What is Population Growth Actually?

A break from trying to organize my thoughts about The Economy into something (barely) readable.  Dave Weigel tweeted the following:

https://x.com/daveweigel/status/1855248851281555665

Harris is going to get even more votes than Obama! How can anyone say there was an enthusiasm problem?

The US population in 2008, when Obama got 69.5 million votes was 302 million. In 2024, it's 335 million - nearly ten percent higher. 

Some in his replies checked the registered voter numbers. 40 million more registered voters. If there was actually Obama-level enthusiasm, Harris would have taken 47% of registered voters, but she actually got 37% of them. But one of the "reality-based" journos covering it is sure that the enthusiasm was similar. I'm in freaking Canada and I could tell that people were definitely not enthused about Harris. There was a lot of "this is worse than holding my nose and pulling for a candidate I don't like - I am actually compromising some core moral principles in an effort to stop Orange Man Bad."

In Weigel's defense, there were moments when this was true. The DNC was big and there was enthusiasm then. Kamala is brat summer was a thing. The reason we're all feeling blindsided by Trump's victory is that back in August - it really looked like a done deal. Harris was riding high on a tidal wave of support and love. And then the "perfect" campaign fucking burned that down in the very short time they had to do it. Spectacularly amazing really - that they could that campaign so effectively and so fast.