The hottest topic in the mainstream political press these days seems to revolve around theories of what Democrats must do to “win back” voters they “lost” during the 2024 presidential race. And yet, it’s odd that few, if any, of these takes refer to what was arguably the biggest impediment to Democrats last year and what could arguably be the biggest roadblock to Democratic victories in the years ahead: voter suppression.
Politicians and pundits haven’t exactly been shy about offering up their diagnoses for what truly ailed Democrats last year. The list includes those who think Democrats didn’t go hard enough in their efforts to woo young men along with those — like attendees at Wednesday’s so-called WelcomeFest for Democratic centrists — who would like to argue that Democrats placated progressives too much.
Some of these arguments are very reductive, and some of them are downright ridiculous. Given the premise that Democrats should try to win as many voters as possible, I don’t think we have to dismiss all of these theories out of hand. But at the same time, these discussions feel a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the proverbial Titanic, because it’s hard for me to foresee a scenario in which Democrats achieve lasting victories in an environment of widespread voter suppression, no matter how many hypermasculine podcasts they visit or rhetorical punches they throw at progressives.
And make no mistake: We are in an environment of widespread voter suppression, as evidenced by this Democracy Docket report from last summer that highlights the various laws nationwide that made it harder to vote in 2024 than it was in 2020. At times, it seems like liberals are overcomplicating things with these postmortems, but I think mapping out a rather simple sequence of events can help explain how last year played out:
- Democrats win the presidency in 2020 with help from some states’ expanding ballot access and contributing to the largest pool of voters in U.S. history. (Note that Joe Biden won without cozying up to “manosphere” podcasters or abandoning progressive principles like racial justice to win.)
- Republicans introduce hundreds of voter suppression measures, many of which are enacted and make it harder for Americans to vote.
- With fewer people voting in 2024 than voted in 2020, Donald Trump wins.
So it seems logical to look to Trump’s efforts to leverage the executive branch to suppress the vote and to House Republicans’ legislating to similar ends for obvious clues as to the biggest threats to future Democratic electoral victories.
I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that the number of people who sat out in 2024 or who voted for Trump because of anti-liberal sentiment exceeds the number of people who were dissuaded from voting by newly enacted restrictions. And without that evidence, Democrats may be overlooking a critical element for future electoral failure by accepting the narrative that it was their own campaign rhetoric or bullying by online leftists that cost them the election.
