Super Tuesday: The Most Interesting Number of All

Wow.

Thanks a bunch for this, Karen.

Wow.

Interesting.

Got the GOOPer numbers?

Great summary view of what happened.
I'd love to see the finals, once the outstanding 120,000 californians, 45,000 Minnesota votes and miscellaneous other votes are in.

I'd also love to know what percentage of those voters would vote for the other candidate in a general election. And while I'm at it, why not find out how that percentage breaks down by registered democrat and independent, or at least by open / closed tallies.

KT here--

Jim, FL: Jackson is crunching that number as we speak. Will post when I get it.

I'm also waiting for the side by side of that total compared to TOTAL Republican voters.

I'd hate to think that anyone's avoiding the comparison......

The fascinating thing is that Hillary is winning the popular vote and we kept hearing from the bloggers and media that Obama would win popularly and it would be outrageous for Hillary to continue to stand in his way. Whatever will be the new talking poin?

Whatever will be the new talking poin?
Posted by AnnL

Um.... that primary voters are different from general election voters?

AnnL, who is saying that? It sounds pretty anti-Democratic.
Niether of these candidates is, nor should they, go anywhere for some time.

Obama IS benefiting from the same element that the GOP did throughout the 1990's, and that McCain will have as a huge advantage in the November election (should Hipplery get the old party hack DLC nom): The narcissistic intervention and myopia of one BJ Clixon.

Before the Clixons, and BJ in particular, there was no GOP Supermajority, no state and local swing to the right, no balance in Congress, and no light at the end of the Abortion On Demand tunnel.

Thank you, BJ.

Thank you indeed.

Not that anyone is at my beck-and-call, but I'd like to see how many absentee ballots were cast for Clinton and Obama.

It seems that a good part of the Clinton campaign ground game is centered around locking in votes by asking people to use absentee ballots, as was done in New Hampshire:

[Clinton's New Hampshire campaign state director Nick] Clemons also made some other bets. For instance, his team figured Iowa "would come out, at best, a muddle," he said. As it happened, it was much worse for Clinton than that. But Clemons had aggressively pushed her supporters to vote absentee, beginning in December — in other words, "to get their votes in before Iowa even happened."

Large numbers of absentee ballots were requested in South Carolina, California has over three million absentee ballots to count, and Arizona and Tennessee reported an increase in early voting.

In California, from www.sfgate.com:

Clinton's intense vote-by-mail campaign appeared to pay dividends, giving her a lead in early returns that held up despite polls showing Obama with a late surge heading into Tuesday's vote. She had a narrow edge, 49 percent to 46 percent, with those who made up their minds in the last three days, but held a 17-point advantage among voters who had decided earlier.

It's interesting...to me, anyways.

@KT....

Thanks for the update.
Nothing like actually using the extra capability being online provides. We certainly appreciate it.

The Republican percentages are wrong, because they add to 100, and ignore Ron Paul, who got something in the vicinity of 5%, maybe higher.

Karen:

Thanks so much again, this is excellent information.

There is a critical number to analyze regarding the popular vote in the Democratic contests. How many votes did Hillary get from absentee ballots compared to Obama? These votes are usually cast very early and probably favored Hillary heavily. Many of these absentee voters many have changed their votes if they were cast on election day. Anyone know the vote count from only those voters that went to the polls on Tuesday?

California was a closed primary for Republicans and open for the Democrats. That is part of the reason for the huge discrepancy there. Many non-Democrats were able to vote for Democrat candidates whereas only registered Republicans could vote for the Republican candidates.

Additionally as noted the Ron Paul figures need to be included.

Hillary is using Al Gore strategy to cherry pick major cities in every state.

The problem is she will always lose the delegate count because the stratgy is faulty.

You would think her marketing poeple would know this.

Also Hilary over spent in Iowa by $10 million dollars. As a result, she no longer has the money to keep up with Obama.

If you supported Hillary, you should switch as soon possible to Obama. Be part of history!

It is utterly ridiculous to try and present a total vote count as caucuses record delegates to state conventions, not votes cast.

The entire premise poresented with these phony numbers is false on its face.

Just to add to my comment above. If one looks at the Florida vote tally the reason Hillary won by any substantial margin was due to the absentee ballots. On election day I believe Obama beat her tallying the votes cast on the day of the primary. This tells me Obama has momentum on his side and Hillary is getting by in many areas on her past popularity which is declining quickly.

The vote tallies in California would be interesting to know. Did she win there based on absentee ballots going her way overwhelmingly? If she did then the future contests may not go in her favor as easily since Obama's surge in popularity will take over and Hillary won't have stale absentee votes going into her column is a big way.

KT here--

An email I just got from Jackson:

Your commenters are astute about my numbers. At some point, you could tell them I didn’t set out to do all the candidates, just compare the big five candidates. I can do it for everyone, but that dead-tree issue has to get done asap.

Maybe after that I’ll give Ron Paul (and John Edwards) his due. Paul won substantial votes in places like Montana and Alaska.

