GOP turnout drove gains in 2022, Pew analysis finds

Republican turnout drove gains the party made in the popular vote in last November’s midterm elections compared to the 2020 presidential election, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. 

The analysis found 68 percent of voters from the 2020 presidential election went to the polls to cast a ballot for the 2022 midterms, but the percentage of voters for former President Trump slightly outpaced the percentage of voters for President Biden, 71 percent to 67 percent. 

Almost all Trump and Biden voters voted for a House candidate of the same party in 2022, but Trump voters also slightly outpaced Biden voters on that metric, 97 percent to 93 percent. 

Republicans had hoped for a significant “red wave” to sweep into power in both chambers of Congress in 2022, but they had a disappointing performance and failed to win control of the Senate.

Still, the party was able to narrowly win control of the House and win the nationwide popular vote in House races, in contrast to Biden easily beating Trump in the popular vote in 2020.

A notable drop in Hispanic voter turnout in 2022 was one source of the Republican gains. Millions of Hispanic voters who drove record turnout in 2018 stayed home in 2022, boosting the Republican share of the Latino vote. 

Of the Hispanic voters who turned out in the 2018 elections, 37 percent did not show up in 2022, according to the survey. That means around four million Hispanics who participated in 2018 stayed home four years later. 

That group leaned heavily Democratic in 2018, allowing the GOP to cut down its deficit among this demographic. 

"Shifts in turnout, as opposed to defections, were responsible for most of the changes in vote margins from the 2018 midterms within most subgroups in the population," Pew researchers said. 

The dynamic with Hispanic voters was also true for the electorate at large, with those who voted in 2018 but not in 2022 favoring Democrats by a 2-to-1 margin. A third of voters in the 2020 election did not turn out two years later, and this group favored Biden by 10 points. 

Pew found an exception to that was with rural voters who participated in 2018 and 2022. Only 1 percent of them who voted for a Republican candidate in 2018 switched to a Democratic candidate in 2022, but 7 percent who backed a Democrat in 2018 switched to a Republican in 2022. 

The GOP also gained from more Democratic defections among white non-college educated voters than Republican defections.