Even though most people fully expected Barack Obama to win South Carolina yesterday, no one (almost) seemed to anticipate his margin of victory. The day before, only Public Policy Polling accurately predicted that Obama was ahead by twenty points. And even they were off. Obama won by 28 points over Clinton. He carried a surprising majority, 55% of the vote.
But that’s not the only story here.
The other story is voter turnout. And if you’re a Republican, you can’t be comfortable knowing that Democratic voter turnout has been shattering records and out-pacing Republican votes by a significant margin.
In Iowa, more than 227,000 people showed up for the Democratic caucuses; compare that with only 120,000 Republican caucus-goers. To be fair, Iowa has more registered Democrats than registered Republicans… one percent more.
In New Hampshire, voter turnout, once again, shattered records, and interestingly, Barack Obama, the second-place finisher in the Democratic primary with 104,000 votes, still received more votes than both John McCain (88,000 votes) and Mitt Romney (75,000 votes).
Nevada wasn’t hotly-contested by Republicans, but the trend continued (and even Republicans set records):
About 116,000 Democrats, 28 percent of all Nevada’s registered Democrats, showed up at 520 precincts around the state. The previous record for a Democratic caucus was nearly 9,000 who turned out for the 2004 presidential race.
More than 44,000 Republicans, 11 percent of registered GOP voters, were on hand at 113 precincts. The most the Nevada GOP had drawn to a presidential caucus before was 2,000 to 3,000 voters, according to party officials.
“It’s off the charts,” said Jill Derby, the state Democratic Party chairwoman. “There were some bumps in the road. We ran out of forms, the lines were too long and the rooms were too small. But, hey, that’s good news.”
But this doesn’t compare to the turnout in South Carolina yesterday. 530,000 people showed up to vote in the Democratic primary, 84,000 more than had showed up to vote in the Republican primary. (And South Carolina is supposed to be a red state). More significantly (from DailyKos.com):
- Total 2008 South Carolina Primary Turnout
- Democratic: about 530,322
Republican: about 446,000 - Obama received more votes than all Democrats in the 2004 South Carolina Democratic Primary (292,383).
- Obama received more votes in this primary than George W. Bush received in 2000 when he beat John McCain (Bush won 293,652 votes).
- Obama has won more votes than McCain and Huckabee won in South Carolina–combined.
- Republican turnout in the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary was about 573,000 (the state’s record). This appears to make this primary the second highest turnout in South Carolina history. In other words, Democrats are likely going to finish about 40,000 shy of what the GOP was ever able to crank out in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by a wide margin.
I don’t expect Louisiana Republicans to appreciate the significance of this yet; they’re likely to focus on racial politics (imposing demographic data as a way of attempting to predict the Democratic candidate…. something that still baffles me, considering Obama’s win in a place like Iowa) and fear-mongering, because this is what they know best. (Oh wait, they already are).
But it won’t work this time. People are waking up, particularly young people.
By the way, the youth vote in South Carolina was three times as much as it was in 2004.
CenLamar 
I also ran through these numbers (from the CNN website) last night, and found the same conclusions you draw in this post. I have yet to follow-up with a look at 2004’s numbers for South Carolina, but the message Obama’s surrogates should be steadily drumming (or dripping) from now through at least February 5 is the real possibility that he can peel southern states from the Republicans in the general election. A win by Obama (assuming he wins the Democratic nomination) in November could signal the death of the “Southern Strategy” employed by the Republicans since 1968; a strategy based on exploiting racism and racist attitudes that are unfortunately endemic to the south. When Obama talks about being a transformational candidate, the elimination of the “Southern Strategy” would be one example of what he can point to when asked to define said transformation.
I’m curious, Lamar, since I’m now an Alexandria ex-pat, do you have a feeling for what CenLa’s thinking about Obama?
Chronos,
I left out an important detail; most of these races were open primaries, which means that the Democrats are likely pulling a ton of independent and even Republican support.
Obama obviously doesn’t yet have a ground operation here. Neither does Hillary. So it’s somewhat difficult to gauge support. There are a few Hillary signs around here, and Brent Sanders has done a good job canvassing for Ron Paul.
I can tell that some Republican/Libertarians aren’t too thrilled with the notion of Obama as President, based on how egregious their whisper campaign seems to be. Some people will always love the sensational more than they love the truth.
I think Obama would easily carry Rapides Parish over any Republican challenger. No question.
As another postscript, the reason I believe Obama (and even Hillary) could easily carry Rapides Parish is mainly because of how lackluster all of the Republican nominees are this year. Rapides Parish voted for Clinton in 1996, and we have a history of electing Democrats to local, parish, and statewide elections.
On local Republican blog, someone said I was “out of touch” for expressing this sentiment. I don’t think so.
I will say this though: John McCain in Rapides Parish would be formidable (Sorry “PawPaw’s House”). Obama and/or Clinton could easily beat anyone else. Romney? Guiliani? And Huckabee’s now running for VP.
I guess things will start shaping up for the Republicans tomorrow in Florida.
I be shakin in my boots with da news.