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CNN
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The turnout for the presidential elections has not yet been finalized, but it is clear that fewer people voted in 2024 compared to 2020.

Comparing the two elections, Donald Trump added about 2.8 million votes to his total in his 2024 victory. Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, underperformed Joe Biden by about 6.8 million votes in 2020, according to CNN’s Nov. 25 election results.

Here are seven charts and maps that explain how the American popular vote, turnout in individual states, and ultimately turnout in the seven key battleground states — where electoral votes were up for grabs — tell the story of Harris’ loss.

This year will ultimately be one of only two elections in the 21st century in which the Republican presidential candidate received more votes than the Democratic candidate. It is also one of only two times in the 21st century that the number of votes cast decreased compared to the previous presidential election. The other came in 2012, when about 2.2 million fewer votes were cast than in 2008.

Another way to look at Trump’s narrow lead in the popular vote is that he received the vote of about a third of the voting population. A slightly smaller share supported Harris. Another third did not vote at all.

While Democrats’ share has gone up and down in recent elections, Trump has won more votes in each of the elections for which he stood as a candidate. In raw numbers, he received about 63 million votes in 2016, 74 million in 2020 and almost 77 million in 2024.

The difference for Democrats was that turnout soared in 2020, the pandemic election.

Harris received fewer votes than Biden in 45 of the 50 states and Washington DC. While votes are still being added to the totals in some states, the changes at this point would be marginal.

Most of Harris’ decline occurred in populous states like California, New York and Florida, where a dip in support for Harris had no impact on the Electoral College vote tally. Trump also increased his total count in those population centers, adding hundreds of thousands of votes in Texas, Florida and New York and to a lesser extent in traditional Democratic strongholds like New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Zooming in on hotly contested battleground states where the election had become much closer, Harris and Trump both gained votes compared to 2020 in Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada. All these states have also seen population growth over the past four years.

Arizona’s population has also grown, although the total number of votes cast in the state has remained roughly the same. Harris received fewer votes there compared to Biden in 2020, and Trump carried it by his largest margin of victory across the seven battlegrounds.

Pennsylvania and Michigan are battleground states where the population has not grown in the past four years and where Harris received fewer votes in 2024 than Biden in 2020.

Democrats who lament the outcome have pointed out that the election was decided by about 230,000 votes The battleground states in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan were narrowly won by Trump. But Harris lost votes compared to Biden across the country.

Harris’ losses compared to Biden were greatest in Southern California, South Florida and in the Northeast. The few places where Harris received more votes than Biden were largely concentrated in those seven battleground states, especially Georgia and North Carolina, but it was not enough to overcome Trump’s gains. The only state where Harris received votes on Biden’s 2020 performance that wasn’t also a battleground state was Utah.

Trump mainly made gains in the seven battleground states, but these were not limited to places with higher turnout. Trump also saw an increase in support in a series of counties where fewer votes were cast overall.

In Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, even in many counties where more people voted in 2024, Harris received fewer votes than Biden in 2020, although there were pockets in swing states where Harris received more votes than Biden.

It may come as no surprise that states where the campaign was most contentious saw more people voting in 2024, while states where one party or the other was more likely to win saw lower turnout overall than expected. decreased.