“Super Tuesday boost for Dems: South Carolina primary turnout shatters 2016 level”

I don’t know exactly what USA today thinks this high vote count in SC means, but it’s pretty easy to explain, and the cause is obviously not what they are assuming.

South Carolina has open primaries. In 2016, there was a passionately contested Republican primary in South Carolina. Six different candidates pulled at least 7% of the vote, and emotions ran especially hot between Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Passionate conservatives were voting there, ignoring the Democratic race. About 700,000 people voted in that Republican Primary, roughly twice as many as in the parallel Democratic race. This year there was no Republican primary at all, so more voters crossed over.

Based on the exit polls (2016, 2020), this year’s breakdown was 70-25-5 (Dem-Ind-Rep), while 2016’s breakdown was 82-16-2. The results of that math:

South Carolina Democratic Primary 2020 2016 change
Total votes 538,233 370,904
Democrats 376,763 304,141 +24%
Republicans + Independents 161,470 66,763 +142%

You can see where the bulk of the increase came from.

I don’t think South Carolina is useful as a barometer of the nation’s Democratic passion, and not just for the reasons stated above. I think many states will actually see big turn-outs because of Bernie fever, but there’s no Bernie fever in South Carolina. In fact, Bernie got a much lower percentage of the SC primary vote this year than in he did in 2016 (20% this year, 26% four years ago), and even his raw vote count was not much higher (105,000 in 2020 versus 96,000 in 2016), despite all the increased voters from both sides of the aisle.

South Carolina is Biden country, and you don’t choose Biden out of passion, but out of default. He’s the Chicken Parm of candidates. You choose him because he’s safe and you don’t like anything else on the menu.

4 thoughts on ““Super Tuesday boost for Dems: South Carolina primary turnout shatters 2016 level”

  1. Well, if the crossover voters didn’t for Sanders, who did they vote for?
    Biden?
    I am guessing it wasn’t because of some 4th dimension chess game that will ensure Trump gets re-elected. But it looks like Republicans (especially in the 1st district, came out in droves to vote for Biden)
    The gender makeup of the electorate would be pretty telling.
    Trump is about as popular with women voters as a raging UTI and polling men versus women about Trump looks like a partisan poll, even when the partisan breakdown is even.

    1. Biden won the crossover vote, but there was disproportionate voting for Klobuchar and Buttigieg relative to their voting from Dems.

  2. It might be a mistake to assume that all those additional voters who voted in the Democratic Primary would have voted in a contested Republican Primary. It would not necessarily be accurate to claim that South Carolina is trending Democratic, but there are a number of areas in the state where Democrats have been gaining support recently, especially among white voters. A number of Congressional districts are relatively competitive, and the Democrats picked up the Atlantic Coast based district, apparently primarily on global warming concerns and the Republican Party being in denial over it.

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