What share of registered voters supported Trump in the 2024 election and how did turnout affect it?
Executive summary
Donald Trump won 49.8% of the national popular vote in 2024 while Kamala Harris received 48.3%, a margin of about 1.5 points, and turnout among the voting-eligible population was roughly 63–64% — down modestly from 2020 but still high historically (about 63.7%–64% depending on the source) [1] [2] [3] [4]. Analysts attribute Trump’s edge to both holding most 2020 Trump voters (85% retention) and doing better than Harris among voters who did not vote in 2020 but did in 2024 (54% to 42%), meaning turnout shifts — who showed up and who stayed home — materially shaped the result [1] [2].
1. Turnout: high by historical standards, slightly below 2020
Most major data sets describe 2024 turnout as very high for a post-2020 cycle: the Census CPS reports 65.3% of the voting-age population voted and Pew cites a 64% voting-eligible turnout figure; Ballotpedia and other aggregators put overall VEP turnout around 63.7% [3] [2] [4]. That level is below 2020’s record surge but above almost every other modern presidential contest, and it set the context in which small shifts in who voted produced a close national popular vote [4] [1].
2. Vote shares and the narrow popular-vote margin
Pew’s decomposition of the result notes Trump won the popular vote with 49.8% to Harris’s 48.3% — a 1.5-point margin — while other outlets and studies describe Trump’s share as “nearly 50%” of the vote [1] [5]. Multiple post‑election surveys and state tabulations show Trump expanded his coalition in several demographic groups, which together were enough to swing the national tally in a tight race [5] [6] [7].
3. Retention and the “new/returning” voters story
The decisive dynamic was not mass switching but differential turnout and gains among new or returning voters. Pew reports 85% of Trump’s 2020 voters backed him again in 2024, with only 3% switching to Harris and 11% dropping out of the electorate [1]. By contrast, Harris retained a smaller share of Biden’s 2020 voters (79%), with 15% of Biden’s 2020 voters not voting in 2024 and 5% switching to Trump — a composition that magnified small shifts into a national edge [1].
4. Who the late-arriving voters favored and why it mattered
Voters who sat out 2020 but voted in 2024 favored Trump by 54% to 42% according to Pew, and including those who were too young to vote in 2020 narrows that margin but still shows a pro‑Trump tilt (52%–45%) [2]. That pattern broke with 2016 and 2020 norms (when nonvoters tended to lean Democratic) and helped offset some Democratic advantages in turnout in other places [2] [8].
5. Demographics: modest realignment, large turnout interactions
Multiple sources document that Trump made gains across racial and age groups — larger shares of Hispanic voters, more support among younger cohorts who did vote, and small but meaningful inroads with Black voters — but Pew and Navigator emphasize that many changes came from who turned out rather than mass individual conversion [7] [6]. For example, Trump’s Hispanic vote share rose from about 36% in 2020 to roughly 48% in 2024 among voters, but analysts note turnout differences [7] [6].
6. Geographic and state turnout patterns amplified the result
State-by-state turnout varied and correlated with partisan outcomes. Ballotpedia notes average turnout in Trump-won states was lower than in Harris-won states (63.4% vs. 66.4%), and other analysts show Trump’s gains were geographically broad — he improved vote share in most counties, including many urban ones — suggesting turnout shifts plus modest vote swings produced the map Trump needed [4] [9].
7. Competing interpretations and limits of the data
Scholars disagree over emphasis: some highlight turnout as the primary driver (high Republican turnout and returning nonvoters for Trump), while others point to real shifts in party support among key demographics and new registrants who changed partisan preference (Catalist; AP; Pew) [10] [8] [1]. Limitations include differing turnout metrics (voting-age population vs. voting-eligible population vs. ballots counted), and post‑election surveys weigh and adjust samples differently — the available sources document these methodological differences [11] [3].
8. Bottom line: turnout determined the margin more than mass conversion
Available sources converge on this account: Trump’s nearly 50% vote share resulted from high retention of his 2020 voters (85%), an advantage among new/returning voters who favored him 54%–42%, and turnout patterns that slightly favored his coalition in the decisive states [1] [2] [4]. Analysts present alternative emphases — turnout effects vs. genuine shifts in some demographic loyalties — but all cite the same basic mechanisms in the sources above [1] [10] [7].