Record Turnout Will Be Crucial for 2024 Election

As the 2024 presidential campaign cycle begins heating up, political strategists and analysts are already stressing one factor that could prove decisive: voter turnout. After hitting new modern highs in the previous two election cycles, maintaining or even exceeding that elevated civic engagement level will be paramount for both parties.

The 2024 election will be just the second ever to take place following the immense participatory momentum generated by the 2020 election amid the pandemic, protests over racial injustice, and the most turbulent transition of power in decades. Voter turnout in 2020 rocketed to over 66% of eligible citizens – the highest rate since 1900.

Then in the 2022 midterm elections, nearly 47% of citizens turned out to cast ballots. While a drop-off from the preceding presidential cycle was expected, that 2022 level still outpaced the modern midterm average by over 4 percentage points.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties recognize that energizing their bases and getting low-propensity voters to the polls in 2024 could ultimately swing several critical battleground states. Beyond just base mobilization, capturing bigger shares of key swing demographics like young people, independents, and minorities may come down to turnout among those groups.

Given the high stakes of taking the White House and flipping control of Congress after two years of split party rule, both sides expect record spending on turnout operations. From old-school door knocking and transportation assistance to new data-driven approaches leveraging social media and influencers, campaigns and allied groups will aggressively chase every last vote in 2024.

Already, Democrats are touting ballot access measures like early voting, expanded mail-in options, and automatic voter registration in states they control. Republicans are seeking new voter ID restrictions and poll watcher empowerment in their jurisdictions, citing election integrity concerns.

With public trust in elections still deeply polarized from the disputed 2020 outcome, the extent of turnout from each party's base – and the integrity with which those votes are cast and counted – could yet trigger further social unrest post-2024. Simply put, the civic engagement levels achieved over the next 18 months may well determine the trajectory of the republic itself in historicaly pivotal ways.