2024 Turnout Forecast

One of the things I am known for is producing what many consider to be the official turnout rates among those eligible to vote for the United States. I coined the phrase “voting-eligible population” (a.k.a. VEP) and you can see my influence on pubic discourse when election administrators and politicians talk about “eligible voters." My turnout rates appear in textbooks, academic research, and policy reports, among many other places.

In the prelude to an election I forecast turnout rates for the country based on based on the 2024 voting-eligible population, past turnout, what I’m seeing in early voting, and any changes to states’ election laws.

I’m forecasting a 2024 VEP turnout rate of 64.7%, which is between 2020’s 66.4% and 2016’s 60.1%. The turnout rate in 2020 was the highest since 1900, so it seems unlikely we’ll repeat that nationally. The forecast may change all the way up to the morning of Election Day as the final early voting numbers are reported.

The 2024 pre-election turnout forecast is particularly challenging on two accounts.

Puzzle Piece One: Mail Ballots

We knew there would be fewer mail ballots cast in 2024 than in 2020. With 67.5 or so million mail ballot requests — including the vote-by-mail states — there is little chance that we will reach the 65.6 million mail ballots voted in 2020 (keep in mind, this wasn’t the final number for 2020, just the number when I stopped collecting data). More likely, we’ll land somewhere around 48 million mail ballots voted. We can see clear drop-off of mail ballots in the non-vote-by mail states.

Setting aside the vote-by-mail states, what happened to these mail voters? Some voted by mail in 2024, some voted in-person early, some will likely vote Election Day, and some will abstain. It is the last two possibilities that is the head scratcher and there will be no way to determine an answer until Election Day.

Puzzle Piece Two: In-Person Early Voters

The unexpected dynamic this election cycle is the high levels of in-person early voting, fueled by Donald Trump encouraging his supporters to vote in-person early, a departure from 2020 when he called all forms of early voting fraudulent. These new in-person early voters in 2024 might have voted by mail, voted in-person early, voted on Election Day, or didn’t vote. The last two are again the big unknowns: to what extent are these in-person early voters new voters or Election Day voters?

Putting the Two Pieces Together

Putting the two pieces together create the early vote. However, it can’t fully tell us about the two missing pieces, the sizes of the Election Day vote and those who will sit this election out. I’ll admit, there is a fair amount of guesswork here.

We can see high levels of early voting engagement in the battleground states. This is a very typical pattern. Levels of competition correlate highly with turnout. So we expect the battleground states to generally have higher turnout. We might also expect engagement to be spurred by particularly interesting US Senate or Governor races. For these states, I apply the general rule of thumb that turnout rates will be similar to 2020. If that comes to pass, that will be remarkable given the exceptionally high 2020 turnout rate.

Outside the hot-race states we expect lower turnout. Among these there are some states that typically have higher turnout than others. This may be due to voter-friendly laws or an electorate comprised of people who typically have higher-turnout, such as having more higher educated or more older people. My rule of thumb for these states is to dial down turnout by about 2-3 points, depending on the state and what I’m seeing in the early vote.

What the Postman Bringeth?

One of the reasons I think turnout will be down outside the battleground states is that mail ballot return rates appear to be down in vote-by-mail states like California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Utah. In a prior post I dug into Oregon and Washington since they have 2020 and 2016 comparisons. They appear to be above 2016, but below 2020, which is why this range seems to be right for overall turnout. I am still monitoring these states and may yet revise turnout rates for ballots returned in the coming days, especially a state like Colorado that require ballots to be returned by Election Day. States like California, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington will be difficult to predict even on election night once votes are reported since they continue to accept ballots postmarked on Election for some days following the election (depending on the state).

I think there is more a risk of lowering turnout in non-battleground vote-by-mail states than increasing it. I would lower them a bit further in this forecast but their behavior doesn’t entirely make sense given high levels of engagement in other non-battleground states in places like Tennessee and Texas — although those states are being driven primarily by in-person early voting. Downgrading the vote-by-mail states further would also move states like Colorado and Oregon — perennial top ten turnout rate states — off the list of top states to be surpassed by placed like Georgia and North Carolina. Historically, this doesn’t square with me, but maybe battleground status is a particularly powerful effect this year. Or maybe we’ve seen so much Election Day voters shifted into in-person early voting the early vote is giving a false read. Again, there are several unknowns to wrestle with.

2024 Turnout Pre-Election Forecast

With these considerations in mind, here are my 2024 turnout rate forecasts. I may update these if I can find the time.