Recent primary in Wis - why such large turnout?

[HardWorkingDem]

Opinions on why Dems are having such huge turnouts?

Is it because the race is still "competitive"? People want change?

Any ideas?

If I'm not mistaken, didn't HRC get more votes than McCain/Huckabee combined and still come in second?

[demo dutch]

1. Open primary, Many indies voted Dem

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Yep, and Obama beat Hill among registered Democrats

[AGirl]

17. by how much?

[John Q. Citizen]

23. 53% to 46%

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21226015/

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. It's because the last 8 years have sucked, and people are sick of it.

They want change.

[ginnyinWI]

4. I'd say we're excited about this year's election

I think the young adults and black voters are especially excited about Obama, who represents something other than politics as usual.

Was our turnout so much higher than other states? Minnesota had about four times the caucus goers as last time. Iowa's turnout was huge, too. Seems to me it's a pretty widespread trend.

Wisconsin't turnout is always a little higher than the average--we're more civic minded I guess.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

15. how did Obama do with the Republican crossover vote?

[ginnyinWI]

24. I don't think anyone has hard numbers.

You hear stories of individuals. I know my county had more votes for Obama than the other three candidates, and that's unusual because they vote Republican in the General by about 66%. This week, Huck and Mic got 35,000 votes together, and Hillary and Barack got 59,000 together. We all got the same paper ballot with all the names on it, so nobody really can tell at this point.

[Renew Deal]

5. Obama's GOTV is really good.

That's why turnout is so high.

[Missy M]

6. One theory is....

Republicans are crossing over in the primaries to vote for Obama because they feel if he is the nominee they can beat him. Therefore, it looks as if more Democrats and less Republicans are voting, but not so. I tend to go along with this theory.

[scheming daemons]

7. Only 9% of the voters in the Dem primary were Republicans...

...Sorry... your theory isn't supported by the facts.

[Missy M]

11. How do you know that...

in Wisconsin you don't have to declare a party in advance of voting.

[tammywammy]

12. That's what the exit polls say

9% were republicans.

[Missy M]

13. I'm not one to believe what people say in exit polls.

[mcctatas]

14. Geez....

There are alot of exit polling results...of course maybe the cagey republicans were trying to lull us into a false sense of security to keep Hillary from getting the nomination....:eyes:
http://blogs.wispolitics.com/election/

[Arkansas Granny]

8. There have been several theories put forth here and I would

suppose that it is probably a combination of all of them. I'm hoping that we have the same large turnout for Democrats in November so there will be no doubt of the will of the voters and make it next to impossible to manipulate the voting results.

[HardWorkingDem]

18. And doesn't this bode well for Dems in the fall?

If the numbers are this high now, doesn't that trend well for us in the fall?

My view is that usually the real die hards vote in primaries, so if this is somewhat true, then the fall might be amazing.

[Arkansas Granny]

22. I hope that the primary votes do turn into GE votes also. I know

that Democrats have had a good selection of candidates to choose from this primary season and it has really gotten them enthused about their vote, which is a good thing.

The Republicans, on the other hand, haven't really had an exciting cast to choose from this year which may have depressed their voting numbers in the primaries. However, they may turn out in droves for the GE out of desperation to keep Republican control of the White House. And we also have to face the fact that many of them who swear they will never vote for McCain are going to decide that in the end they just can't vote for a woman or a black man. That's kind of hard to predict.

[rurallib]

9. Good weather

[mcctatas]

10. Well anecdotally speaking as a WI resident...

one of the other quirky factors about my state is we have same day registration and the college dems at my school were really pushing voter turnout. I am looking for hard #'s to back up this theory, but I think there were probably alot of first time voters...

[stahbrett]

16. Here's an interesting stat - the Republicans had a higher turnout in FL and MI

Isn't is strange that in FL and MI, the Republicans had a higher turnout than the Democrats? I think only Alabama (heavy Republican electorate, closed primary) had such a thing, and even then the difference was a whopping 10,000 votes out of 1.1 million votes. Yet some folks want to pretend that FL and MI were just normal elections that should count...

[ElsewheresDaughter]

19. FL a "closed" primary & I would trust it but MI an "open" primary &repukes prob muddied the water

[Rageneau]

20. There were long lines for the "Tickle Me Elmo" doll, too.

And when I was a kid, we waited outside the store for the truck bringing Hula Hoops.

Fads flare up sometimes. When they do, everybody, especially young people, want to be part of it. This season, the fad is primary politics.

I doubt the current fervor will last.

The woods are full of Pet Rocks that bored owners eventually released back into the wild.

[Kashka-Kat]

21. Either Im a cynical or a realist --- many indeps/ repubs vote for Obama out of irrational hatred of

Hilary and have no intention of voting for him in Nov. Believe me it gives me no joy or satisfaction to post that and I sincrely hope Im wrong ... but I fear that it may be true based on what I've heard from out of the mouths of actual Wis voters Im (unfortunately) acquainted with...

[mcctatas]

25. I'm a WI voter...

acquainted with (and related to) many republican WI voters and I think you are not factoring in the fact that MANY of them hate McCain almost as much as Hillary, so while it may be true that they will not come out and vote for Obama in Nov. many of them will just stay the fuck home and pout rather than vote for McCain...Unless of course the nominee is Hillary!