California voter turnout swings dramatically between election types, from about 70.88% of eligible residents in the 2020 presidential election down to roughly 43% in the 2022 gubernatorial midterm. The 2024 presidential race broke the recent upward pattern: about 16 million Californians voted, down from the record 17.8 million in 2020. Measured against eligible residents, that was roughly an 11-point drop, the largest single-election decline in at least 50 years.
Two Numbers, Two Very Different Stories
Any turnout figure you see for California is one of two things, and they are not interchangeable.
The registered-voter rate divides ballots cast by the number of people already on the rolls. It is always the higher number and the one you’ll hear on election night.
The eligible-voter rate uses the estimated citizen voting-age population as the denominator, counting every adult U.S. citizen in the state whether they ever registered or not. It’s the better measure of actual democratic participation because it captures the millions of eligible Californians who never enter the system.
The two can move in opposite directions. A 2020 analysis of the Voter’s Choice Act found that counties operating under the VCA had higher turnout among eligible voters than non-VCA counties but lower turnout among registered voters, a difference that comes down to how aggressively each group was registering new people.1California Secretary of State. Voter’s Choice Act Report on the 2020 Primary and General Elections – Findings
What Recent Elections Actually Looked Like
2020: The High-Water Mark
The November 2020 general election was the strongest turnout California had seen in generations. A total of 17,785,151 ballots were counted, and eligible-voter turnout reached 70.88%, the highest since the 1952 presidential election.2California Secretary of State. Secretary of State Alex Padilla Certifies Record Setting General Election Results A contested presidential race, pandemic-era rules that mailed every active registered voter a ballot, and months of sustained attention all pushed in the same direction. A record 86.72% of ballots arrived by mail.3California Secretary of State. Historical Vote-By-Mail (Absentee) Ballot Use in California
2022: The Midterm Drop
The 2022 gubernatorial election followed the pattern every California midterm follows. Only 51% of registered voters cast ballots, and eligible-voter turnout came in around 43%.4Public Policy Institute of California. Who Voted in the 2022 Election and What Does It Mean for 2024 The registered-voter rate was actually below the historical midterm average, though the eligible-voter rate looked somewhat healthier because California had added millions of new registrants in the preceding years, inflating the denominator.
2024: An Unexpected Decline
Most observers expected the 2024 presidential election to come close to 2020 levels. It didn’t. Roughly 16 million Californians voted. Measured against eligible residents, turnout fell about 11 percentage points from 2020, the biggest presidential-year drop the state has recorded in at least half a century. As a share of registered voters, the decline was nearly 10 points. The nationwide drop was estimated at only about 3 points.5Public Policy Institute of California. California’s Voter Turnout Sank in 2024 The uncompetitive nature of California’s presidential contest is widely cited as a reason. When the outcome feels decided in advance, fewer people show up.
How California Stacks Up Nationally
National eligible-voter turnout in the 2024 presidential election was about 64%, tying 1960 for the second-highest in modern history.6Pew Research Center. Voter Turnout, 2020-2024 California’s estimated eligible-voter turnout came in well below that. In 2020 the state’s 70.88% had beaten the national rate; by 2024 it was trailing. California’s electoral votes were not in play, the marquee U.S. Senate race was between two Democrats, and the convenience of universal mail balloting may itself blunt the urgency that drives some voters to act.
Turnout by Election Type
The type of election is the single strongest predictor of how many Californians will vote. The ladder is consistent and steep.
- Presidential general elections draw the biggest crowds, usually 60% to 80% of registered voters. National coverage and heavy spending do most of the work.
- Gubernatorial generals, held in midterm years, lose the presidential pull. Registered-voter turnout typically lands in the low-to-mid 50s, with eligible-voter turnout in the low 40s.
- Primaries drop further. The March 2024 presidential primary saw only about 34% of the state’s roughly 22 million registered voters participate, below the norm even for primaries.
- Local and special elections, without a statewide or federal anchor, draw the smallest shares. Standalone municipal races sometimes finish in single digits.
The gap between the top and bottom of that ladder is large enough that a presidential general can draw three or four times as many voters as a local special. For anyone trying to shape policy, the math is unambiguous: showing up in a low-turnout election gives each ballot outsized weight.
