OpEdNews - Diary: Super Tuesday's Super Turnout

February 7, 2008 at 04:18:41 Permalink
Super Tuesday's Super Turnout

Diary Entry by Project Vote (about the author)

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Today, Project Vote released a mini-analysis of exit polls in five states, comparing the turnout rates of young voters (18-29), Blacks, and Latinos from the 2004 Super Tuesday primaries to the ones from last night.

The full results of the analysis for Arizona, California, Georgia, Missouri, and Tennessee, can be found here, but we thought we would pull out a few of the most interesting take-aways.

* 18-29 turnout in Georgia grew by 7 percentage points from 2004 (11% of the 2004 turnout and 18 percent of 2008's), an astounding 63% increase from the last Democratic primary. Even more significantly this matches the percentage achieved by voters over 60.
* In each case in the South, Blacks outperformed their percentage in the Voting Eligible Population (VEP). In GA they make up 29 percent of the VEP, but were 51 percent of the turnout, in MO they make up 11 percent of the VEP, but 17 percent of the turnout. In TN they make up 15 percent of the VEP, but were 29 percent of the 2008 Democratic turnout.
* The biggest surprise of the night, however, was the massive increase in turnout of Latinos in California. For the first time in memory Latinos out performed their percentage of the VEP in the Democratic primary there. Latino turnout was up 81 percent (13 percentage points) to 29% while only making up 22 percent of the VEP in California.

Project Vote is the leading technical assistance and direct service provider to the civic participation community. Since its founding in 1982, Project Vote has provided professional training, management, evaluation (more...)

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