Hunters Could Decide the 2024 Presidential Election

The average of the latest national polls gives Harris a 0.9-point edge while the battleground states appear to be leaning toward Trump. But every poll is close, and if they end up being accurate, the next president could be chosen by less than 100,000 voters in just a handful of states.

Each of those states has populations of hunters that dwarf that winning margin–and many of those hunters aren’t registered to vote. If hunters show up in large enough numbers, it could be the difference between victory and defeat for either candidate.

“The idea of turning out the sportsman’s vote is important, and our community is waking up to that more than in the past,” Jeff Crane told MeatEater. Crane is the president and CEO of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), one of the most powerful outdoor lobbying groups in Washington, D.C.

“I don’t know if it’s because of this alarmist feeling that sportsmen and women don’t show up at the polls, but I’m glad more effort is being made to crank the vote out, and I hope that continues after the 2024 elections,” Crane said.

A Concerted Effort

Both the Democrats and Republicans are courting hunters more forcefully than in 2020. The Harris campaign recently launched a coalition called “Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz,” which they timed alongside a pheasant hunt attended by vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

“Together, Harris and Walz offer a vision of America that honors our outdoor heritage while addressing the conservation challenges that will determine the future of hunting and angling in America. They understand that our lands and waters are not just resources to be used, but treasures to be protected and enjoyed by all,” the group writes an open letter they’re asking voters to sign.

The Harris-Walz campaign has consistently highlighted Walz’s experience as a hunter (most notably with a popular camo hat), and they claim that Walz has “spent more time in the field than anyone running on a presidential ticket since Teddy Roosevelt.”

The Trump campaign hasn’t launched a hunters coalition, but they’re courting the hunt/fish vote nonetheless. Donald Trump, Jr., has campaigned in swing states alongside the National Rifle Association, and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance went on a fishing trip with the Safari Club and the hosts of the conservative Ruthless Podcast.

“People who hunt and fish care the most about conservation–they care about the balance more than people who never spend any real time in the environment,” Vance said. “We want to create the kind of administration that listens to the people most connected to these wildlife management problems and has a pragmatic approach.”

Many observers believe that whichever candidate wins Pennsylvania will win the election, so Republicans are also zeroing-in on hunters in this state. Scott Presler, a conservative political activist, named truckers, the Amish, and hunters as the three groups that could determine the outcome in The Keystone State.

“The most consequential group that we are making an effort to reach are our beautiful hunters and Second Amendment enthusiasts,” Presler said in an interview on the Megyn Kelly Show. He told Kelly that he and the volunteers for his get-out-the-vote effort have been attending gun shows and visiting archery ranges in an effort to register hunters and encourage them to get out to the polls.

By the Numbers

To understand why we’re seeing a greater focus on the hunt vote this election cycle, it helps to go back to 2020. That year, despite sizable polling leads in the runup to November 3rd, Joe Biden won most of the battleground states by razor-thin margins while Trump picked up North Carolina by a hair. Here were the margins of victory in each state:

• Pennsylvania: 81,000 votes (Biden)
• Georgia: 12,000 votes (Biden)
• Wisconsin: 20,000 votes (Biden)
• North Carolina: 74,000 votes (Trump)
• Michigan: 154,000 votes (Biden)
• Arizona: 10,000 votes (Biden)
• Nevada: 33,000 votes (Biden)

This year, those margins of victory are likely to be even smaller. Neither candidate enjoys a lead greater than 1.4 points (based on an average of polling), and both campaigns believe that hunters are one of the groups that could put their candidate over the top.

The data backs that up. These are the number of paid hunting license holders in the seven states most observers believe will decide the election:

• Pennsylvania: 981,320
• Georgia: 819,893
• Wisconsin: 664,738
• North Carolina: 650,361
• Michigan: 634,627
• Arizona: 287,033
• Nevada: 107,978

Data per the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Even more important than the sheer number of hunters in each state is the percentage of hunters who have not registered to vote. The Harris and Trump campaigns believe these unregistered hunters can be convinced to get out to the polls on election day, and those hunters far surpass Biden’s margin of victory in 2020.

