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Thursday, January 29, 2004
Once Again, Turnout is the Story
Posted by DavidNYCThe DNC's blog, Kicking Ass, highlights the good news for all Democrats coming out of New Hampshire: As in Iowa, turnout was way, way up. Two-hundred twenty-thousand people turned out to vote in the Democratic primary - but NH has only 180,000 registered Democrats. Since NH allows independents to vote in party primaries, this can mean but one thing: A very large number of independents in the Granite State want to see Bush gone. Hell, even a few thousand Republicans wrote in the names of Democratic candidates in their party's primary rather than pull the lever for Bush.
So far, the first two primary/caucus states also happened to be swing states. So are many of the early February states: New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri on Feb. 3rd and then Michigan, Washington, Nevada & Wisconsin shortly thereafter. A sample size of two is rather small, but we'll soon have a bunch more data to test this thesis. Let's hope the trend keeps up.
Posted at 09:49 PM in New Hampshire | Technorati
Comments
"Since NH allows independents to vote in party primaries, this can mean but one thing: A very large number of independents in the Granite State want to see Bush gone."
I can think of another interpretation: Right-leaning voters are skipping the meaningless Republican primary for the chance to influence the Democratic party's nomination. There's no guarantee that those voters will actually vote for the nominee in November.
Posted by: Matt Brubeck at January 30, 2004 12:11 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
It's interesting to note that Bush got only 85% of the vote, versus all his Republican opponents and Democratic write-ins.
I read about this here: http://www.twf.org/News/Y2004/0130-NH.html
But I confirmed their numbers at the NH Sec. of State's office website: http://www.state.nh.us/sos/presprim%202004/rpressum.htm
Excluding "Scatter" (which I intepret as missed votes), Bush got 53962 votes to his opponents' 12898 votes. Total votes are 69379. Bush gets 78% of the vote.
In an unopposed primary, maybe this sort of thing can be expected. Supporters of fringe candidates are more probably likely to turn out. But it might not bode well for President Bush. If he loses New Hampshire...which only went to Bush anyway because of the Nader split...well, well, well. It's not enough to tip the Florida balance, but it puts us on the path to victory.
Posted by: Luke Francl at February 2, 2004 04:03 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment