2020 D and R presidential primaries - ongoing analysis to 2016/2012/2008

This coming Friday, March 6th, 2020, when the results really should be 100% (it will probably take longer in California, due to CA mail-in ballot laws), I will be doing a complete comparison of these 14 states plus American Samoa to 2016 (D,R), 2012 (R) and 2008 (D, R). Here I am referring to both the Democratic primaries and the Republican primaries (there were some).

But first, three truly non-partisan impressions:

1.) Yesterday was a major surprise on the Democratic side. The perfect storm of events that led to yesterday, I think, no one could have seen coming.

2.) Yesterday proved the age-old adage that a day can be a year in politics.

3.) The pollsters were not wrong. Rather, events that all happened in less than 36 hours made it physically impossible for any pollster to do a 3 day survey following SC anywhere in the field. So, the exciting part of last night was that we truly had to watch and wait and see the actual results. And frankly, that's how elections will be. Let the people speak and then listen to what they said.

Dear Mods - although this thread is about Super Tuesday, it is specifically about a post-mortem analysis and I ask of you to not merge this thread with others. Thanks much in advance.

-Stat

 

Only the DNC planners saw this coming with some fancy behind-the-scenes work, like Obama calling Klobuchar and Buttigieg just in the nick of time.

I'll look forward to your analysis.

 

"What happened?" is a meritorious query.

A timely concurrence of fortuitous happenstances occurred for Biden, not least of which is the dilatory result from California, where many had cast early ballots for Sanders, before Bidenmania had swept the land. As a belated addendum to the tally, the California result does not carry a perceived significance proportional to the numbers.

Following the exposure and collapse of the Trump caper to slime Biden with that Ukraine confection, the parrot chorus had been queued to squawk "Socialist! Socialist!" and will now have to re-deploy their formidable phalanx of dung-catapults at Biden.

It'll be interesting to see the nature of the ordure that will now be loaded in lieu of their Ukrainian dud ammunition.

Meanwhile the Democratic challenge is fusing the idealistic ardor Sanders engenders in the young and better-educated with the practical, dogged decency that is Joe's bailiwick.

Caledonian nationalist Hugh MacDiarmid's wistful yearning ineluctably arises:

"Scots steel tempered wi' Irish fire is the weapon that I desire!"​

 

Biden will not excite the young with his dementia nor with his continuing to recite nostalgic pieces of campaign scripts from his 1978 campaign.

Biden is stale and moldy and his son Hunter is being deposed for child support this month.

"Biden Ukraine!!!" is just beginning.

 

Recycling the dud ammo may not be viable and refocus public attention on the Trump perfidy for which he was impeached, but let's first assess the resurrection.

 

It sure has not worked well for Democrats screaming "Trump Russia" for 3 years. That doesn't mean that Republicans are any smarter to not try "Biden Ukraine" in retort.

 

There is a widespread consensus among intelligence services that Putin has and continues to interfere in the election of multiple democracies, the US conspicuous among them.

There are no charges against Biden concerning Ukraine anywhere.

Let's analyze Biden's resurgence, before the dung-flinging extravaganza commences.

 

Of course Putin continues to interfere in elections. Russia has done that for at least 100 years. The internet just makes it easier.

You have to have an investigation before there are charges.

Yes, the DNC has selected Biden as the chosen one for 2020, so he surged. He is the only candidate who would take marching orders from DNC authorities.

 

If you look in the primary predictions thread you'll see I picked the winner in 11 of those 15 races, had Biden with exactly 8 victories overall all along, got the exact order of finish in Texas, North Carolina and Utah (and had it right for Virginia until I adjusted for Klobuchar dropping out.
I'd like someone to explain who anyone thought was going to win the south if not Biden. The last option ended when Patrick bailed out.
Bloomberg got a little more for his commercials than Steyer did, plus a boost for name recognition. Now he's out because it would take Buttigieg-style hard work to catch up now.
The things I didn't expect were Biden winning Minnesota and Massachusetts. No one likes Warren. I knew that but thought her home state, her birth state or the state she lived in half her life would give her a second place finish or 2.
As I always expected, Biden takes the south, Sanders takes the west.
The battle for New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin will decide the person in first place at the end.

 

Putting Joe and "decency" in the same sentence was an interesting choice.

 

Is the implication here supposed to be that Joe is not decent?

 

Yes, from the linked article:

 

So, as promised, the post-mortem begins, albeit one day later I thanplanned. My business is booming and so I often don't have the time I would like to enjoy political statistics. It's good to be busy!

What I have done is to create an EXCEL TABLE, starting with our nation's largest state, California, and have input all of the primary numbers for both parties from 2020 back to (and including) 2008.

I will try to get one state done per day - and this table will only be for the primary states, NOT caucus states (because there can be no logical comparison). At the end of the primary election season, all of the primary states will be in this document, with a tab for each individual state.

The table is HERE. Enjoy! In future postings I will simply refer to the table and you can go see the data for yourself.

Here two screenshots of California. I think this stuff will be pretty self-explanatory.

First, the actual results from CA:



Important caveat: the results from CA are not final yet - they will be final at the beginning of April. This is standard procedure for CA every election cycle; it is no surprise. So, the current vote total for 2020 is bound to go up, and perhaps, considerably.

Everything in column A is hyperlinked, and in this case, excepting 2020 (at current), hyperlinked to the actual, official vote canvass for that state. As soon as the CA 2020 canvass is out, I will replace the hyperlinks.

You will see that 2016 and 2012 are repeated. This is so that I can compare each cycle to the cycle directly before it. Come 2024, I will be comparing then to 2020, and so forth.

The tables concern themselves only with the popular vote and not with the delegate count, for the simple reason that the delegate count in the Democratic Party is based on the 15% hurdle is also calculated per congressional district. I simply do not have the time to do these numbers per CD, so I'll just stick with the overall statewide popular vote.

Some superlatives to note:
​

-In terms of the total popular primary vote, per party, the high-water mark for the Democratic Party is 2016; for the Republican Party, the high-water mark is 2008.

-An interesting note about the D-electorate vs. the R-electorate: in the D primaries where an incumbent D President was not on the ballot (2008, 2016, 2020), the winning %margin has been between +7-8%, a solid margin, but less than a landslide. In the R-primaries, it looks somewhat different. In the R-primaries in years where no incumbent R-President was on the ballot (2008, 2012, 2016), the margin has been between +8 and +75%. Now, part of the explanation for this could be that in 2008, the primary was in early February, where there were considerably more R candidates still officially on the ballot, which was not the case in either June 2012 or June 2016.

-Another interesting (but not surprising) note is that in years where an incumbent President of that party is on the ballot, essentially unchallenged, the overall turnout for that party went down. See: Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2020.

-Another interesting observation is the number of candidates who went from number 2 in one cycle to number 1 in the next:
1.) Mitt Romney from the 2008 R primary to the 2012 R primary
2.) Barack Obama from the 2008 D primary to the 2012 D primary (in 2012, of course, he was the sitting POTUS)
3.) Bernie Sanders from the 2016 D primary to the 2020 D primary.

-The all-time record vote-getters in this state, by party: Democratic Party - Hillary Clinton (2016) / Republican Party - Donald Trump (2020)

As far as I can tell, Hillary Clinton is the only presidential candidate in California history to win the primary in two non-consecutive cycles (2008, 2016).

In terms of total vote (although this says little vis-a-vis total VR in the state):



We can see that CA is a D-heavy state, usually D70/R30 when you measure the overall primary vote. Although this statistic is interesting to follow, it is my experience that primary results in no way are predictors of how a state will perform in the General Election. We can also see that the epic primary battle of 2008 (in both parties) led to a far higher voter turnout than the next open cycle (2016). So, intense competition, I think, can indeed drive up voter turnout.

You will notice that I have not made any editorial comments (positive / negative) about any one candidate, but rather, am letting the numbers speak for themselves.

The numbers for Texas, maybe also NC, will come out tomorrow.

-Stat

 

So, the post-mortem for TEXAS is done. There are some interesting things to note.



Dems: In both 2008, 2016 and 2020 - when the more centrist candidate was pitted against the more liberal candidate, the centrist won.
Reps: In 2008, McCain won handily, but the field was pretty split. The most "liberally" viewed of the Rs in that year, Mitt Romney, did the worst in Texas. In 2016, Texas was one of the states that voted against Trump - with the favorite-son effect in Ted Cruz.

Superlatives:
-highest D vote-getter: Clinton, 2008
-highest R vote-getter: Trump, 2020



You will notice that for California in the posting above this one, I listed the combined totals margin and margin % in blue, as that state tends to default Democratic in presidential elections. The opposite is true in Texas and so I have the total margin and margin% in red and calculated for the Republican party. This is why you see a negative margin for both 2020 and 2008, for in those two cycles, more people voted in the D-primary than in the R-primary.

In terms of superlatives, the highest D turnout was in 2008, whereas the highest R turnout was in 2016. Not too surprising as both cycles were OPEN presidential election cycles and in both cases, the party with more votes was the party currently out of power in the White House, wanting to re-capture the White House.

Texas does a very, very good job of recording and publishing it's vote totals. The website is easy to navigate and the information is presented in a nice, simple, vanilla fashion.