Who Votes and Who Doesn’t
Age Is the Biggest Divide
Age predicts participation more reliably than almost anything else. In the 2020 general election, eligible-voter turnout among Californians 65 and older hit 73.4%, compared with 47.4% for voters 18 to 24.1California Secretary of State. Voter’s Choice Act Report on the 2020 Primary and General Elections – Findings That 26-point gap is not a California-only phenomenon. Nationally, youth turnout for 18-to-29-year-olds was estimated at 47% in 2024, with the very youngest voters, 18 and 19, turning out at just 41%.7Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. New Data: Nearly Half of Youth Voted in 2024 Young Californians also have the lowest registration rate of any age group, so even the eligible-voter gap understates how many never enter the system at all.
Race and Ethnicity
Nationally, the 2020 election showed meaningful gaps by race and ethnicity. Among voting-age citizens, 71% of non-Hispanic White voters reported casting a ballot, compared with 63% of Black voters, 59% of Asian American voters, and 54% of Hispanic voters.8U.S. Census Bureau. Record High Turnout in 2020 General Election California’s demographics make these gaps especially consequential. Latino residents make up more than a third of the state’s population, but their share of ballots cast consistently lags their share of the eligible population. Asian American turnout has been climbing faster than most groups but still trails the statewide average.
Party and No Party Preference
Registered Democrats and Republicans vote at higher rates than No Party Preference voters, who made up more than 22% of all registrants as of late 2023. The 2022 midterm produced an uneven decline: registered Democrats dropped off at a higher rate than Republicans, a pattern common in midterms when the party holding the governorship sees less urgency among its base. NPP voters, sometimes called independents, are the fastest-growing registration category but consistently the least likely to vote, especially in primaries where their options are more limited.
Did California’s Voting Reforms Actually Boost Turnout?
California’s election system looks almost nothing like it did a decade ago. The Voter’s Choice Act, passed in 2016, let participating counties mail every registered voter a ballot and replace neighborhood polling places with regional vote centers open for at least 10 days before the election. Adoption started as a county-by-county choice. Then in 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 37, making universal vote-by-mail permanent statewide. Elections officials must begin mailing ballots to every registered voter no later than 29 days before an election.9California Legislative Information. AB 37 Assembly Bill
California’s Motor Voter program, meanwhile, automatically registers eligible residents during driver’s license or state ID transactions at the DMV, unless they opt out.10California Secretary of State. California Motor Voter It has added millions of names to the rolls.
The effect on actual turnout is mixed. A Public Policy Institute of California study found that switching to the VCA model hurt turnout among Latino voters by about 3 percentage points in the 2022 midterm, and new 18- and 19-year-old voters also turned out at lower rates in VCA-switching counties that year. In the 2024 presidential election, the pattern reversed, with both groups seeing modest turnout gains in VCA counties relative to non-VCA counties.11Public Policy Institute of California. How the Voter’s Choice Act Changed Turnout in California Mailing everyone a ballot removes one barrier. It does not automatically close participation gaps rooted in language access, unfamiliarity with the system, or disengagement from politics.
Automatic registration also helps explain the recent divergence between the two turnout metrics. Because a larger share of eligible Californians is now on the rolls, eligible-voter rates sometimes look stronger than registered-voter rates, since many of the newly added registrants never follow through by casting a ballot.
What to Watch in 2026
The November 3, 2026 general election is a gubernatorial midterm, the type of election that historically produces California’s steepest turnout drops. The ballot will include races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, controller, treasurer, insurance commissioner, and superintendent of public instruction, plus U.S. House and state legislative contests. If past midterms hold, registered-voter turnout will land near 50% and eligible-voter turnout in the low 40s. The 2026 primary is set for June 2, 2026.12California Secretary of State. Election Dates and Resources
An open governor’s race with no incumbent could lift midterm interest above the usual baseline. But recent history suggests access reforms alone will not reverse the broader disengagement trend. California made voting about as convenient as it gets anywhere in the country, and turnout still fell off sharply in 2024. Whether 2026 breaks that pattern will likely come down to whether voters find the races on the ballot worth showing up for.