THE PLANK FEBRUARY 12, 2008
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A propos of Eve's earlier post on red-state Virginia's tendency to tease Dems into thinking it might one day turn blue, the turnout numbers today are (as they've been elsewhere throughout the primaries) rather eye-popping.
Specifically, with 99 percent counted, there were over 960,000 Virginians who cast votes in the Democratic primary, versus just 478,000 who offered a GOP preference--a two-to-one margin. Barack Obama alone won 140,000 more votes than all the Republicans combined. This seems to me to be a significant development, though I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of those more expert in the political intricacies of the Commonwealth. (virginiacentrist?)
--Christopher Orr
4 comments
I wish I could say these numbers were historic...but they remind me of the onesided tilt towards Democrats during the days of the Byrd machine.
- virginiacentrist
February 13, 2008 at 12:01am
Well, with the Republican race pretty sewn up, if I were a VA Repub I'd go vote for a Dem too.
- psantillana
February 13, 2008 at 1:02am
Good point, psantillana. But I'm guessing that the 2:1 Dem-to-Rep ratio didn't apply to all the states on Tuesday.
- Gabbage
February 13, 2008 at 4:35pm
Here are the turnout numbers for all the post Super Tuesday states that held primaries for both Dems and Republicans:
Maryland: 734,994 Dems, 281,145 Republicans
Lousiana: 357,547 Dems, 156,101 Republicans
Washington: 31,984 Dems, 13,475 Republicans
The Louisiana numbers are most interesting, since it is an even more Republican state than Virginia.
- Gabbage
February 13, 2008 at 4:44pm