2022 County Spotlight: Mombasa — The County Where Only 43% Voted

Mombasa has consistently had Kenya’s lowest urban turnout. In 2022, fewer than half of registered voters showed up.

On August 9th 2022, Mombasa had 642,362 registered voters. Only 281,113 of them bothered to cast a ballot — 277,301 valid votes plus 3,812 rejected. That is a turnout of just 43.76%, the lowest of any major urban county in Kenya and well below the national average of about 65%.

To put that in everyday terms: if you lined up ten Mombasa voters, fewer than five of them went to vote. The other five or six stayed home, went to the beach, or simply decided the election was not worth their time.

The Results: Odinga Won, But With a Shrinking Electorate

The late Raila Odinga won Mombasa with 161,015 votes (58.07%). William Ruto came second with 113,700 votes (41.00%). George Wajackoyah picked up 2,104 votes and David Waihiga Mwaure got 482. There were 3,812 rejected ballots.

Odinga’s 58% in Mombasa might look solid, but compare it to the rest of the Coast. In IEBC records, Kilifi gave Odinga 71.65%, Kwale gave him 70.13%, and Taita Taveta gave him 72.89%. Mombasa was actually the weakest Odinga county on the entire Coast.

The reason is demographics. Mombasa is a cosmopolitan port city with large populations from upcountry — Kikuyu, Kamba, Luo, and Kalenjin communities all have significant populations there. Ruto’s 41% reflects this diversity. It also reflects the growing influence of the hustler narrative among Mombasa’s urban poor.

The Turnout Crisis: A Decade of Decline

Mombasa’s turnout has been falling for a decade, and the numbers are alarming:

In 2013, Mombasa had 413,069 registered voters and 272,318 of them voted — a turnout of 66%. By 2017, with 580,644 registered voters, about 345,175 voted — roughly 59.4%. And in 2022, with 642,362 registered, just 281,113 voted — 43.76%.

That is a decline of more than 22 percentage points in less than a decade. Voter registration kept growing, but actual participation collapsed. Mombasa is adding names to the register but losing people at the ballot box.

Why Mombasa Does Not Vote

There is no single explanation for Mombasa’s low turnout. But several factors stand out:

1. Voter apathy among the young. Mombasa has a large youth population, many of whom feel disconnected from national politics. The Coast has historically felt marginalized by Nairobi-based governments, and that resentment has turned into disengagement rather than mobilization.

2. A transient population. Mombasa is a port city. Many people registered to vote there but have since moved to other towns, gone abroad, or returned to their home counties. The register is bloated with people who no longer live in the county.

3. No local son on the presidential ballot. Unlike Siaya (Odinga’s home), Nyeri (Gachagua’s home), or the Rift Valley (Ruto’s home), Mombasa has no personal connection to any presidential candidate. There is no “our guy” effect to drive people to the polls.

4. The MRC legacy. The Mombasa Republican Council and other separatist sentiments at the Coast have long encouraged boycotting national elections as a form of protest. While MRC’s influence has faded, the attitude has not entirely disappeared.

Mombasa vs the National Average

The gap between Mombasa and the rest of Kenya has been widening:

In 2013, Mombasa trailed the national average by about 20 percentage points (66% vs 86%). By 2022, the gap had grown slightly wider: 43.76% vs roughly 64.8% nationally. Other Coast counties like Kilifi (49.03%) also had low turnout, but Mombasa was the worst major county in the entire country.

For comparison, Kenya’s constitutional threshold requires 50%+1 of valid votes and 25% in at least 24 of 47 counties. If every county had Mombasa’s turnout, presidential elections would be decided by fewer than 10 million voters out of 22 million registered — a crisis of democratic legitimacy.

What This Means for 2027

Mombasa is a sleeping giant. With 642,362 registered voters and likely even more by 2027, it has the potential to deliver over 400,000 votes if turnout reaches even 65%. That is an additional 120,000+ votes sitting on the table compared to 2022.

Any candidate who can crack the Mombasa turnout problem gains a significant advantage. The late Raila Odinga, who passed away in October 2025, was the dominant political figure at the Coast but never managed to get Mombasa to actually show up in force. His absence from the 2027 race opens the county to new political competition.

The candidate who figures out how to turn Mombasa’s registered voters into actual voters will have unlocked one of Kenya’s biggest electoral prizes. For more on Coast politics, see our Kiambu spotlight for a contrast in turnout dynamics, and our Nakuru spotlight for another cosmopolitan county’s story.

Track turnout patterns at every polling station. Votrack’s real-time monitoring shows you which stations are reporting and which are silent. Request a demo and see how turnout tracking works across Mombasa’s 1,573 polling stations.