-Stat

 

Bernie couldn't win because the DNC doesn't want him to. They want Biden because they will install the next President into the VP slot. Then when Biden resigns or is found incompetent, their pick is installed as President. Sanders voters need to look closely at Biden's VP pick, that's who you are really voting for.

 

Many thanks to Falena and the mods for changing the title to this thread - because I've decided to extend it beyond just the Super Tuesday states.

Look folks, if you really feel the need to sling mud and say crappy stuff about one candidate or the other, have at it. I can't stop it anyway.

But for those with discerning minds, this is a statistical thread, a pure and simple analysis of results, compared to the past. I offer no editorial view on any one candidate. There are plenty of threads for that kind of stuff, nööööö

 

So, the North Carolina post-mortem is done:



There is no doubt that NC is a state in electoral flux: In 2008, against all odds, Barack Obama flipped the state for the Ds in the General election by the second leanest winning margin of that year, by exactly +0.33%. In 2012, Romney flipped NC back to the R-side, by +2.04%. In 2016, Trump indeed improved upon Romney's statistic, retaining the state for the Rs by +3.66%, but none of these figures for either party are anywhere close to the Bush 43 landslides from 2000 and 2004, the Bush 41 landslide from 1988 or the Reagan landslide from 1984. With a more and more diverse population, a larger minority vote turnout, the rollback of a GOP gerrymandered congressional district map, a hotly contested senatorial and three OPEN HOR elections in the Fall, I would say, as literally every political expert is saying, NC will be one of the premiere battlegrounds of 2020. Expect lots of polling, lots of advertising, lots of campaigning and lots of $$$$ devoted to this state, worth 15 electoral votes.

Superlatives:
-highest D vote-getter: Obama, 2008
-highest R vote-getter: Trump, 2020

It should be noted that in 2012, as Pres. Obama ran unopposed for re-election, there was pretty strong headwind against him in the Tarheel State. 21% of D votes were uncommitted in that year. Though not unheard of, it is unusual for an incumbent President.

As we are seeing literally everywhere on the primary map, Bernie Sander's NC electoral statistic from 2016 to 2020 worsened. He went from 40.9% of the D-vote in this state in 2016 to only 24.1% this time around. In 2020, Joe Biden won all but 4 counties in the Tarheel State:



In 2016, Bernie won a little more 4 times as many counties in NC (1 counties:


So although counties don't decide the delegate count, they sure can show the uniformity of a win (or lack thereof).
Trump, of course, won all NC counties. Being unopposed, it would be a surprise were he to lose a county anywhere.

To the overall vote totals:



Interesting to note is that in 2008, when Obama flipped NC in the GE, the Democratic primary turnout dwarfed the Republican primary turnout in that year. In both 2012 and 2016, regardless whether incumbent election (2012) or open election (2016), the two parties were practically tied in turnout, and the Republican narrowly won the state in the Fall of that year. This time around, the D turnout again dwarfs the R turnout, but not quite as large as it was in 2008.

Perhaps, in order to deepen these figures, I may work North Carolina back to 2000, just to see how things looked during the Bush 43 era.

Superlatives:
-D total vote getter: 2008
-R total vote getter: 2016, but just barely ahead of the Ds.
Overall largest NC voter turnout R+D, from 2008 to 2020: 2016.

-Stat

 

So, the post-mortem for Virginia is done:



Virginia, a formerly Republican state that was flipped to the Democratic Party by Barack Obama (+6.30%) in 2008, retained by Obama by +3.87% in 2012 and retained again by Hillary Clinton by +5.32%, is posting historic primary turnout for the Democratic Party in this year.

Donald Trump posts the all-time raw vote setting record for the Republican Party, from 2016, but that is barely ahead of Bush 43 in 2004 and is the 4th highest raw vote total, after Biden 2020, Obama 2008 and Clinton 2016. So, we can see that the Republican Party is simply not drawing the voters it used to draw. Since VA does not publish voter registration by party affiliation, there is no way to know how many registered Ds, Rs and Is there are in the Old Dominion, but a string of primary and GE results can give us a healthy clue as to which party is leading.

Joe Biden's 2020 raw vote total sets a historical raw vote record for any primary candidate of any party in all of Virginia's history. The Democratic Party total primary vote in 2020 actually surpasses the total D raw-vote from 2008, something we are not seeing in many states.

Party comparisons in 2020 and 2012 will not be possible, because the Republican Party cancelled the R presidential primary this year and the Democratic Party cancelled the D presidential primary in 2012. C'est la vie....

As we are seeing everywhere, Bernie Sander's electoral performance worsened between 2016 (35.20%) and 2020 (23.15%). In 2016, Clinton beat Sanders in all but 13 VA counties:



In 2020, Joe Biden beat Sanders in every county but one:



It doesn't get much more uniform than that.