Jackson has come up with some wonderful numbers, but obviously has other big things to do.

Here is a look at all the candidates through a couple minutes ago:

Full Results

WStarr:

To clarify on caucuses -

At least in MN, we conducted a straw poll by precinct which was reported, reflecting actual voters. Actual delegates to the national convention aren't picked for a while yet. So, actually, the vote count is real, while any delegate counts are slightly more speculative, though considering the county-by-county breakdown, the numbers were pretty consistent.

I have no reason to doubt that the Dem popular vote was that close; however, your percentages MUST be wrong because they total 100%

Many candidates other than Obama and Clinton appeared on state primary ballots, AND DID RECEIVE VOTES, particularly Edwards.

I don't know where you are are getting your numbers, but CNN's vote numbers when I add them up are basically Clinton 8.8 million, Obama 6.8 Million.

That was this morning. don't know how Hillary lost 1.5 million.

Maybe you should do a recount. Or people should use their own calculator with data than rely on some "data" guru who aught to go back to painting.

I've been doing a bit of comparison for the states with primaries (not including caucus states) so far compared with those in 2000. While the democrats increased their votes in each of the 17 states I'm looking at (and on average doubled the total number of voters), the Republicans had 5 states where the voting level is actually lower this time around. The big one of those is California, where apparently 4,153,693 people voted in the republican primary in 2000, while only 2,215,595 voted this time around. That number seems a little off to me, but if it is right then for the 17 states that have had their primaries so far this year, 9,531,712 have voted for republicans compared with 9,526,080 in 2000.
For Democrats the numbers would be 15,321,181 this year compared with 7,731,127 in 2000 (these numbers don't include Delaware, which I apparently didn't hold a democratic primary in 2000).
Voter enthusiasm seems to be just huge for the dems right now. Not so much for the republicans.

2000 sources:
http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/PRIMARY/prim2000R.html
http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/PRIMARY/prim2000D.html

For all the exit polls that say they want change at a ratio of 2-1. How then, does 7,347,971 realize that voting for Hillary is putting another family dynasty in the white house for which will be 30 years (counting bush sr as VP), or 38 should she get two terms. 38 years, two families, are you kidding me. Wake up people, America is not a monarchical society, history proves that monarchical empires fall.

This isn't the 90's anymore. The reason the economy was so good was because of beginning of the true technology sector, and the dot com boom was born. But quickly died. Things have plateaued just like every other new industry there has ever been in history.

I liked Bill as a president, but Hillary doesn't have one ounce of the charisma that Bill has.

We can't go backwards.
Vote for change!

Mercutio42 -

That's Minnesota. In Iowa, for example, nobody will ever know the popular vote. Same holds true for Nevada and Alaska.

It's ridiculous to even consider total popular vote during primaries/caucuses as it reflects nothing due to the nature of most caucuses.

WStarr -

I'm aware that other states caucus differently, and I'm not trying to suggest that the popular vote out of caucuses, when reportable, is a particularly useful measure with regards to calculating delegate counts.

My main goal was to clarify your comment which implied (to me, at least) that all caucuses are conducted in the same way and do not produce popular vote counts.

As for "total popular vote during primaries/caucuses", that does actually make a difference in some primary states, such as CA, where some delegates are awarded according to proportion of statewide vote.

The fact that HRC won in any state is quite a development. She has not only been running against BHO but Time, Newsweek CNN MSNBC POlitico Rush Drudge Mark Levin Air america the republican party and about a dozen others. This makes it an uphill battle, and yet she managed to win some big states. When reading these articles today you can almost see the tearstains on the paper as they try to deride her again today, every commentator on the above stations look as tho they have the sniffles today. Don't agree with HRC on a lot of things but I do have to admire the courage that she has shown in this vvveeeery uneven battle.

It would be interesting to see to total vote cast todate including Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina and New Hampshire. Granted some of these are caucus states so the total number of those voting is considerably less than a primary state.

I am in the middle of Black Swan, and cannot resist pointing out that primary voters are only 25% of those who will vote in the general. They are one story. The other 75% are a bigger story. Maybe they are not taken with emotional identity politics.

When do I get my free dead tree subscription, for getting you on Matt today?

You were above the fold, until a few tics ago.

Rock on, dudess!

QH:

What the hell would you need a subscription to DTTime for?

Unless you need to check soil erosion at some local beach, why not just wait until you have to visit some physician's office, and read it then?

"What the hell would you need a subscription to DTTime for?"

Why Zeth, we use them old lefty rags here at the Howard Scream Memorial Ski Lozenge, to help get the wood stoves going in the morning.

And line the rabbit cages for the cook, of course.

Ski Slips Up!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080206/ap_on_el_pr/missouri_ap_call_2;_ylt=Am24CsXpTc.hi.3X15ywjKFh24cA

BTW, does that include the pending Mizzou re-count?

AP party hats for Hillary rule!

