The three kinds of swing voters aren’t with Trump or Biden
There are at least three kinds of swing voters: the switchers, the occasionals and the third- partiers. And both President Biden and former president Donald Trump should be very worried about their standing with all three.
The Switchers
First, the switchers: those who backed one major party in a presidential election but then shifted to the other four years later. These are the kind of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016.
Political scientist Alan Abramowitz estimates, based on polling, that about 6% of Americans who voted in both 2016 and 2020 backed different parties in each election. About two-thirds of this group went from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020, while only a third went from Hillary Clinton in 2016 to Trump.
Who are the Trump 2016/ Biden 2020 voters likely to support this November? It’s hard to say. I suspect some are part of the 20% of the electorate journalists have dubbed “double haters”: people who dislike both major-party candidates. (Polls conflict about which candidate is doing better among this group.)
But we do have one recent piece of data about ObamaTrump-Biden voters, and it’s not comforting for either cand i d a t e . B a l l o t p e d i a h a s tracked 25 counties that backed Obama in 2008 and 2012, Trump in 2016, and Biden in 2020, meaning they swung with the country.
In 2022, the parties split these counties almost exactly evenly. Now, these counties as a group aren’t as Republican as they were in 2016 (when Trump won them all) or as Democratic as in 2020 (when Biden won them all).
The occasionals and third-partiers
The second kind of swing voters are the occasionals: those who alternate between voting and not voting. Significantly more people voted in 2020 (about 67% of voting-eligible citizens) compared with 2016 ( 61%) and 2012 ( 62%). Trump received 11 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016; Biden was 15 million votes ahead of Clinton.
Americans younger than 45, people of color, lower-income people and those who aren’t that politically engaged tend to vote at lower levels.
So in the past, higher-turnout elections ( presidential
races in particular) generally favored Democrats because those elections drew more people of color and more younger people, two left-leaning blocs.
In 2020, Biden won a clear majority (about 56%) of those who didn’t vote in 2016, according to the left- leaning data firm Catalist.
Ultimately, what matters is what kinds of people turn out in higher or lower numbers, particularly in swing states. For Biden, an ideal scenario is if young and Black voters who disapprove of him but lean left on policy vote at high rates; urban and suburban women who strongly support abortion rights remain extra-engaged, as they were in 2022; and some of the working-class Latino and white Americans who often don’t vote but were excited by Trump in either 2016 or 2020 decide to stay home.
Trump should hope for more White Christian voters, fewer young and Black voters, and that Latino and white voters who often don’t vote vote for him again.
The third group of swing voters are the third-partiers: those who go from voting for a major party to a third party or vice versa. About 6% of Americans voted third party in 2016, but that dropped to 2% in 2020. Among those who voted third party in 2016, 53% backed Biden in 2020 and 36% picked Trump, and 10% again voted third-party, according to Pew.
Polls suggest the thirdparty contingent will be larger in 2024 than it was in 2020 and perhaps even 2016. Many Americans are dissatisfied with both Trump and Biden.
But unlike in 2016, it’s not clear that the third-party vote will come largely from people who would have otherwise
backed Democrats. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in particular is drawing voters from both parties, and both Biden’s and Trump’s campaigns are wary of him.
Trouble for Biden and Trump
So things are more complicated than four years ago. Back then, Democratic leaders were focused on increasing Black and youth turnout compared with 2016.
Some leftist voters who refused to vote for Clinton were horrified by Trump’s presidency and willing to support the Democratic nominee. Biden’s moderate brand appealed to some Republicans who had backed Trump in 2016. Trump’s divisive presidency meant he was unlikely to win many Democrats who had supported Clinton.
Now, there are obvious signs of trouble for Biden among all three groups of swing voters.
Black voters and young voters’ lukewarm feelings about Biden are likely to reduce their turnout. Some leftists might support a third-party candidate or not vote at all in protest of the president’s Gaza policies.
I doubt Biden’s fairly liberal record will appeal to people conservative enough to have voted for Trump in 2020.
But there is little evidence Trump is winning over many Biden voters. Kennedy is pulling votes from him, too. And the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections suggest there is a highturnout, anti-Trump majority in key states such as Michigan.
Swing voters will matter. But six months from Election Day, it’s really hard to figure out how they will swing.