Democrats Should Be Very Nervous About Their Terrible Turnout Numbers

[Bubzer]

In primary after primary this cycle, Democratic voters just aren't showing up. Only 367,491 people cast a ballot for either Clinton or Sanders on Saturday. That's down 16 percent from the 436,219 people who came out in 2008 for Clinton and Obama. Factor in the 93,522 people who voted for John Edwards back in the day, and you can see the scope of the problem. Democrats in 2016 are only getting about two-thirds of the primary votes that they received eight years ago.

Republican turnout in the South Carolina primary, by contrast, was up more than 70 percent from 2008.

...

Presidential elections increasingly hinge on each party's ability to turn out the faithful. There simply are not many truly independent voters who cast their ballots for different parties in different cycles. A big chunk of voters who identify as independents do so not because they cherish a moderate middle ground between two parties, but because they see their own party as insufficiently committed to its ideological principles. In this era, lousy primary turnout spells big trouble for the general election.

The poor Democratic turnout figures are not an indictment of Clinton alone. Maybe the DNC's decision to bury the party's debates on weekends and holidays helped Republicans generate more early enthusiasm with primetime coverage.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrat-turnout-south-carolina_us_56d2e392e4b03260bf77247f

Many voters have already given up, believing the fix is already in over at the DNC.

[EdwardBernays]

1. Don't worry

President Trump will sort this out...

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

9. The Trump and Clinton campaigns both look pretty dubious for differing reasons.

I'll be voting for Sanders on Tuesday.

[EdwardBernays]

11. Me too

But if Hillary wins the nomination, Trump wins the GE

[truebrit71]

15. Actually I don't think that's the case. If HRC is given the nomination....

... and it looks as though Trump is in the lead for the rethuglican nomination, I think the RNC will try and knee-cap The Combover at their convention and pick someone else. They know HRC is extremely beatable, with very high unfavorables amongst independents, so for the RNC to stick with a bigoted carnival barker, rather than picking someone more appealing to the middle, would be monumentally stupid.

Trump won't win the GE regardless of who the Dems pick, but if the DNC gets their way and anoints HRC, the rethuglicans will have a real shot if they choose someone less divisive than their current crop of nutjobs, Canadians, and religious freaks....

[EdwardBernays]

17. I disagree

Not only do I think that Trump will easily beat Hillary, but I also think the GOP doesn't really have a serviceable Pllan B. The deadline for getting anyone on the ballot in all 50 stares is extremely close and when Trump sweeps all the super Tuesday states (minus at most 1-2) they'll be screwed.

With Trump they have a chance - a great chance - to beat Hillary. If they divide the party and undermine it's voters, or split them between two candidates, they're guaranteed a loss.

[onenote]

25. I see it differently.

Trump getting the nomination should be a motivating factor for anyone who believes that its important to protect racial and religious minorities, the disabled, women, and gays. On the other hand, the signs are pretty clear that if Trump is the nominee, a significant number of the repubs who supported Rubio and Cruz and Katich etc will sleep in on election day or vote for the Democratic candidate. Given the things Trump has said about the other repubs, it's not surprising that you already have repubs like Christie Whitman and Kathleen Parker expressly or implicitly stating that if the choice is between Trump and Clinton, republican voters should hold their nose and vote for Clinton because, in Parker's words, describing Trump, a candidate who is "mining anger and resentment rather than appealing to our better angels" has made "a Faustian bargain for which there should be no forgiveness. Nor, needless to say, votes."

Even George Will appears to be edging to the view that a Trump presidency is too dangerous for the nation.

[EdwardBernays]

28. No

Think about how many thousands of GOPers have waited decades to vote against Clinton.

Ted Cruz, the second most popular, is also mainly supported by people that want an outsider. They are very likely to come on board.

Aside from Rubios supporters the other candidates are basically at a few percentage points each.

The more that the establishment tries to stop Trump the more that people that have left the party because they believe it has lied to them repeatedly will flock to Trump.

He is easily getting the highest crowds in swing states and is ahead of Clinton in Florida polls already.

Clinton has hit her ceiling and in fact her trust numbers are only going one direction.

This is also an outsider year and the Dems are pushing the ultimate insider. And the ultimate Republican motivator.

And of course Trump can run to the left and right of Clinton.

And he can EASILY push a new scandal a week with Clinton. His media dominance - which costs him nothing - is so complete that the Clintonites will have to spend obscene amounts just to keep up. And to raise that money she'll have to keep meeting with 1%ers (and not releasing the transcripts).

And she's got to fight the drip of the FBI thing, win back all the Sanders supporters she's alienated and convince independents who largely don't like her that an indsider covered in scandal and corruption and seen as a leftwing boogeyman is someone they should hold their nose and vote for.

And sure even liberals are posting petitions saying they'll never vote for Hillary.

It's a situation that's going to keep getting worse...

[EL34x4]

29. The entrenched GOP establishment is making it known...

...that they would rather lose to Hillary Clinton than win with Donald Trump. Clinton, a fellow Washington insider, knows how the game is played. She won't upset the applecart. Trump, an outsider, will burn the whole place down, disrupting a spoils system that has been in place for the past 30 years.

