Three weeks after Election Day, and New Jersey is still struggling to tally its votes, with just 91% counted so far. California and Oregon aren’t doing much better, sitting at 93%. Meanwhile, the popular vote totals for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris continue to shift daily. Trump maintains a comfortable lead, but Harris—how shocking—is steadily chipping away at it. On Election Day itself, Trump led by 4.5 million votes, but now that lead has shrunk to 2.4 million and counting. The lead should hold, but it does raise an intriguing question: where did the four million Biden voters from 2020 vanish to in 2024? It seems the enthusiasm for “President LOL Eighty-One Million” didn’t translate into a repeat performance for his VP.
In 2020, over 158 million votes were recorded, with Biden snagging a baffling 81 million of them after a campaign so low-energy it made Jeb Bush look like a live wire. Trump’s 74 million votes were overshadowed by the Biden media machine, while the rest went to the usual third-party hopefuls. Fast forward to 2024, and voter turnout appears to have dipped by about four million, despite widespread reports of heavy interest and packed polling places. As of now, around 154 million votes have been counted, with Trump leading Harris by roughly 2.5 million. The math just doesn’t add up.
This drop in voter turnout is a rarity in modern electoral history. Since 2000, participation in presidential elections has consistently risen, with only one exception in 2012. The numbers paint a clear picture: 122 million votes in 2004 grew to 131 million in 2008, and while 2012 saw a slight dip to 129 million, 2016 jumped to 137 million. By 2020, we hit an unprecedented 158 million votes. Yet, despite 2024’s high voter engagement and enthusiasm, four million voters simply disappeared. Where did they go? Did they lose interest, or was something else at play?
Skepticism surrounding the 2020 election has lingered, and the 2024 turnout is only adding fuel to the fire. In 2020, accusations of shady dealings—like the infamous “water main break” in Atlanta, ballot boxes mysteriously appearing after hours, and suspicious window-covering antics in Detroit—were brushed off as conspiracy theories. Yet, the sharp drop in votes between 2020 and 2024 makes those allegations harder to dismiss. The Biden administration’s shaky four years only underscore the damage done by what many believe was a deeply compromised electoral process. It’s a moot point now, but the impact of those “irregularities” is still being felt across the nation.
Looking ahead, the solution lies in vigilance and reform. Republicans’ efforts in 2024 appear to have thwarted large-scale election antics, but that success needs to be built upon. The incoming Trump administration will need to prioritize election integrity reforms if there’s any hope of avoiding another debacle in 2028. Without these measures, the same forces that pushed Biden into the White House could easily prop up Harris, Newsom, or another globalist darling in the next cycle, dragging the nation back into political chaos. For now, Trump’s victory is a reminder of what happens when voters demand accountability, but the battle for fair elections is far from over.
