Saturday, January 26, 2008

South Carolina Turnout

It looks like South Carolina continues the trend of Democratic turnout surges. All the votes aren't in yet, but it looks like turnout might top 500,000. That's approximately 40 percent more than the 289,000 who voted in 2004 Democratic primary, more than the 445,000 who voted in last week's Republican primary, and nearly as many as the 573,000 who voted in the 2000 GOP primary. And remember, South Carolina is one of the most Republican states in the country.

Update: One of Andrew Sullivan's readers make a crucial point:

In last week's SC GOP primary, McCain and Huckabee (the top 2 finishers), got 147,283 and 132,440 votes respectively. That's a total of 279,723. Obama just pulled down 291,000 by himself.


New Update: Final turnout figures show that 532,000 people voted in the Democratic primary. That's off the charts in a state where John Kerry only got 660,000 votes in the last presidential election.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064875.php

Anonymous said...

Or another way to look at it: In a state where Bush beat Gore, 57-41 and Kerry, 58-41, the turnout for the two parties in these primaries went to the Dems, 56-44.