Wanted: data on 2004 aggregate primary voting results

[Old and In the Way]

Anyone have a link to a site/database that shows total voter turnout in the 2004? I'm curious to see how both parties did 2004 vs. 2008. Tried the Google, but couldn't find any source.

[dbmk]

1. This might get you some of the data you need

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P04/tally.phtml

If not that link precisely, I am almost sure they have them in there somewhere.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Thanks!

Total Democratic vote 2004 primaries = 16,535,823
Total Republican vote 2004 primaries = 8.008,070 (hmmmm....50% of Democratic turnout and Bush beat Kerry by 3 million?, why do I wonder about that election result...)

Total Democratic vote 2008* primaries = 37,041,569
Total Republican vote 2004* primaries = 20.041,057

2008 does not inc. ID (R), Montana (both), Nebraska (R), NM (R), SD (Both), Wyoming (D)

Pretty interesting results...2008 primary is 50% of 2004 GE. People seem to be getting really interested in the politics. That 2004 primary is mighty suspicious.

[karynnj]

4. There is nothing fishy about that

Bush was running unopposed - of course this led to fewer people voting in the primary. If it was inconvenient, you would just not vote. In 2008, both parties had contested elections.

[hokies4ever]

5. Bush was the presumptive nominee before the 2004 primary race even started

obviously. Did Bush even have any real competition for the nomination in 2004? Perhaps you should compare 2000 numbers.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Of course, you are both right about 2004.

I realized that after looking at the numbers...should have corrected my post. I was trying to see if there is a correlation between primary participation and GE turnout, but the incumbancy factor makes that difficult.

Funny, though, I thought there was about the same level of enthusiasm in 2004 for the Democrats as this year, but the numbers don't bear that out. Maybe because Kerry racked up strong wins early depressed later primary participation?

[karynnj]

3. Here's my favorite link to that information

I like the way the charts on the primary data is laid out.

Kerry got 60.7%, Edwards got 19.3%, Dean 5.7%, Kuchinich 3.8%, Clark 3.5%, Sharpton 2.4%, Leiberman 1.7%

(I assume that Edwards and Kuchinich benefited by staying in the longest through the SuperTuesday when Kerry clenched the nomination with margins as high or higher than 40 points in CA, NY, and MA.)

http://www.rhodescook.com/primary.analysis.html

My own look back with the chart leads me to think that the party operatives likely knew after the first multistate day that it would be Kerry. This was because of the states - states Dean said he wasn't going to contest, but would instead go seriously after the next round . These were not states that were likely to be won by the New Englanders in the race. After those wins, the Kerry intern rumor started - probably from fellow Democrats, but Kerry defeated it quickly as the lie it was.