People are quoting these numbers, not mentioning that in some states the Democratic party allowed Independents to vote and Republicans didn't, and vice versa.

For example, California has 37.7 million people, about 12% of the population of the United States, about 300 million.

19.4% of Californian voters are Independent (decline-to state), and were only allowed to participate in the Democratic primary.

Thats 7.3 million people in CA possibly joining the California Democratic race because they couldn't join the Republican race.

I don't know turnout figures, but a lot of precincts ran out of ballots because they didn't consider the amount of decline-to-state voters in the Democratic voting process

Actually I made a slight mistake . I found the percent of california residents, not registered voters, which is 15.7 million.

So there are potentially 3 million decline-to-state voters,

Also, keep in mind, Democrats voted in more states yesterday, plus more primaries as opposed to Caucuses. The Alaskan vote was a primary on the Democrat side, but a caucus on the Republican side. West Virginia was a Republican caucus

Hey Jackson: why not do total votes cast for Dems? As in, include Iowa, NH, Nevada, and SC totals?

I'd like to see that; in fact, may do it myself.

Mopper and Brian-

I reported some numbers up page comparing all primaries (and only primaries) in which both republicans and democrats have voted this year. Obviously I couldn't control for which parties allowed independents, nor is it 100% fair to compare the two SC contests, since they were held on different days, but there's the data, such as it is.

Also note that I reported the numbers for the same states' primaries from 2000.

To recap
R's, 2000: 9,526,080
R's, 2008: 9,531,712

D's, 2000: 7,731,127
D's, 2008: 15,321,181

There's definitely a swell in voter participation this time around, it's just chiefly on the democrat's side.

Why are people so worried about Clinton running out of money? I'm from L.A. and did not see one Clinton ad, while Barack was all over the place, on every local channel. She still beat him SOUNDLY here. You go, girl. Case closed....

For those who are curious, I did some similar popular vote tallying for my workplace blog that includes more than the top-tier candidates (though not every last candidate--time was limited) and also shows numbers for each state as well as overall totals. It's at www.flaminggrasshopper.com.

Thanks for providing these numbers! I'm curious why the popular vote numbers are not more readily available. For instance I can't find them in the online NY
Times. That is weird! What is going on? Mr. Dykman, what was your source? Are the parties making this info less than easily accessible? In any case it is the job of news organizations to find it and make it available. Give us the data, not just endless "analysis". Yes, it is important to distinguish between primaries and caucuses, states with primaries in both parties and others, etc. So some work needs to be done to organize the data to succinctly present the data while not obscuring these complications. That is no excuse for not giving us the info. Thanks Mr. Dykman - why did you have to (apparently) steal time from what you were supposed to be doing to do this? This is basic.

Not that it changes much but for clarity's sake--as of about noon on Wednesday (state numbers from CNN's site) the clinton vote in the states holding priomaries on Super Tuesday was 7,293,588. The Obama vote was 7,070,977. That's clinton 50.77% Obama 49.23%. Close but clear. What's suprising is the difference between the primary and caucus states.Clinton won 9 of the 15 primaries (assuming the NM lead holds up) but lost by wide margins all the causus states. Time magazine folks,or anyone, any ideas why? And what does it mean? The most committed democratic voters around the country have selected Obama? But the rank and file who actually decide elections are tending toward Clinton? Full dicslsure--I'm a Clinton voter from NY, but will be an enthusiastic Obama voter if he gets the nomination.By the way if you factor in votes from the other primary states not including Michigan -New hampshire, Florida and South Carolina, clinton's % goes up a bit but it is basically the same story --a 51-49 split. (these are clinton, obama voters only--not richadson, edwards etc.

To clarify a bit more. New Mexico is considered a caucus state, not a primary state. But it was a relatively "open" caucus with about 140,000 votes. In 2004 New Mexico had about 360,000 votes cast for kerry in november. On the other had a caucus state like kansas had 36,000 total people at the caucuses and 434,000 votes for Kerry in 2004. So kansas caucus-goers represented about 6% of likely democratic voters in the general election. I think the % of caucus goers to likly general election voters varied a lot at the different caucus states.

In my family both of us are voting for Obama in the primary. Those are votes AGAINST Hillary.

In the general we will vote AGAINST either of them. I would guess there is a big bunch of crossovers in the Dem Pri count.

This article was interesting at best, but not too thorough. You listed (under Republican) Biden with 0% and Richrdson with 0%. You listed Romney who "is no longer" Soooooo
Where was RON PAUL? iT AMAZES ME THAT WHILE MILLIONS OF US OUT THERE ARE SUPPORTING DR. PAUL (financially, and in every other way possible) YOU pretend he doesn't exist.
No wonder NO ONE believes anything in the mainstream media. GO RON PAUL ! ! !

Fantastic,

But I am wondering, what were the state by state popular vote breakdowns? Is Democratic turnout higher in states that have traditionally had larger Republican populations? If so who is winning those states?

Does this total popular vote include Michigan and Florida for the Dems?