{"id":3301,"date":"2016-03-20T17:50:18","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T22:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=3301"},"modified":"2016-03-20T17:50:18","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T22:50:18","slug":"how-important-are-the-caucus-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/03\/20\/how-important-are-the-caucus-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"How Important are the caucus numbers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

WorldPress.org<\/strong><\/em> relays a worry<\/a> from across the Atlantic:<\/p>\n

United Kingdom \u2013 The Guardian, March 5: Barring an unforeseen disaster on either side, Clinton and Trump are now on a collision course for the presidential election on 8 November 2016. The bombastic, swaggering, sometimes vulgar billionaire has stunned the political world, plunged the Republican Party into civil war and, among the pundit class, relegated the prospect of the 240-year-old republic\u2019s first female president to a footnote. \u2026 The outside world, overjoyed by the election of America\u2019s first black president just eight years ago, is asking: how did it come to this? \u2026One chilling statistic for Clinton stands out: more than 8 million voters took part in the Republican Super Tuesday contests, while the Democratic turnout was around 5.5 million. \u2026 Clinton is compared to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; Trump is compared to everyone from Benito Mussolini to Juan Per\u00f3n to Silvio Berlusconi.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Harry Enten\u00a0@ FiveThirtyEight<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0addressed<\/a> this worry a couple of days ago:<\/p>\n

But Democrats shouldn\u2019t worry. Republicans shouldn\u2019t celebrate. As others<\/a>\u00a0have pointed out<\/a>, voter turnout is an indication of the competitiveness of a primary contest, not<\/i> of what will happen in the general election. The GOP presidential primary is more competitive than the Democratic race.<\/p>\n

Indeed, history suggests that there is no relationship between primary turnout and the general election outcome. You can see this on the most basic level by looking at raw turnout in years in which both parties had competitive primaries. There have been six of those years in the modern era: 1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2008.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/th>\nPARTY WITH HIGHER PRIMARY TURNOUT WINS \u2026<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
YEAR<\/th>\nDEMOCRATIC<\/th>\nREPUBLICAN<\/th>\nPOPULAR VOTE<\/th>\nELECTORAL COLLEGE<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
1976<\/td>\n16.1m<\/td>\n10.4m<\/td>\n\u2713<\/td>\n\u2713<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1980<\/td>\n18.7<\/td>\n12.7<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1988<\/td>\n23.0<\/td>\n12.2<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1992<\/td>\n20.2<\/td>\n12.7<\/td>\n\u2713<\/td>\n\u2713<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2000<\/td>\n14.0<\/td>\n17.2<\/td>\n<\/td>\n\u2713<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2008<\/td>\n37.2<\/td>\n20.8<\/td>\n\u2713<\/td>\n\u2713<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n
Primary turnout isn\u2019t related to the general election outcome<\/caption>\n<\/table>\n