2020 Voters In 2024

The United States is less than 20 weeks away from the election between current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Many argue that this is shaping up to be the most consequential election of our lifetimes, and it also happens to be the first time we have had a rematch of a current and former president on the ballot. This is all happening at a time when the US is at a point of deep division, a trend that has resulted in the electorate becoming more and more polarized over the last few decades, particularly on several key issues as well as the candidates themselves. The tribalism of our politics has taken over as the driving force for many voters. All of these dynamics are crucial in understanding the electoral landscape as Election Day inches closer and closer.

Trendency’s extensive research on voter behavior goes back to 2017, putting us in a unique position, given our methodology of being able to look back in time to get a better understanding of how people’s opinions have changed. There are thousands of voters in our national panel who have been providing their thoughts and opinions leading up to and following the 2020 election, meaning that - unlike traditional point-in-time research where the movement of overall groups is being measured between two or more snapshots of time - we are looking at tens of thousands of individuals and how each person is or is not changing over the weeks, months, and years.

Trendency’s main approach to these questions involves asking for voters’ opinions in a non-binary fashion, meaning they can provide support levels for multiple candidates instead of having to simply choose one over the other. This allows for a deeper understanding of the participants' mindset and also differentiates between someone who says there is a 100% chance they will vote for Trump (as an example) versus someone who says there is a 55% chance they will vote for Trump. Both voters would likely say they would vote for Trump in a binary choice, but our approach allows for a different view of the results. 

How 2024 is Shaping Up

Among the 2020 voters in our national panel, former President Trump currently has an average allocation of support of 47%, six-points higher than current President Biden. A generic Third Party Candidate is currently receiving an average support of 12%.

There are many similarities when it comes to supporters for each of this year’s major candidates. Among voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2020, support for the former President is (not shockingly) still very strong. Overall, the average 2020 Trump supporter says there is an 86% chance that they will vote for him again, with third-party candidates being less popular (10 points) and President Biden receiving virtually no support (2 points). There’s a similar pattern among 2020 Biden voters, with Biden’s previous supporters saying there is an 85% chance they will vote for him this November.

While these numbers above are from late June of this year, the dynamics of the race among these 2020 voters have remained relatively constant over the past two years, with the race very tight between the two major candidates. Trump was ahead in mid-July 2022 before falling behind Biden in February 2023 and subsequently regaining his lead in September of the same year. Both candidates have a higher level of support now than they did two years ago while the support for any other candidate has been slowly declining. 

Trump supporters from 2020 have had brief periods of volatility over the past two years; however, these ebbs and flows had essentially zero effect on support for Biden among these voters. Instead, support for a third-party candidate has had a nearly equal and opposite reaction to Trump’s support levels. When Trump has a significant rise, such as in the second half of 2022, support for the third-party candidate drops. Similarly, when Trump has a drop in support, as he did from December 2022 through May 2023, the third-party option increased by an almost identical margin. Over the past two years, Biden’s support has gone from near zero to a little over 2 points. In other words, any movement that is occurring among Trump voters thinking about jumping ship this year does not immediately correlate with increased support for President Biden.

Among 2020 Biden voters, support for the current president has been less volatile and has moved slowly upward since the end of 2022. Similarly to Trump, when Biden has a slight drop in support, such as in the second half of 2022, there is a rise in support for the third-party candidate and there has been very little change in support for Trump. 

Breaking down this June data into histograms to highlight the strength of support for each of the major candidates shows how strong either candidate’s standing is with their bases from the last election. Trump has a slight edge at the top of the scale, with 82% of his 2020 supporters saying they are all but certain to vote for him again (allocating 80 or more points towards voting for him in a two-way race). With half of 2020 voters overall saying they are completely opposed to voting for the opposing candidate (0-19 points). It is also worth noting that less than 1 in 5 voters, regardless of who they supported in 2020, fall in the middle ranges of the scale (20-79 points),pointing to how tight the race is, and how few voters are thinking of shifting their support.

Simplifying the groupings into how likely the candidates are to keep or lose voters, we can see that there is only a meaningful difference in the likely-to-lose and up-for-grabs categories. Slightly more of Biden’s 2020 voters currently reside in these two groups (8% vs. 6.5% of Trump voters) and his voters in these two groups lean more towards likely to lose while Trump has a bigger concentration in the up-for-grabs range.

The Issues

Some of the major factors that have contributed to the increased political and ideological divide in the US are the polarized positions politicians and their supporters have on certain key issues such as abortion, climate change, and immigration. Combining these factors with the intense lens through which voters view these issues, there seems to be no end in sight when it comes to the political divide that defines our electoral system. Crossing the aisle to work with members of the opposite party now has a negative connotation, when it seems like just a few years ago bi-partisanship was used in positive campaign ads. However, understanding voter trends on these major issues provides deeper insight into candidate support and when (or if) opinions on candidates can turn, either for the negative or positive.

