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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum538: Primary Turnout Means Nothing For The General Election
Republican turnout is up and Democratic turnout is down in the 2016 primary contests so far. That has some Republicans giddy for the fall; heres an example...
But Democrats shouldnt worry. Republicans shouldnt celebrate. As others have pointed out, voter turnout is an indication of the competitiveness of a primary contest, not of what will happen in the general election. The GOP presidential primary is more competitive than the Democratic race.
Indeed, history suggests that there is no relationship between primary turnout and the general election outcome. You can see this on the most basic level by looking at raw turnout in years in which both parties had competitive primaries. There have been six of those years in the modern era: 1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2008....
So it shouldnt be surprising that Republican turnout is higher than Democratic turnout this year. Hillary Clinton is a commanding front-runner on the Democratic side, while the front-runner on the Republican side has earned only one-third of the vote and less than half the delegates allocated so far. Voters are turning out for the more competitive contest.
But Democrats shouldnt worry. Republicans shouldnt celebrate. As others have pointed out, voter turnout is an indication of the competitiveness of a primary contest, not of what will happen in the general election. The GOP presidential primary is more competitive than the Democratic race.
Indeed, history suggests that there is no relationship between primary turnout and the general election outcome. You can see this on the most basic level by looking at raw turnout in years in which both parties had competitive primaries. There have been six of those years in the modern era: 1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2008....
So it shouldnt be surprising that Republican turnout is higher than Democratic turnout this year. Hillary Clinton is a commanding front-runner on the Democratic side, while the front-runner on the Republican side has earned only one-third of the vote and less than half the delegates allocated so far. Voters are turning out for the more competitive contest.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/primary-turnout-means-nothing-for-the-general-election/
Makes perfect sense to me. It has been clear that Hillary would be the nominee for years, this was a race that only ended up drawing only B-list opponents, it was never truly competitive. While the race certainly narrowed more than Team Clinton would have preferred, the widely held perception that she would be the nominee never faded.
It is sort of similar to an incumbent president like Obama in 2012 who faced no challenger and saw tiny turnout. No one said this was an ominous sign for the party in November. Settled races draw less interest.
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538: Primary Turnout Means Nothing For The General Election (Original Post)
tritsofme
Mar 2016
OP
onenote
(42,737 posts)1. I've been making this point for several weeks
But some people still think that primary turnout is predictive of the outcome of the GE.
Its not.
qdouble
(891 posts)2. Low voter turnout is basically pointing to Dems being happy with either Bernie or Hillary winning...
It doesn't mean they won't show up and vote against trump. I think fear motivates people more than hatred...and trump will have the Dems, Independents and sane Republicans come out in droves in the General Election...at least in swing states.