2024 Voter Overview: Part 3B

Welcome back to Part 3 of our deep dive into data surrounding the 2024 general election. This week, we’re focusing on suburban voters. In case you missed the first installment, which covered rural voters, be sure to check that out here.

In our national panel, suburban voters make up the largest proportion of the three main area types panelists can choose from. This cohort also was the most closely divided when it came to which candidate they supported in the 2024 Presidential election. A little more than half (54%) of our suburban panelists are female and 46% are male. 8 in 10 (80%) are White and 20% are BIPOC. When it comes to party affiliation, 33% identify as Democrats, 31% as Republicans, and 35% as Independents.

Overall, average support for Kamala Harris was two points higher than for Donald Trump among suburban voters with both at an average support below 50% (Figure 1). 

Not surprisingly, support levels were not uniform across all demographic groups. Latino/Hispanic and Black/African American voters in these areas were the two demographics that allocated the most support to one candidate or another, while other cohorts were more closely divided. With a slight sample size caution on these two groups, African American voters allocated an average support of 71% for Harris (Figure 2), while Trump received an average support of 25%. Among Hispanic voters, the results were almost identical but in the opposite direction. The average level of support for Trump was 72% right before the election, while Harris’ support was at 25%. 

Looking at the breakdown of the support levels, we see a similar dynamic to rural voters with almost all voters fully decided on how they felt about the candidates right before the election. Nearly half of voters (48%) were strongly supportive of Harris (Figure 3) while a nearly identical concentration of voters (49%) were strongly opposed to her candidacy. For Trump, 42% of suburban voters strongly supported his candidacy and 54% were strongly against his candidacy. This is the reverse of the results seen among rural voters where Trump had strong support from 49% of rural voters while 48% strongly opposed his candidacy. Harris had the strong support of 41% of rural voters while 56% strongly opposed.

Comparing the average allocations for Biden and Trump in 2020 to the average allocations for the 2024 election, support for Harris in the suburbs was higher than both support for Trump in 2024 and support for Biden in 2020 (Figure 4). Support for Trump in 2024 was lower than both his support in 2020 and support for Biden in 2020.

However, as mentioned before, average allocations don’t always tell us the full story. Looking at overall commitment among suburban voter cohorts, a larger percentage of voters strongly supported Harris’ candidacy (Figure 5). Black/African American voters were the cohort with the highest percentage of voters committed to supporting Harris’ candidacy and Latino/Hispanic voters had the highest percentage of voters committed to Trump. 

Putting Harris’ 2024 numbers in context, commitment for Harris in 2024 was four points higher than Biden’s right before the 2020 election (Figure 6). Comparing the two elections, the largest decrease for Harris came from Latino/Hispanic voters, while the largest increase in strong support for Harris came from voters above the age of 65 (11 points). Women moved up five points while men moved up 2 points.

What showed consistent positive movement for Harris was when we looked at the strong support for Biden in mid-July of 2024 and Harris right before the election (Figure 7). While not an apples-to-apples comparison given the Biden numbers were from five months out from the election it is hard to argue, based on these numbers, that the switch was a poor decision for the Democratic party.  

Looking at the other side of the ballot, strong support for Trump among suburban voters decreased overall by 3% compared to our 2020 numbers (Figure 8). The largest increase in committed voters came from Latino/Hispanic voters and Black/African American voters, while the largest decrease in committed voters came from voters above the age of 65. In 2020 we also saw strong support for Trump among suburban Latinos/Latinas with a commitment in the mid-40s.

Looking at Trump’s number from mid-July, right before President Biden dropped out of the race (Figure 9), we found that his support increased with most groups except for Hispanic voters, and voters under 45, although this movement was less than a percentage point.

These results give us several takeaways about the motivations of suburban voters in the 2024 presidential election and how they’ve shifted since the 2020 election. 

First, overall voter commitment was higher for Harris than it was for Trump. However, both candidates had lower strong support scores than strong opposition. Pointing to many voters checking the box against a candidate versus proactively supporting a candidate. For Harris, it means that a larger percentage of her audience was voting against Trump. Trump’s numbers were similar in nature.

Second, neither candidate had a commitment level above 50%. As seen in the overall distribution of support for each candidate, just 3 percent of suburban voters were uncommitted to either candidate, which had been the case for many weeks leading up to the election.

Third, voting patterns in the suburbs went somewhat against conventional wisdom, although these followed national patterns for this election. Voters over the age of 65 were stronger supporters of Harris while those closer to the sandwich generation were more in favor of Trump. 

Look for the next installment on urban voters soon.