Hold onto your seats people, because I have some shocking and terrible news.
The good news: we are outdrawing the Republicans in the vast majority of the country. Even if you confine your gaze to hotly contested states by both parties, Democrats still had massive turnouts in South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Colorado. Fuck, we even had bigger turnouts than the Republicans in Oklahoma and Georgia.
But I'm not trying to make any predictions about how these states will vote in November. I'm really just trying to understand what made the turnout work... because... well... I don't want to alarm people... but I think there's something wrong with the Florida and Michigan Democratic primaries!!!
There's only a few states where the Republicans had a higher turnout than Democrats. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Utah, Michigan and Florida. What galvanized Republicans to vote in those six states more than other states? I can only guess, but here are a few theories:
ALABAMA: Bush beat Kerry here 63% to 37%. This is GOP country.
ALASKA: Bush beat Kerry here 61% to 36%. GOP country, once again.
ARIZONA: Does McCain R-AZ mean anything to you?
UTAH: Mitt Romney took 90% (!) of the Republican vote. He got more votes in the Republican primary than Kerry got in the whole 2004 election. Romney is Mormon like 60% of Utah voters.
I'm not trying to de-legitimize these primaries. Republicans kicked our ass in the voter turnout fair and square. Their candidates had strong in-grown advantages in these states and they knew how to use them. That's politics. I can understand that.
But how the heck do you explain the low turnout in Florida? In Michigan?
... both states were close in 2004: 5%. Not GOP country.
... no candidate represents or governs these states.
... there isn't a single Republican who so much as neighbors one of the states.
... the only strong Republican demographic in either state is Cuban-Americans in Florida. But this was only 7% of the Republican vote. Republicans beat our turnout by 10%, and could still outdraw us without Cuban Americans.
So how the heck did the Republicans outdraw us by ~250,000 in each state?
There are somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Democrats between Florida and Michigan that should have made these states more favorable to us: more like the proportions in New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina...
Something is up with these Democratic primaries. And SOMEONE here needs to speak up if they know anything.
UPDATE: This report estimates that 2,000,000 democratic voters should have voted in MI and FL but didn't That's even bigger than my estimate, and probably more reliable. I guess I should read the report, but I'm sure someone else can explain it to me later.