There is only one issue we tested that has common ground for 2020 voters in the Trendency national panel, and that is the rising healthcare costs, with an average concern of 77 points on a 0-100 scale. 2020 voters in this panel are more pro-choice than not (63 out of 100 where a zero means that voters believe abortion should never be allowed and an answer closer to 100 means they think there should never be any restrictions) and are more likely to believe that immigration has a net positive effect on the country. Concern over climate change is much lower on average, at 53 out of 100.

Not surprisingly, 2020 Trump and Biden voters have differing views on almost all of these issues. As mentioned before, the one exception is rising healthcare costs; both Biden and Trump voters rank these high on the 0-100 scale, at 84 and 72 on average, respectively. However, where Biden voters’ averages tend to fall in the 80s for most issues, whether it be concern over climate change or healthcare costs or whether they believe a person should be able to get abortion care for any reason, 2020 Trump voters are a little more all over the map. They’re concerned about rising healthcare costs, but not concerned about climate change (23 out of 100). They’re also much more likely to feel that a woman should not be able to obtain an abortion for any reason (37 out of 100).

Breaking down these answers, the level of passionate concern among Biden voters is proven beyond just their overall average answers. Nearly three-quarters of 2020 Biden voters (73%) say they are extremely concerned (80-100 out of 100) about climate change, while more than two-thirds (67%) say the same about healthcare costs. While 2020 Trump voters’ average concern over the latter issue may make it seem like they feel similar to 2020 Biden voters, the distribution of opinion proves otherwise: just 2 in 5 Trump voters (40%) feel extremely concerned about these costs. 2020 Trump voters have more nuanced views regarding healthcare costs, with 44% answering between 40-79 out of 100. Therefore, while the concern is there, it’s not as urgent as the concern felt by 2020 Biden voters.

Abortion is another issue where the overall averages don’t tell the full story. 2020 Biden voters are unsurprisingly more pro-choice; 75% of these voters answer 80 or above out of 100 in response to a person having the ability to obtain abortion care for any reason compared to just 10% of 2020 Trump voters who feel the same way. However, this is another example of the data not reflecting a binary electorate; while not overtly supportive, Trump voters aren’t completely against abortion either. Just one-third (36%) answer below 20 out of 100 for this question, showing that the issue is more nuanced for them than one might think. More than half fall somewhere in the middle of the scale (20-79 out of 100), indicating that many Trump supporters are not viewing this issue as black and white.

While abortion rights are a key issue for Democrats this year, the Trump campaign is leaning heavily into immigration, and, in general, his 2020 supporters share a similar view that immigration has a net negative impact on the country. They are much more likely to say that immigration is a bad thing for the country most of the time compared to 2020 Biden voters, who say it’s overwhelmingly a net positive for the US. Interestingly, 2020 Biden voters feel more passionately about immigration being a good thing than 2020 Trump voters feel about it being a bad thing (82 points vs. 64 points). As Trump is campaigning heavily on immigration and the southern border, it will be interesting to see how well his campaign can push this as a single issue among supporters if it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker for everyone.

Once again, it is apparent that 2020 Biden voters are more cohesive in their views on these issues in comparison to 2020 Trump voters, who hold a much wider range of opinions on issues as complex as immigration. Eight in ten (84%) of 2020 Biden voters see the vast majority of immigration being good for the country. This is compared to just 5% of 2020 Trump voters who feel the same. Interestingly, given the candidate’s rhetoric, Trump voters are not as anti-immigration as one would think.

Focusing only on Trump voters, it’s apparent that there’s more than one view on immigration’s effect on this country. This is because, even though 84% of 2020 Trump voters believe immigration has some kind of negative impact on the US (allocating 20+ points towards that answer option), more than two-thirds (67%) believe immigration has some kind of positive impact on the US (20-100 points). It is not all good or bad with these voters; there is a mixed response. Diving deeper into why there are such complex views on immigration could prove interesting as policy is molded with future administrations.

The closer we get to November 5, 2024, the more we will witness the division and polarization of American voters on both issues and candidates. Trump voters are largely seen as candidate-driven, which is interesting to consider when seeing how mixed their views can be on a variety of today’s hot-button issues. On the other side, Biden voters are much more in sync when it comes to beliefs surrounding these same issues, but enthusiasm about their candidate is lower this time around. As the election is about four months away, it will be vital to monitor policies and platforms that are changing around these issues as voters are being wooed to one side of another.