Wisconsin numbers on Edwards' side

Given that Edwards is winning the independent voters - the ones who will decide a general election in November - this information from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gives one pause:

Wisconsin has an open primary and high turnouts. In the state's last competitive Democratic presidential primary in 1992, exit polls showed that Democrats constituted only 53% of the voters, independents 40% and Republicans 7%.

In Tennessee and Virginia, 70% to 75% of those who turned out were Democrats, exit polls showed.

Wisconsin's primary electorate is unusually broad: Between 1968 and that last contested race in 1992, turnout in the Democratic presidential primary ranged from 18% to 28% of the state's voting age citizens.

That's far higher than any state that has voted this year except New Hampshire (23%). In Iowa it was 6%, in Arizona 6%, in New Mexico 8%, in Virginia 8%, in South Carolina 9%, in Missouri 13%. In Michigan, it was just 2%.

There's an argument to be made that Wisconsin offers Edwards an opening, if you believe an electorate less dominated by hard-core Democrats also will be less driven by the partisan desire to close ranks behind Kerry.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article