Democrats are banking on female ‘ghost voters’ to win

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Vice President Kamala Harris could see some much-needed support from Democratic “ghost voters,” or so strategists are hoping as the 2024 race comes to its final days.

With former President Trump’s showing in the polls leading up to Election Day gaining more and more momentum, Harris supporters are concerned about her performance in battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But some are hoping that despite the showing in polls young women will turn out in large numbers on Election Day to push the Democrat nominee over the finish line to victory.

Women between the ages of 18 and 35 are the target of efforts by the Harris campaign as she continues to push her national message of abortion “rights” despite Americans repeatedly expressing their frustration with the economy and the border as major issues. They are pinning their hopes on women who have not voted or have only occasionally voted to turn out for Harris.

“You had the ghost voter in 2018 and 2022 because those turnouts were higher — particularly 2022 — higher than the Republicans predicted and it was a surge in young women, pro-choice voters,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said, according to The Hill.

“Trump has benefited from ghost voters himself, in 2016 and 2020 when he outperformed the polls because non-college educated, working-class voters who didn’t have a history of voting turned out in large numbers to support his candidacy,” the outlet noted.

Strategists believe Harris needs to secure a victory in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in order to clinch the presidency.

“There is a potential for a ghost voter on both sides. The one on the Harris side would be young women,” Lake said, noting how the Kansas abortion referendum in 2022 drew a higher number of young women voters than any demographic of men.

“Normally why we miss them is because they are people without vote history or they have a very irregular vote history,” Lake said of the “ghost voters” who are not typically captured by pollsters.

“In general, the reason pollsters miss them is, one, they have the wrong turnout estimate, which is the hardest thing to get,” she added. “These people are often registered but with very irregular, if any, vote history.”

She suggested that allowing voters to register on Election Day, as they do in Wisconsin, “facilitates the ghost voter” occurrence.

A New York Times and Siena College poll published on Friday showed Harris and Trump tied at 48 percent, dashing hopes for Democrats who hoped to see their nominee leaving Trump in the dust as Election Day draws near.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is holding out hope that women give Harris the boost she needs.

“I think we’re going to see a lot of women turn out to vote that have not been counted and may not actually even be registering in the polls. We saw this in 2022. Now, if people say, ‘Well, there’s a Trump undercount.’ I believe women are going to turn out in droves,” he told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo last week.

“At the end of the day, I do believe that people are going to be concerned that Donald Trump hasn’t taken any gesture … to say, ‘Look, I’m going to govern from the center. I want to try to bring us together,’” he added.

Jessica Herrera, senior director at Supermajority, noted that nearly half a million new voters registered after megastar Taylor Swift endorsed Harris.

“Presidential elections are surge elections. Whoever can get more voters to show up who don’t normally come to the polls will win. What we have seen in our data, I strongly believe it will be young women, and it will be, in particular, new registrants as well as those who don’t frequently show up to elections,” Herrera said, according to The Hill.

Earlier in the year the “vibes were real bad” when President Joe Biden was still in the running, but that appeared to turn around with women when he was pushed aside in favor of Harris.

“We undertook a new survey in September, and we asked the same questions and the positive responses doubled, almost across the board. Women feel more positively about their own futures, they feel more positively about the future of the country and they feel that although government doesn’t work right now, it could in the future,” Herrera explained.

“That hope is crucial to engaging in civic participation,” she added.

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.