Thursday 17 October 2019

Why Enthusiasm in Presidential Primaries Matters

Back in 2016, the Democratic primary resulted in 40,000,000 people coming out for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton (between the two of them). 

The 2012 Democratic primary (with strictly one candidate) had only 6,000,000 people out.  He didn't need the enthusiasm, but it hurt his situation for the House and Senate members who were running.

The 2008 Democratic primary?  It had roughly 35-million folks show up (I should note, on pure numbers....Hillary had around 300k extra votes in that primary).

The 2004 Democratic primary? It had 14 to 15 million people show up for the primary election.

The 2000 Democratic primary? It had around 14 million people show up for the primary election. 

Some people now believe that you need 'hype' or enthusiasm going on, to attain the bigger vote in November.  All of these debate forums and 15-plus candidates on the party platform....was supposed to deliver more people showing up and attaching themselves to the November election (2020).

Well, here's the thing, if Warren is settled upon by late February as the only viable candidate from the group....meaning Bernie and Joe are out entirely....then the dismal numbers will appear at Super-Tuesday, and Warren probably won't top more than 15-million votes for the entire primary (more than enough delegates to win the convention). 

A bad formula for the November election?  Yes.  But this is how strange the 2016 and 2020 elections are constructed.  The odds of ever constructing another Bernie-Hillary primary season?  I'd say it could take another thirty years to get that much hype over two entirely different candidates, from the same party.

So I'd advise you to watch the Super-Tuesday event with the 12 states involved, and the likely scenario that you only get 50-percent of the voters showing up....compared against 2016.  If this is the occurrence.....you can forget the chat or hype business, and give Trump another three or four states more than the 30 states he won in 2016. 

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