A new analysis of precinct-level data by the NBC News Decision Desk shows how much of President-elect Donald Trump’s wins in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Vice President Kamala Harris’ losses stemmed from poor turnout in heavily Democratic cities.
Heading into Election Day, Harris’ clearest path to victory was winning all three states in the old “blue wall.” In the end, he came up short in all three, and the near-completed vote count in those states shows how the vote count is down in the most Democratic areas of those states compared to 2020.
The graphs below show Harris’ vote share and the percentage change in the total number of votes cast in the presidential race compared to the total vote in 2020. Each point represents a county and points above 0%. the line is countries with more voters in 2024 than in 2020; relatively few points below this line are countries with fewer voters in 2024 than in 2020.
As the diagonal black lines show, in all three states, heavily Democratic states on the right side of each panel had worse turnout in 2020 than heavily Republican states on the left side. The largest county in each state is Wayne County, Michigan, home of Detroit; Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania; and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin—had the worst or second-worst vote swing of any county in their state.
These three underperforming states and their cities bolstered Democratic electoral success in the 2020 and 2022 elections. While Harris won each of those three cities comfortably by 50 percentage points, he got a slightly lower percentage of the vote than Joe Biden did in 2020. However, stagnant or declining voter turnout in these cities resulted more. across the blue wall, increased turnout in Republican states led to Trump’s victory.
This map of Philadelphia highlights this decline in voter turnout from 2020 to 2024. The purple parts of the map represent precincts where the total number of votes in 2024 is lower than in 2020, while the green precincts represent the number of votes increased.
In Philadelphia, 73% of more than 1,700 precincts had fewer voters in 2024 than in 2020. Overall, the total number of votes in Philadelphia decreased by 2.9%, resulting in a decrease of about 20,000 voters this year. Meanwhile, the rest of Pennsylvania saw 2.1% increase In the total number of voters compared to 2020.
The next map shows the change in voter turnout in Detroit, which has about a third of Wayne County’s population. Detroit showed more activity than Philadelphia. Voter turnout was up 2.6% in the rest of Michigan, but Detroit’s voter turnout was down 4%.
Precincts with predominantly black voters in north Detroit had lower vote totals than the top. While Harris received nearly as much support from black voters in Michigan as Biden — 89% vs. 92%, respectively, according to the NBC News Exit Poll — the drop in turnout in those precincts meant that every absentee For 10 electors, Harris lost nine votes, while Trump lost only one vote.
This overall decline in participation in Detroit would be even more dramatic if it weren’t for the increased turnout in Latino neighborhoods in the city’s south-central part. But this growth It may not have worked in Harris’ favor. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, Trump carried the Latino vote in Michigan in 2024, while Joe Biden won a majority of that group in 2020.
The third largest blue wall city is Milwaukee, which accounts for approximately 60% of the population of Milwaukee County. Unlike Philadelphia and Detroit, the number of votes cast in Milwaukee has actually increased slightly since 2020, about half a percent. But in the rest of Wisconsin, voter turnout was up 4% from 2020.
A map of Milwaukee precincts shows increasing and decreasing activity. Although overall voter turnout in the city slightly increased, voter turnout decreased in slightly more than half of the precincts (58%). Comparing Milwaukee’s sluggish turnout to Wisconsin’s other heavily Democratic state, Dane County, where turnout is up more than 6%, helps show how different demographics can explain turnout swings. While both the city of Milwaukee and Dane County cast nearly three-quarters of their vote for Harris, their demographics are starkly different.
The biggest difference between Milwaukee and Dane is that Milwaukee’s population has declined over the past few years, while Dane County’s has grown rapidly. If Milwaukee’s pattern of population decline, similar to that of Philadelphia and Detroit, continues, Democratic candidates will have to rely more on voters outside those cities to win statewide elections.
There are other important demographic differences between Milwaukee and Dane County. About 35% of Milwaukee residents are white and non-Hispanic. Dane County, on the other hand, has a population that is approximately 84% non-Hispanic white. Additionally, nearly a quarter of Milwaukee residents have a college degree, compared to more than half of people in Dane County.
The difference is notable given that college-educated Wisconsin voters were one of the only demographics in which Harris improved Joe Biden’s 2020 voting performance in the NBC News Exit Poll.