For Mendocino County Democrats, the final tally of the county’s vote was a damning indictment of the direction taken by the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president in 2024, received 16% fewer votes than Joe Biden did in 2020. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump picked up 261 votes for a total of 13,528, an increase of about 2%.
But the numbers in aggregate do not tell the full story. On Feb. 2, Susan Savage, vice chair of the Mendocino County Democratic Central Committee, shared an analysis with the Grassroots Institute that took into account individual voting history.
This more granular approach revealed the breakdown by party of voters who cast ballots in 2020 but did not vote in 2024. On the Mendocino Coast, 10% of Democrats who voted in 2020 did not vote in 2024; 9% of Republicans who voted in 2020 did not vote in 2024; and 7% of No Party Preference voters who voted in 2020 did not vote in 2024. This suggests that Biden’s more moderate public image appealed to moderate Republicans, while Harris’ positions did not.
On the coast, women led the ranks of nonvoters by a significant margin, with more women abstaining than Democrats. White voters made up 76% of nonvoters. The age groups of 25 to 29 and 35 to 54 comprised the largest categories of those who did not vote.
The data did not reveal why voters chose to stay home. An effort to interview these voters is taking shape.