A voter-registration group called Vote4America shared data with MeatEater, indicating that as many as 10 million hunters and gun owners have not registered to vote. The following numbers show how many unregistered hunters and gun owners live in some of the battleground states:

• Pennsylvania: 515,277
• Georgia: 350,897
• Wisconsin: 338,894
• North Carolina: 370,470
• Michigan: 370,619

Vote-getter Scott Presler also estimates that 30% of Pennsylvania hunters and 40% of Wisconsin hunters are not registered to vote. If that’s true, there are over 294,000 Pennsylvania hunters and over 265,000 Wisconsin hunters who could be convinced to register and cast a ballot for one candidate or the other.

To put that in perspective: if 28% of unregistered Pennsylvania hunters and 8% of unregistered Wisconsin hunters had cast ballots for Trump or Biden in 2020, that would have been enough to swing the election.

Much of the political commentary suggests that Republicans have more reason than Democrats to galvanize hunters, and historic data indicates that hunters and anglers tend to be more conservative. But these groups aren't monolithic. This 2012 survey found 42% of outdoorspeople identify as Republican while 18% claimed the Democrat ticket and 32% identified as Independent.

A more recent survey indicates that hunters and anglers may be more evenly divided, politically speaking. This 2018 survey of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers members found that 33% identify as Independent, 23% as Republican, 20% as Democrat, and 16% as “none of the above.” BHA membership isn’t perfectly representative of hunters and anglers as a whole, but it nonetheless reinforces the idea that targeting hunters isn’t a sure-fire strategy for either party.

The Importance of the President

CSF President Jeff Crane questions whether there are really as many unregistered hunters as the campaigns believe, but he is sure of one thing: sportsmen and women should care about who sits in the Oval Office.

“A president can be more pro-sportsmen versus anti-sportsmen, and that can have a gigantic impact,” he said.

Hunters and anglers who recreate on federal public land should care about this election in part because the president will dictate policy that controls how these lands are managed and used.

“To have people get appointed to these positions who are not adversarial, who are somewhat like-minded even if they don’t hunt and fish, but at least appreciate that there is value to this and there is nothing inherently wrong with it–it’s just a lot easier for all of us to go in and do our jobs,” Crane explained.

Crane recalled that when President Obama nominated Sally Jewell to lead the DOI, she visited him in his office to get his support on her nominating efforts. At the time, Jewell was the CEO of the outdoor apparel company REI.

To Crane’s surprise, “she had no idea about Pittman-Robertson or Wallop-Breaux. She had no idea about licensing dollars and all this money going back to support the state agencies.”

“I was surprised that she, being in the outdoor apparel business, had no idea that this was going on. To her credit, she absorbed it, recognized it, and acknowledged it in forums as the secretary,” Crane said.

Outdoorspeople are fortunate that Jewell was open to acknowledging the importance of the hunting and fishing community, but not all appointees are so receptive. One of the reasons hunters should exercise their power as a voting block is because whoever they select as president has real power, through their appointees, to make it easier or harder for hunters and anglers to pursue their passion.

Our Power as Hunters

Whether you’re voting for Trump or Harris (or neither), Crane believes hunters should be encouraged that both campaigns feel the need to court the hunt vote.

“Any time that a campaign thinks they need to create ‘Sportsmen and Women for Candidate x, y, z,’ that’s good for us as a community,” he said. “It recognizes that we have enough clout to matter. If we get to the point where no one is caring about putting together that kind of a coalition, that’s not a good place to be politically.”

Ryan Callaghan, MeatEater’s Director of Conservation, has also observed the “sudden onslaught of blaze orange from all corners of the political sphere.” If hunters can exercise their power in this election, he said, we’ll be better positioned to pursue our priorities moving forward.

“If politicians need hunters to win, then they are more likely to listen to us once elected. So long as we hold them accountable,” Callaghan pointed out. “Voting is only one step in this compact. The next step will be often repeated over a politician’s term, and that's calling, mailing, and testifying in order to keep that politician voting the right way.”

If the necropsy of the 2024 election reveals that hunters were the group that tipped the scales in one direction or the other, it’s easy to imagine, as Callaghan did, how that might rebound to our benefit:

“You remember us? The hunters you begged to win your seat? Well, it's time to say thanks and listen to our positions on public lands, waters, wildlife, and access to them. To protect the rights of hunters and anglers. To consider the long-term value of habitat on equal terms with the immediate returns of development and extraction.”