Turnout Records Drive Bernie Success

[FourScore]

Turnout Records Drive Bernie Success
By seamus
Monday Mar 07, 2016 · 12:43 PM EST

I wrote about the turnout differences once before. Here is an update on turnout vs. results. I have some notes on these results below. I believe in disclosure. I’m a Sanders supporter, but i’m also a full on supporter of numbers and intelligent discussion of those numbers. I’m not running any fancy stats here just looking at top-line data.



* There is a direct correlation between turnout and who wins.
* Bernie has set new turnout records in multiple states including I believe Colorado, Kansas, Maine, and Minnesota. Note that these are all caucuses. Not a single primary has seen increased turnout this primary season. There are just three primaries where turnout drops were less than 20% and one was Vermont. The other two were New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Bernie performed well in all three.
* For Hillary, she wins Massachusetts plus every state where there is a turnout drop greater than 20%. But the margins do not correlate directly to turnout like they do with Bernie. Even if you remove the caucuses, her biggest margins roughly start in Alabama and spread outward. The further north and west you get the margins drop. From Louisiana to South Carolina margins are 40+. But once you hit Texas, Tennessee, and even Arkansas margins drop into the 30s. The further you get away from there she has won by smaller margins.



​Conclusions

Overall, I believe that the general electorate is deflated but that the activist base is inspired by Bernie. How do I draw those conclusions?

* Primaries are consistently lower in turnout. Primaries involve higher participation from the general electorate while caucuses tend to focus more on your serial voters and active Democrats.
* The only states where Bernie has invested resources and turnout saw a greater than 20% drop-off were Iowa and Nevada — both early on and both caucuses. So there is (not surprisingly) a correlation between where Bernie invests resources, turnout, and ultimately his success.
* All four states where turnout increased from 2008 were huge Bernie wins. And they were all caucuses. Caucuses naturally attract serial voters, party activists, and NGO activists as noted above.

Hillary has a distinct primary advantage due to her name recognition. It appears as Bernie spends more time organizing and advertising in a state and his name recognition goes up — so does turnout and so do his results. It’s a good sign that Bernie is spending a lot of money — but that he is doing so with results.

Some notes on the data itself:

* Data is from NY Times and is based on delegates or votes reported. What is reported varies by state.
* We are still awaiting results from 1 precinct in Nebraska and 53 precincts in Maine. I expect they will all overwhelmingly favor Bernie. The 1 precinct in Nebraska is in Lancaster County (Lincoln) and that county went for Bernie by 23.4%. And based in informal results, Maine has gone for Bernie in all but two locations thus far.
* Turnout is compared to 2008. It’s really the only year we can compare to since we haven’t had any other competitive primaries go until June (Thanks Hillary!). But there are some caveats. 2008 was a record breaking year for turnout. So while we have set some new turnout records, it shouldn’t be shocking that turnout is not up everywhere.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/7/1497275/-Turnout-Records-Drive-Bernie-Success

[nashville_brook]

1. superimportant. bookmarking.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, FourScore.

[redstateblues]

3. Yet Bernie is behind on the popular vote and delegate totals

[FourScore]

4. Just wait. n/t