If "Didn't Vote" was a candidate, election PV results 2000-2020

[The Mikado]

Using Elect Project's "Highest Office VEP" number as my share of people who voted. Candidate share is using PV data from Atlas. VEP is superior to VAP because it excludes people not eligible to vote, and Highest Office excludes people who didn't vote for President but voted downballot. Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding to the nearest 0.1%.

2000:

Didn't Vote: 45.8%
Gore: 26.2%
Bush: 25.9%
Other: 2.1%

2004:

Didn't Vote: 39.9%
Bush: 30.0%
Kerry: 29.0%
Other: 0.6%

2008:

Didn't Vote: 38.4%
Obama: 32.6%
McCain: 28.1%
Other: 0.9%

2012:

Didn't Vote: 42.0%
Obama: 29.6%
Romney: 27.3%
Other: 1.1%

2016:

Didn't Vote: 40.8%
Clinton: 28.4%
Trump: 27.2%
Other: 3.6%

2020:

Didn't Vote: 33.9%
Biden: 33.8%
Trump: 30.9%
Other: 1.3%

Candidates ordered by highest to lowest shares of the potential electorate in their year:

Biden 2020: 33.8%
Obama 2008: 32.6%
Trump 2020: 30.9% (Highest losing candidate)
Bush 2004: 30.0%
Obama 2012: 29.6%
Kerry 2004: 29.0%
Clinton 2016: 28.4%
McCain 2008: 28.1%
Romney 2012: 27.3%
Trump 2016: 27.2%
Gore 2000: 26.2%
Bush 2000: 25.9%



I think this is really interesting and it shows that Trump 2020 is actually REALLY impressive for a failed candidate and people overlook that at their own peril.

Anyone else have any takeaways from this? I enjoyed doing it and I'd appreciate some feedback.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I think this is really interesting and it shows that Trump 2020 is actually REALLY impressive for a failed candidate and people overlook that at their own peril.

I definitely agree with this, and I strongly believe Trump is the strongest 2024 candidate on the Republican side, though of course it is very early.

I also find it a bit saddening that even with Turnout being as high as it was, Joe Biden still did not get more votes than "Did not vote".

I have read that in 2000 a lot of people saw the parties as being "Tweedledee and Tweedledum", and that lines up with what you have here.

Interesting that McCain did better than Bush on this metric; I knew 2008 was a high turnout election but I didn't know it was that high. On that front, it seems that turnout matters way more than your % when it comes to this. Does that line up with what you saw?

It is a bit surprising that Trump 2016 is so low; with him turning out so many non-voters I would have expected him to be higher up. Though maybe that was more of a 2020 thing?

In any case, excellent job Mikado, really interesting stuff!

[The Mikado]

I 100% agree that turnout % matters more than candidate % here, or, rather, it's more variable. It's why Biden ends up getting the highest share of the potential electorate in nearly half a century, while Reagan 84's utter annihilation of Mondale ends up at 32.4% in this metric (or roughly on par with Obama 08).  McCain's number does stand out a lot as a result.

I hope people find this useful.

[The Mikado]

Bumping because this was my best thread of 2021 and no one read it and I want to give it another chance.

[25 Abril/Aprile Sempre!]

I think it would be really interesting if you could make shaded electoral college maps for all of them (even if most of them would presumably be "Didn't Vote" landslides). I understand it takes a lot of work though!

[The Mikado]

I think it would be really interesting if you could make shaded electoral college maps for all of them (even if most of them would presumably be "Didn't Vote" landslides). I understand it takes a lot of work though!

Hm. I'll give it a shot converting my 270towin one into Atlas with shaded colors. I only have 2020 at the moment.

Many of these would be Didn't Vote landslides, yes. Especially 2000. 2016 would look pretty bad on that front too, just because "Other" is a much stronger spoiler than usual.

For now, here's a 270towin map of 2020: