4.4 M Obama Voters Did Not Vote in 2016

In 2008 and 2012, President Obama inspired high voter turnout from what some called the "rising American electorate." Some Democratic strategists believed this new coalition of voters would keep Republicans out of the White House for years to come. However, 4.4 million people who voted for Obama in 2012 didn’t show up to vote at all in 2016.[1]

Most of these non-voters made less than $50,000 a year, 23 percent were under 30, and 51 percent were non-white.

Six million Obama voters switched and voted for President Trump. Just over 2 million voted for a third-party candidate.

Ballotpedia has done extensive research on Pivot Counties. These are the 206 counties that voted twice for Barack Obama and then voted for Donald Trump. Voters in these counties cast just 5 percent of the ballots in 2016, but they accounted for 51 percent of the Republican popular vote gains.

These counties have been featured in several Numbers of the Day:

• 19 percentage point gap between Pivot Counties and Democratic counties on gun issue (August 24, 2017)
• 5 Pivot Counties in Indiana that voted twice for Barack Obama and then for Donald Trump (August 3, 2017)
• 8 Pivot Counties in Maine that voted twice for Barack Obama, then voted for Donald Trump (July 17, 2017)
• 19 Democratic senators running for re-election in states with Pivot Counties (June 22, 2017)
• 23 Pivot Counties in Wisconsin that voted twice for Obama then voted for Trump (June 7, 2017)
• 9 Pivot Counties in Ohio that voted twice for Barack Obama and then voted for Donald Trump (May 30, 2017)
• 3 Pivot Counties in Pennsylvania that voted twice for Obama and then voted for Trump (May 22, 2017)
• 12 Pivot Counties in Michigan that voted twice for Barack Obama and then for Donald Trump (May 15, 2017)
• 31: Pivot Counties in Iowa That Voted Twice for Obama and Then Voted for Trump (March 31, 2017)
• 206: Pivot Counties that voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, and for President Trump in 2016 (March 20, 2017)

Footnotes:

1. The New York Times, "The Missing Obama Millions," March 10, 2018

​​​Each weekday, Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day explores interesting and newsworthy topics at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology. Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.​

Scott Rasmussen is founder and president of the Rasmussen Media Group. He is the author of "Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System," "In Search of Self-Governance," and "The People’s Money: How Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt." Read more reports from Scott Rasmussen — Click Here Now.