Democratic Party lost 2.1 million registered voters since 2020

Since the 2020 election, the Democratic Party has lost 2.1 million registered voters, while the Republican Party has gained 4.5 million. As a result, Democrats—who five years ago went into the polls with a nearly 11-point lead—saw that advantage shrink to just 6 points in 2024.

Thirty states and Washington, D.C., allow voters to register by party affiliation. In every one of them, Democrats lost ground to the GOP—including strongholds like California and swing states such as Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Those data come from a New York Times analysis of data compiled by the specialized platform L2. According to the Times, the most significant losses were among men and younger voters. In 2018, the Democratic Party registered 66% of new voters under 45, compared with just 48% in 2024. Among men, the share fell from 49% in 2020 to 39% in 2024.

As the election showed, the party also lost ground among Latino voters—not only at the polls but even earlier, during voter registration. The newspaper noted this “fading appeal” of the Democratic Party among Hispanics in every state that records voter ethnicity.

In Florida, for example, the share of new Latino voters registering as Democrats fell from 52% in 2020 to 33% last year. In North Carolina, it dropped from 72% to 58%.

"Why would anyone want to be a Democrat?"

For veteran Democratic strategist Steve Schale, the problem lies at least partly in the party’s changing approach to voter registration.

"I can speak to the FL experience very directly: The only windows in the last 20 years where Dems have seen actual gains in VR were because of party-driven, or candidate-driven VR efforts," he said, criticizing the party’s strategy of outsourcing registration to NGOs. "Everything else has a trend line going the other way."

"This argument that it is up to the party to convince voters after they've been registered is dump," he said. Organizations focus on registering certain groups, such as African-Americans or Hispanics, taking for granted that they will vote for Democratic slates. "VR [Voter Registration] efforts need to do both -- persuade and registerer (which is why the only ones that seem to work are party/candidate focused)."

"I think it should be an alarm," Democratic strategist Eddie Vale told The Hill. "I think it’s a real problem." Just as alarmist, less measured, one donor wondered "Why would anyone want to be a Democrat?" "Our party sucks. Our leadership sucks. Our message sucks."

The voter registration crisis now compounds the party’s financial, favorability, and leadership troubles, as Democrats continue searching for direction after losing the presidential election.