Excerpts from: High Democratic Turnout Sends a Mixed Signal for November

I thought this was a good article because primary turnout has been a concern of mine when you compare the Democrats vs. Republicans. However, the head-to-head polls between McCain and Obama/Clinton do not show the huge primary advantage seen by the Democrats.

McCain is making progress in bringing the National Security & Economic wings (via: Phil Gramm) of the party together. I will be interested to see his moves to bring the Social Conservative wing of the party back too.


By Kent Garber
Posted February 28, 2008

In the first five weeks of 2008, "voter turnout" was a phrase that was used almost exclusively in connection with the Democratic Party.

The intermediate conclusion: Democrats are more enthusiastic about their options than Republicans. But do the high turnouts portend a Democratic victory in November?

Not necessarily.

For starters, primary turnout rates (in terms of ballots cast) historically tend to be higher for Democrats than Republicans. From 1972 to 2004, there were only two primary elections in which Republicans had a higher cumulative turnout: 1996 (when Bill Clinton, as the incumbent, essentially made Democratic primaries that year irrelevant) and 2000 (when Al Gore, as the sitting vice president, made quick work of Bill Bradley and clinched the nomination early in the campaign). Much of this trend reflects the fact that Democrats, for the past 36 years, have been "out of the White House" more often than in it and therefore have greater incentive to vote in primaries, as well as the rather sizable advantage—17 million more people are registered Democrats than Republicans, as of 2004—they hold in overall voter registration. In fact, even in 1980, when Jimmy Carter, the Democratic incumbent, was on the ballot, the number of votes cast in Democratic primaries exceeded the Republican total by 6 million, or nearly 50 percent.

Second, record turnouts during primaries often fail to yield general election victories in November. Two notable examples would be 1988 and 2000. In 1988, the Democratic Party, bolstered by eight years of a Republican in office, set an all-time primary high of 23 million votes (compared with 14 million in 2000 and 16.2 million in 2004), before losing again to another Republican (George H. W. Bush). The Republicans experienced a similar—if less consequential—problem in 2000. That year, the party had its highest primary turnout in history: More than 17 million votes were cast, breaking the previous record by more than 3 million votes. In November, however, Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore by more than 500,000 votes.

Despite historical trends, other factors could give pause to Democrats hoping to win this year. Democrats haven't been the only ones seeing record turnouts in 2008. In several states on Super Tuesday, Republicans turned out in record percentages, but still more Democrats voted during the time between the Iowa caucuses and Super Tuesday.

But signs aside from turnout also seem to be in the Democrats' favor. "If we look at the whole picture, we know that Democrats have been more interested in the election," adds McDonald, who is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. "We know, for instance, the fundraising advantage Democrats have over Republicans is another measure of enthusiasm."