We’ll have to wait until November to know how many people will cast votes in the general election. But Michael Barone writes for the Washington Examiner that primary election turnout offers some valuable clues.
So what do I see in turnout so far that may have significance for the general election. On the Democratic side, we see much lower turnout than 2008 by blacks and Latinos — and a near-disappearance of Democratic primary voters labeling themselves as “moderate” or (as very few do) “conservative.”
I see Hillary Clinton’s narrower margins among Northern than Southern blacks as problematic—perhaps signs of lower turnout or decreasing Democratic percentages or both — for her. I see Sanders’ 80-plus percent wins among under-30 voters as a sign that Clinton will have trouble duplicating Millennial enthusiasm and turnout in 2008.
On the Republican side, I see increased turnout (including significant increases in evangelical turnout) as very interesting, coupled with the fact that Republican debates have drawn double to triple the audience as the most-viewed Republican debate in the past.
Some of this — it is unknowable how much — is due to interest in and curiosity about Donald Trump. And the potential for higher Republican turnout in November may be more than counterbalanced by either Trump’s nomination or by his rejection at the Republican convention. I think that the low Democratic turnout, together with the dire picture of the nation presented by the two Democratic candidates in the eighth year of a Democratic administration, is bad news for Democrats. Not the politics of joy!
So, problems for Democrats and advantages for Republicans, which they might very well squander.