Urban Voters

Part 4 of our look back at data from the 2024 election has covered voters based on the type of area they live in. We’ve covered rural voters and suburban voters, and now it’s time to look at urban voters.

53% of panelists in Trendency’s national panel who say they live in urban areas are female and 47% are male. Just over two-thirds (68%) are White, 14% are Black/African American, and 12% are Latino/Hispanic. Regarding party affiliation, 47% identify as Democrats, 19% identify as Republicans, and 32% as Independents.

Not surprisingly, Harris enjoyed a strong level of support within this cohort, with an overall average support of 59% compared to Trump’s 31% (Figure 1). Harris’ strongest support came from older urban voters (72%) followed by men (67%). The only group among urban voters with an allocation in favor of Trump was Latino/Hispanic voters, although younger voters and women had a lower than average support for Harris.

Putting these support numbers in the context of the leadup to Election Day and the last Presidential election, what stands out is how little movement there was over the four months leading up to the election and how similar support levels were for both candidates compared to the 2020 election. Both candidates barely moved the needle from Labor Day on (Figure 2), with Harris’ support never deviating more than a couple of points and Trump’s support following a similar pattern. Trump ended up in just about the exact same place in November 2024 compared to his 2020 results. Harris underperformed Biden slightly (1 percentage point). 

When we look at the breakdown or distribution of the scores, we see a few interesting numbers that do not follow the patterns seen among rural and suburban voters last year. More than half of urban voters (53%) indicated that they were strongly supportive of Harris, while just 27% indicated that they strongly supported Trump. On the opposite end of the scale, nearly two-thirds of voters (64%) said there was little to no chance they would support Trump, while a third (35%) said the same of Harris (Figure 3). The 11-point delta between strong support of Harris versus the rejection of Trump was three (3) points higher than the difference for Trump. While not a big difference, it is telling on where the motivations were for supporters of the two candidates in urban areas. 

About 1 in 10 urban voters were in between the two bookends. This concentration was about three times as large in urban areas compared to suburban and rural areas, where about 3% of voters were less certain of their feelings towards the two candidates. 

Overall, the majority of strongly committed voters in urban areas followed a similar pattern to the overall support. While it is not surprising that voters over the age of 65 and male voters (Figure 4) had the highest concentration of committed voters given the overall support levels, the fact that urban Black/African American voters were below average was a bit of a shock. Also, seeing the small difference between the two candidates among women was a surprise. 

Compared to voter commitment to Biden in 2020, overall commitment among urban voters slightly increased in 2024 with Harris as the candidate (Figure 5). The largest increase in commitment came from men and voters above the age of 65, while the largest decrease in commitment came from women and Black/African American voters.

Compared to voter commitment among urban voters for Biden in 2024 before he dropped out of the race, commitment for the Democratic presidential candidate increased by 12% after Harris took over (Figure 6). Every demographic group experienced an increase in commitment, but the largest increase in commitment was by roughly one-quarter for male voters.

Looking at the other side of the aisle, commitment to supporting Trump increased by 3% over the past four years (Figure 7). The largest increase in commitment came from voters under the age of 45, while the group with the largest decrease in commitment to Trump was voters above the age of 65.

Overall, commitment to Trump decreased slightly after Biden dropped out of the presidential race (Figure 8). Demographically, strong support decreased among Black/African American voters by over a quarter and in men by 20%. Strong support increased by double digits among voters under the age of 45 (14%) and women (17%). 

Commitment to Harris among demographic groups in urban areas was higher than commitment to Trump in every group, save for Latino/Hispanic voters and voters under the age of 45. Within those groups, except for Black/African American voters and women, the majority of urban voters were committed to supporting Harris’ candidacy. The only group with the majority supporting Trump’s candidacy were urban voters under the age of 45. Additionally, the majority of those who supported Trump were doing so out of opposition to Harris’ candidacy. 

While Harris enjoyed stronger levels of support from urban voters, her support came with caveats; younger voters, women, and Black/African American voters were not as enthusiastic about her as one might expect of voters in major cities or metropolitan areas. While this didn’t correlate directly with a rise in support for Trump among these groups - his support remained low overall - it might pinpoint some weak spots for Democrats moving forward.

Motivations

When asked to allocate 100 points between the issues that impacted how they voted in the 2024 presidential election, the most impactful issues for voters in 2024 were protecting democracy and inflation/the economy (Figure 9). Suburban and rural voters ranked crime as their third most important issue, while abortion ranked third for urban voters. At the bottom of the rankings, suburban and rural voters were less impacted by racism and discrimination, while urban voters said their vote was least impacted by crime as an issue point.

Across all three groups, the highest-ranking issues impacting how voters voted in the 2024 presidential election were protecting democracy as well as inflation and the economy. Comparing the distribution of opinions for all three panels, rural voters were the most impacted by protecting democracy and had a majority of voters who allocated above 80% to the issue (Figure 10). Suburban voters were the least impacted by this issue. For both suburban and rural voters, roughly one-third of voters allocate less than 20% to protecting democracy. Urban voters had the largest percentage of voters who were uncommitted to the issue.

Comparing how each cohort felt about issues of inflation and the economy, a larger percentage of urban voters allocated less than 20% to the issue than those that allocated above 80% (Figure 11). Rural voters had the highest percentage of voters allocated 80% or more to the issue, but none of the three areas had a majority of voters indicating that they were highly impacted by the issue. 

In Conclusion

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

First, the overall results for Harris appear to be similar to past elections and did not show much movement. However, once you move below the surface, there was a lot more movement and shifts both throughout last year’s election and compared to the 2020 election. 

Second, the shifts in support for Harris compared to Biden in July were both consistent in direction as well as in scale (for the most part). At the same time, the shifts from 2020 were both surprising and did not follow a singular pattern. 

Third, motivations for urban voters were much more diffuse than those of voters in rural and suburban areas. While a majority of rural voters were motivated by three issues, there was only one issue (protecting democracy) that seemed to motivate a majority of urban voters, while all other issues were viewed as a motivator by a strong plurality. There are two ways, in our opinion, to view these results. Either it made messaging much more difficult for the Harris campaign while the Trump campaign had an easier time and could concentrate on a smaller set of issues to resonate with voters; or the Trump campaign was much more effective in focusing on a select number of issues, while the Harris campaign’s messaging was more diffuse and therefore less effective.