Democrats Should Be Very Nervous About Their Terrible Turnout Numbers
I don’t get it. For all the activism, the evidence of what who is running and what that means. Heaven help us.
In primary after primary this cycle, Democratic voters just aren’t showing up. Only 367,491 people cast a ballot for either Clinton or Sanders on Saturday. That’s down 16 percent from the 436,219 people who came out in 2008 for Clinton and Obama. Factor in the 93,522 people who voted for John Edwards back in the day, and you can see the scope of the problem. Democrats in 2016 are only getting about two-thirds of the primary votes that they received eight years ago.
Republican turnout in the South Carolina primary, by contrast, was up more than 70 percent from 2008.
South Carolina’s turnout numbers are not an anomaly. They’re consistent with other primaries to date. Republicans are psyched. Democrats are demoralized.
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