Understanding this, establishment Republicans won't need to get a 3rd party spoiler on the ballot in all 50 states. Denying Donald Trump a handful of tight battleground races will be all it takes to toss the election to Hillary Clinton and maintain the status quo.

[JaneyVee]

21. LOL!!! NOOOOPE.

[EdwardBernays]

24. Prepare

To be very unpleasantly surprised.

[oldandhappy]

2. negativity and lies from the C camp turned me off

[Bubzer]

4. You're certainly not the only one.

[2pooped2pop]

3. they are actually trying to keep numbers down until after the primaries

as lo turnout as well as low info voters, favors their candidate.

[Bubzer]

5. That tactic will backfire. It'll propel trump to the whitehouse *smh*

[CountAllVotes]

6. Many voters have already given up, believing the fix is already in over at the DNC.

Sad. Very.

Well I've got some news and that is that yes, I will vote regardless of whether the fix is in.

Done it in the past and will do it again.

No one knows what is on your ballot.

I've done a write-in more than once Mr. Bill.

[redstateblues]

7. I thought Bernie was supposed to drive turnout to historic levels

[Bubzer]

10. I've never seen that claimed about Bernie... seen it a lot about hillary though.

[Gregorian]

8. With America's MSM, who needs apathy.

If people knew who Bernie Sanders is, they'd be out in droves. The ones who do know, are.

[TheDormouse]

12. comparing 2016 turnout to 2008 isn't realistic

As I posted in another thread,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511365485

2008 had John Edwards, who was a sitting Democratic senator from South Carolina, on the ballot. So of course the numbers were going to be way up that year, from people who liked Edwards and people who didn't like Edwards.
Plus, the first African-American with a real shot at a nomination.
Plus, a woman with the first real shot at the nomination.

Plus there were a bunch of candidates' campaign operations all working the state, not just the 2 (or 3, if you count the late Martin O'Malley) of the 2016 election.

So 2008 is not a typical sort of year if you are looking for a typical year by which to measure turnout.

[Bubzer]

13. Thats some odd logic.

You are aware O'Malley was running too right? Not really all that different from 2008. Bottom line is the count is dramatically lower than it should be for dems, and dramatically higher than it used to be for conservatives. You seem to be trying to argue for a point that has little to do with the OP.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

26. Exactly

Edwards got ~93,500 votes in 2008.

Take those out of the 2008 number, and you get 436,500, which is still a 16% drop in turnout.

For whatever reason, fewer Democrats are coming out for the primaries.

[AgerolanAmerican]

32. Where did the white voters go?

That's the question that needs to be asked.

Black voters have the same right as anyone else to vote for their preferred candidate.

But where are our white voters?

[revbones]

30. John Edwards was a Senator from North Carolina - not South Carolina

[book_worm]

16. Yes, why isn't Bernie doing better?

[Bubzer]

18. Easy... low turnout.

[2pooped2pop]

19. He got a very late start. Plus...

Hillary started four Yeats ago. She has been getting her scheme together for awiile.

I asked one person why sinve he hated Hillary, was he not considering Sanders. He said something like "yeah that's what they said about Obama too, and hge failed to do what he said. I won,'t get fooled again."

So it seems that having a good honest guy that might actually work for the people has been marred by Obama filling vacant seats with republicans and failing to make changes they can see.

But don't worry, if Hillary does get past Sanders and trump, things will definitely change. I just hope most will live through it.

[flamingdem]

20. kick

[Proud Liberal Dem]

22. Theory: This is a "maintaining the status quo" (more or less) for Democrats

We've had the WH for 8 years and Democratic voters aren't necessarily "excited" to change the party in the WH and both Clinton and Sanders are basically decent candidates without significant distinctions (to most Democratic party voters), so there's not a comparable "enthusiasm level" among Democratic Primary voters as there is among Republicans whom desperately want the WH for themselves (like we were in 2008 after 8 horrendous years of GWB). Hopefully, we will unify and mobilize against the eventual Republican nominee because none of us should want (or not care) about what a Trump, Rubio, Cruz, et. al Presidency might look like.

[bigwillq]

23. Not much of a race

Projections seemed like an easy Clinton win.
Motivation factor low.

[Duckhunter935]

27. I agree

It will just get worse

[revbones]

31. Republicans also had much more air time with more debates and

and 17 candidates stumping in various states. We also had 8 candidates in 2008 at one point driving up the vote.

Here's the info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008

[revbones]

33. Here are some additional numbers 2004-2016

The numbers for 2016 have increased over 2004. I think 2008 was helped by Democrats eager to get rid of Bush and 8 candidates running - 3 of which were somewhat stronger - but all had news cycles and many had gotv efforts.

South Carolina
2004 292,383
2008 532,468
2016 369,526


For reference:
2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_South_Carolina,_2004
2008: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_South_Carolina,_2008

[WillyT]

34. K & R !!!