The 2024 presidential election was consequential in many ways. Donald Trump won the election, and while he lost California, he lost it by a smaller margin than in 2020 or 2016. According to national exit polls, he drew support from a much larger share of traditionally Democratic constituencies such as Latinos, Asian Americans, and young people; these same polls also suggest that turnout among those groups was lower than in the 2020 election. What do the California data tell us?

Since California’s 2024 turnout declined across the board from four years earlier, perhaps the best way to approach this question is to see which groups declined the most. This accounts for the overall decline while giving a sense of how the composition of the electorate changed between the two presidential elections.

By that metric, 2024 was a bad year for Latino and Asian American turnout: it dropped about twice as much (12.6 percentage points for both groups) as turnout among Blacks (6.8 pp) and among whites and other groups (6.2 pp).

Some demographic groups—such as older and white Californians—have historically turned out at higher rates in every election. But in presidential elections, turnout gaps between racial and ethnic groups typically close, as the excitement and media frenzy reaches a wider share of voters. While the gaps in 2024 were certainly smaller than in recent primaries or midterms, they were wider than in 2020. Voters of color as a share of all voters was about 2 percentage points lower than in 2020 (42.6% vs. 44.4%), even though their share of all registrants had increased about a point (49.1% vs. 48.2%).

Turnout in 2024 dropped even more among young people. Turnout for voters ages 18 to 24 dropped (12.7 pp); declines were narrower among each successive older age group, and were less than half as large among Californians of retirement age (5.1 pp). In each age group, the decline was also more dramatic among women. Among the youngest voters, the gender gap was especially large: turnout fell 15.8 percentage points among women and 9.3 percentage points among men. The gap was narrower but still notable in older age groups—except among retirement-age voters, where there was hardly a gap at all (4.9 pp men; 5.2 pp women).

There is a partisan dimension to all these shifts. Turnout dropped a bit less among Republicans (6.8 pp) than among Democrats (8.3 pp) and a lot less than among no party preference (NPP) and minor party voters (11.8 pp). Across racial and ethnic groups, turnout declines were especially large among Democratic and NPP or minor party Latinos (Democrats: 12.9 pp; NPP or minor party: 14.9 pp; Republicans: 8.7 pp) and Asian Americans (Democrats: 12.2 pp; NPP or minor party: 14.6 pp; Republicans: 10.8 pp). Likewise, while turnout declined among women across all parties, the drop was biggest for young Democratic and NPP or minor party women.

This does not mean that turnout explains all of Trump’s improved performance in California in 2024. For one thing, there was a shift in registration to the Republicans even before the election. And these turnout numbers leave plenty of room for an explanation that involves swing voters switching from Democrats to Republicans. We don’t know how the opinions of the voters who stayed home compared to those who cast ballots. A better understanding of which Latinos, Asian Americans, and young people sat out the election—even accounting for partisanship and other factors—would go a long way toward uncovering the various sources of the election’s outcome.

All the same, the groups that reported some of the largest vote shifts in national exit polls (Latinos, Asian Americans, and young people) also had the largest turnout declines in California. So non-voting among Democratic-leaning members of these groups could explain some of the shift. And one thing is clear: while presidential elections typically attract a broader electorate than other contests, the California electorate did not become more representative in 2024.