There’s been much talk, ink spilled, and panic from liberals over how unpopular the Democratic Party has become in recent years. Their approval ratings are stuck in the gutter, their messaging on social media is consistently off-key, their policies are often too radical for middle-class Americans, and their last presidential candidate was mediocre, to say the least. But numbers unveiled Wednesday reveal the scope to which the party has failed and show a fatal trend that is only getting worse.
In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the political establishment and upended a long-running theory of Democratic politics: that, no matter what, working-class people of color would always vote blue. Even though he was a Republican, Trump managed to win the type of voters who previously pulled the lever for Barack Obama. It was a warning sign for Democrats that their policies and messaging were beginning to ring hollow. Democrats did not heed it, and now the numbers are painting a better picture of the bloodbath that occurred.
In the period between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, the Democratic Party saw a decline of approximately 2.1 million registered voters in the 30 states where voter registration data by party is available, according to a New York Times analysis of L2 tracking firm data. The Republican Party recorded an increase in registered voters by about 2.4 million over that same timeframe. The trend shows a nationwide reduction in the Democratic voter base, with 2024 marking the first year in six years where more new voters aligned with the GOP.
Democrats are even floundering in battleground states swept by then-candidate Donald Trump in 2024. In Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, the Democratic voter registration lead has thinned. Democrats experienced a significant drop in registered voters in the Tar Heel state, losing 115,523 between the 2020 and 2024 elections. Meanwhile, Republicans saw an increase of over 140,000 registrants during the same period, effectively eliminating the Democrats’ previous edge in voter registration, according to the Times’ analysis. Pennsylvania and Nevada had similar numbers.
The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters. Of 30 states that track voter registration by party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections, a four-year swing of 4.5 million voters. @ShaneGoldmacher https://t.co/SJ7ACkmYpW
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) August 20, 2025
And it’s not just swing states: blue bastions are bleeding, too. New York and California are not even immune to a decline in registered voters. In New York, Democrats saw a decrease of 305,922 registered voters throughout two election cycles. Similarly, California experienced a significant drop, losing 680,556 Democratic voters between 2020 and 2024.
Despite there being more registered Democrats than Republicans across the country, the picture isn’t complete. States like New York and California, along with the District of Columbia, permit party registration. In contrast, red strongholds such as Texas, Missouri, and Ohio do not offer such an option.
Do Democrats have an answer to their voter registration crisis? Of course not. At least at the moment, they are in complete free fall. Operatives and non-profits are scrambling for a fix, according to The New York Times, but some see it as a slow, painful, inevitable death that cannot be prevented. As Michael Pruser, the director of the elections-analysis site Decision Desk HQ, put it for the outlet, “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year.”
The New York Times article also highlighted the major problem driving the voter registration collapse: Democrats can no longer blindly register black and Latino voters and rely on them to always vote for the Democratic candidate. Their preferences are changing. They may have voted for Obama twice, but now they find more common ground with today’s GOP. The Democratic Party’s platform has changed, too; it has become more of a party that caters to wealthy donors and fringe radical activists, less of a party with good policy ideas that help expand the middle class. Additionally, to target people based on their politics rather than their race is far more time-consuming and costly. Even Maria Cardona, a longtime member of the DNC, admitted as much to The New York Times.
The real kicker to this (really well done) NYT piece on the Democrats’ implosion on voter registration is that the Dems can no longer reliably attract D voters by registering random black and latino Americans, but that registering voters by their politics (rather than their race)… https://t.co/sCkJIHtbj0 pic.twitter.com/qad3H8PG1o
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) August 20, 2025
“You can’t just register a young Latino or a young Black voter and assume that they’re going to know that it’s Democrats that have the best policies,” she said.
This, perhaps, gets at the crux of one of the Democratic Party’s biggest flaws: complacency. After Obama won back-to-back terms, Democrats couldn’t imagine a future in which minorities would ever again vote for a Republican candidate, especially a candidate like Trump, whom the media perceived as a racist and nativist. How could a black or Latino American vote for a billionaire who was trying to stoke racial hostilities to win over white voters? They also couldn’t imagine minorities acting independently outside of the fixed identity given to them. Minorities are one big group who hate Republicans and always vote Democratic, was the assumption.
The assumption has been blown to bits, the numbers prove it, and now Democrats are left sifting through the debris, wondering where it all went wrong. As for whether anyone in the party will actually take responsibility or provide a platform that can win these voters back, the jury is still out. It will probably be out for a while.
