The 2024 Presidential Election Hinges on Cities

If more city residents voted, Trump wouldn't stand a chance

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Urban boosters are often quick to note cities’ advantages: they offer residents more job opportunities, more sustainable lifestyles, more diverse populations. But there’s one category where cities consistently underperform suburban and rural areas: voter turnout.  

The election two weeks ago was no exception. Granted, it was an off-year election, but urban turnout was exceedingly low in some places. In New York City, only 313,000 people out of more than 4 million registered voters cast a ballot. By contrast, a “red wave” washed over the suburbs of Long Island where 245,000 people voted in Nassau County, a suburban area with a population of just 1.4 million compared to the city’s 8 million.

Even in cities where turnout was relatively high, the suburbs’ turnout was higher. In Philadelphia, where we elected a new mayor, 320,000 votes were cast, notching a turnout rate of more than 30 percent. Meanwhile, surrounding suburbs had a turnout rate of more than 50 percent.

Because city dwellers vote at rates about 5 to 15 percent lower than their surrounding suburbs, and those urbanites that do vote are overwhelmingly Democrats, cities tend to get ignored by Republican and Democrat campaigns alike.

But 2024 will be different — cities will be an unexpected battleground for the presidential election.

Even though the 2023 turnout rate was high in Philadelphia, most of the voters were White and wealthy. Meanwhile, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Turnout in majority Black and Hispanic precincts, many of which are lower-income, was 11 percent lower than four years ago.”

Philadelphia isn’t the only city seeing a decline in voting among people of color. In Louisiana, the recent “surprise” election of Trump-endorsed Republican Governor Jeff Landry is seen as resulting from low voter turn out in New Orleans, particularly among Black voters. According to NPR, voter turnout in Orleans parish was 27.3 percent — down by more than 11 percent from the 2019 gubernatorial primary.

A recent article in The New Republic claims that Milwaukee is a city that could decide the fate of the 2024 election, hinging particularly on Black voters. In a sign of just how much is at stake there, Republicans have opened field offices in Milwaukee’s traditional Democrat strongholds.