the strongest indicator of why people vote the way they do and have the opinions they do about issues. The intensity of how they feel about a particular candidate or issue strongly influence whether they actually vote. Aside from Trump, who continues to polarize and motivate, the top issues most likely to matter to voters and drive turnout this fall are the economy, abortion, immigration and crime. How these issues affect the people in these seven states will matter more than the national narrative.

On the economy, the swing state poll released by The Cook Political Report recently shows how the cost of living continues to be a drag on President Biden’s support notwithstanding evidence of a strong economy and low unemployment.

Despite single-digit proportions of people saying abortion is the most important issue facing the nation, we have seen the issue drive turnout in states where it has been on the ballot. In 2023 that was Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. This year it may be on the ballot in three of the seven key states – Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania. However, with Republicans advocating for national abortion restrictions, the issue is implicitly on the ballot in every state. We think reproductive freedom will continue to matter, especially to women voters, and serve as a reminder of Republican extremism to much of the American electorate.

Americans continue to name immigration and crime as top concerns despite measurable declines in both. Republicans will continue to emphasize both issues because of their importance and Trump’s advantage over President Biden on both. It remains to be seen if Democrats can push back on immigration since Republicans blocked immigration reform legislation at Donald Trump’s behest. We think that may be inside baseball: too nuanced an argument to make in a campaign.

Personal Experience, Not Projection.

Returning to the perennially top issue of the economy, there has been a lot of coverage recently about negative perceptions of the nation’s economy in the face of objectively positive economic indicators. However, people tend to vote with their own interests in mind, so ratings of their personal experience matter more. Lately people offer a much more positive assessment of their personal financial situation than the economy overall, and in politics, personal financial situation is the ultimate local issue.

Third Party Ballot Access.

Third parties can have an outsized impact on the national outcome by drawing votes away from a candidate in one of the seven key states. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and the eventual Green Party nominee all have the potential to impact the outcome as Jill Stein and Gary Johnson did in 2016 – tipping Wisconsin and Michigan for Trump. Historically, Trump has had a ceiling on his support, which makes this third-party effect almost essential to his success. The outstanding questions are: which of these third-party candidates will wind up on the ballot in any of the key states, and from which candidate do they draw votes? Across the seven states, RFK Jr. is on the ballot in Michigan, while the Green Party is on the ballot in both Michigan and Wisconsin. This picture is still developing and bears watching with a critical eye, wary of assumptions about the impact third party candidates will have.

Eroding Support from Public Officials.

Both President Biden and Former President Trump have experienced disaffection within their voting coalitions, but who is likely to suffer more by the time the election is over? Within the House of Representatives and the Senate, President Biden has seen rock-solid support throughout the Democratic caucuses.

Meanwhile, after years of solid support for Trump among Republicans in Congress, some have begun to waver. In early April, Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul (R-TX) and Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-OH) publicly voiced concerns about Republican members of the House of Representatives voicing Russian propaganda. This degree of country-over-party candor was conspicuous in Trump’s Republican party. Speaker Johnson’s about face on Ukraine funding was similarly remarkable. Stepping out on Donald Trump may be an indication that they see some weakness in him that has them hedging their bets. At the very least it's a trend that New York Times’ David Leonhardt picked up on in a recent story.

What’s the bottom line on all this? A range of factors – primarily local – will impact voter turnout and decide this election. There are plenty of campaign elements to keep an eye on in lieu of horse race polling – which has limited utility, as we discussed here – to help you understand the state of the race.