Michelle So, Contributing Photographer

In the 2024 presidential election, New Haveners voted in the city’s over 30 polling sites, took advantage of early voting and piled up in hours-long lines at City Hall to register on Election Day.

Elections moderators called the long lines of early and same-day registration voters “tremendous” and “surprising.” But when votes were counted, only around 35,050 individuals had cast ballots, a number drastically lower than in any presidential election in New Haven since 1996, when President Bill Clinton won his reelection bid.

In the run-up to Election Day, 8,074 voters cast their ballots on one of New Haven’s 14 days of early voting. This election season marked Connecticut’s first implementation of early voting for a general election. Another 1,012 were issued ballots during same-day registration on one of the fourteen early voting days, while 1,130 individuals participated in same-day registration on Election Day. Around 300 New Haveners sent ballots in from overseas, and the registrar’s office received around 1,758 absentee ballots as of Sunday night.

The majority of voters — 23,456 — voted in person on Election Day.

Early voting was first implemented in this year’s April and August primaries, but the proportion of voters who opted for this option was much lower than in Tuesday’s general election. Only 238 voters cast ballots during the early voting in April and 54 in New Haven’s only competitive Democratic primary in August.

New Haven largely voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate. The city has historically voted consistently for Democratic candidates in the presidential election. However, the share of Harris voters in 2024 represents the lowest percentage of Democratic ballots cast in a presidential election in New Haven since before former President Barack Obama’s 2008 win, a trend seen across the country.

Each of New Haven’s 30 wards voted for Harris. Ward 18, which encompasses East Shore and Morris Cove, had the highest share of voters for President-elect Donald Trump — 44 percent, not including any residents who voted absentee or through same-day registration on Election Day.

On Election Day morning, Aidan Virtue, a Trump voter in Morris Cove, predicted that more of his neighbors would vote for Trump than in previous elections. In 2020, only 23 percent of Ward 18 voters voted for Trump. However, in absolute numbers, turnout in the ward was much higher in 2020, so a far greater number of Trump voters cast ballots than in 2024.

Ward 21, which covers parts of Dixwell and Newhallville, had the highest share of votes for Harris, at 90.7 percent. The neighboring Ward 19, Prospect Hill, closely followed, with 90 percent of voters choosing Harris.

Only 97 voters cast ballots in the downtown Ward 1, which covers most of Yale’s residential colleges and other University property. The ward has historically seen low voter turnout.

Alders Eli Sabin and Caroline Tanbee Smith, who represent downtown’s Ward 7 and East Rock’s Ward 9, respectively, each told the News on Election Day that their wards’ polling sites had not seen lines. Both alders attributed the lower volume of voters to constituents’ taking advantage of early voting opportunities.

In 2020, 2,354 individuals voted in Ward 7 and 1,592 in Ward 9. On Election Day in 2024, only 728 people voted in Ward 7 and 995 in Ward 9.

As of Tuesday, there are 58,405 registered voters in New Haven.