Someone mentioned this to me last night in comments, but I hadn’t seen it focused on so I think it’s worth a diary. Every state that Bernie has won has seen turnout gains (green — last night’s two caucuses) or turnout drops of less than 20% (yellow) when compared to 2008. Hillary has won every state with turnout drops of greater than 20% (red). Keep in mind that Hillary won Massachusetts significantly in 2008 so that was actually a bit of a steal for Bernie despite the attempt by the Clinton camp to spin it.
State |
2008 |
2016 |
Change in Turnout |
Alabama |
536,626 |
397,890 |
-25.85% |
Arkansas |
315,839 |
224,000 |
-29.08% |
Colorado |
120,001 |
124,000 |
3.33% |
Georgia |
1,060,851 |
755,000 |
-28.83% |
Iowa |
236,000 |
171,109 |
-27.50% |
Massachussets |
1,263,764 |
1,209,000 |
-4.33% |
Minnesota |
214,066 |
215,000 |
0.44% |
Nevada |
117,559 |
84,000 |
-28.55% |
New Hampshire |
288,672 |
254,776 |
-11.74% |
Oklahoma |
417,207 |
335,554 |
-19.57% |
South Carolina |
532,151 |
369,526 |
-30.56% |
Tennessee |
624,764 |
371,321 |
-40.57% |
Texas |
2,874,986 |
1,430,000 |
-50.26% |
Vermont |
155,279 |
134,571 |
-13.34% |
Virginia |
986,203 |
784,392 |
-20.46% |
I’ve noticed that in the states Bernie has won, polls have been under-projecting his results. In states Hillary has won they have been under-projecting her performance. And I think the difference is clearly turnout. This in turn probably depends on a couple of key issues:
- Excitement for Sanders
- Familiarity with Sanders
- Both of which depend to some degree on resources spent
Iowa is an outlier here but it was first so folks may not have realized that Bernie is for real yet. Nevertheless, where Bernie has spent money since Iowa, turnout (when compared to 2008) has dropped less than 20% or gained. Whereas, in every other case turnout is down between 20% and 50%. Hillary has won all of the low turnout states plus Massachusetts.
What this tells me is that with increasing resources, Bernie can absolutely win this thing. This explains the delegate results in my diary from earlier today to some degree which showed that Bernie is leading in Blue states thus far and just 20 delegates behind in swing states. Blue states are where most of the delegates are so that’s a big deal. More money means more ads and GOTV efforts in upcoming states. In short, if you want Bernie, help get out the vote and feed the trough!
I got my data from here. www.electproject.org/...