In terms of raw-vote totals for both parties:



The highest raw-vote total for both parties is obviously 2016.

Of the 9.25 states that Obama picked up in 2008, 3 have remained faithfully in the Democratic column come election night 3 times in a row (2008, 2012, 2016): Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico. Indiana, North Carolina and NE-02 moved back to the GOP in 2012 and then Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania , Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and ME-02 moved to the GOP in 2016, but VA, CO and NM remained very stabile D states. Just that as a note as we look deeper into 2020. The sands of electoral change are always shifting.... shifting....shifting....

-Stat

 

So, the post-mortem for Tennessee is done:



As a young man, I often travelled from Ohio through Kentucky and Tennessee, also through Georgia, to visit relatives in the Deep South. I have memories of some of the most beautiful mountains and green forests I have ever seen in Tennessee, the Volunteer State. Geographically, one helluva state. I know alot of really fine people of all stripes from this state, all of them good, decent people. So, for me, it's fun to look at the numbers for this often underestimated state.

Just 20 years ago, George W. Bush (43) got just slightly under 195,000 votes in the TN primary for the GOP and it was a huge landmark moment for this state. In 2020, Pres. Trump literally doubled that number and therefore walks away as the candidate, bar none, to have scored the highest raw vote win in a primary ever in Tennessee's history. Honor where honor belongs, this is a huge number for TN primary standards. But the second highest number of all time, the number that was once the all-time record-holder, belongs to Hillary Clinton, from the epic 2008 primary battle against Barack Obama.

The point is, the population of Tennessee has not grown all that much faster than the nation, if at all, but voter participation in this state has indeed skyrocketed.

In both 2016 and 2020, the more centrist Democratic candidate won this state over Bernie Sanders, and by a considerable margin. Although Bernie Sander's topline percentage went down from 2016 to 2020, the winning margin (or, for him, the losing margin) was reduced in 2020. In 2016, Clinton won every county in TN except 3:



And in 2020, Joe Biden won all counties in TN except 4:



Biden's consistent wins in all of the Southern states follows the pattern of the Clinton/Sanders battle of 2016. I do find it of note that Michael Bloomberg, who was never once in Tennessee, got over the 15% hurdle in this primary.

In terms of total raw vote for the two parties, 2008 to 2020:



We see the clear effect of an incumbent D president on the ballot in 2012 and an incumbent R president on the ballot in 2020, but in the two open cycles (2008, 2016), we see a shift upward in the overall raw vote.

Now, all anyone needs to do is to look at the electoral history of TN since 2000 in order to see that at the presidential level, this is a bedrock GOP state and probably will be so for a while. But I remember the days when a Southern Democrat won this state, meaning, Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996. I also remember this state being a bitter battleground state in the 1968 presidential election, so it's not as if this state is eternally married to any one party.

The TN website does not do a good job of displaying election results from the past. The .pdf-files really are klutzy to read, so it takes longer to get the information down.

-Stat

 

Bottom line, Biden Sweeps Tuesday.

Biden Blows Bernie out on the 17th (IL, FL, OH, AZ)

There is no way Bernie can make up the Delegate Math and Bernie should be out in 2 weeks.

The EC in Nov., Biden 300+.

 

So, taking a little break from the Southern states for a bit, here the post-mortem for Massachusetts:



Often derided by Conservatives as "Taxachusetts" (it is not), in reality, Massachusetts is one of our Republic's most wonderful states: geographically beautiful, politically, racially, religiously diverse. It's actually a really fun place to visit. As we all know, in upper electoral politics, Massachusetts tends to be very Democratic and some call it ultra-liberal, but in reality, when you look at the voter registration for this state, only 33% of registered voters are Democrats. The problem is, only 10% are registered Republicans (down from 14% in 2000) and 55% are Independents. This is how Massachusetts can deliver huge landslides for Democratic presidential nominees and Senatorial nominees and the Democratic Party can dominate all 9 congressional seats, and yet, Massachusettians have no problem electing a Republican Governor, and often at that.

On the Democratic side, in the last 12 years, in the open elections and now in 2020, we have seen a battle between the Liberal and the more Centrist (being curently called "the establishment") elements of the party. In 2008, Clinton won here very comfortably and with 705,185 votes in a primary, set and still holds the raw vote winning record for this state in any primary. She also holds the second place, from 2016. That's statistical fact, but a little unfair to Obama, who was very beloved in Massachusetts, but as an incumbent president, drew few votes in an unopposed primary. Sanders holds third place in number of race votes in any presidential primary. BTW, the fourth highest primary vote getter in Massachusetts? This will really surprise most people: Paul Tsongas in the 1992 D-primary, with 526,297 votes out of 794,115 votes. You will see that the D-primary vote total from 28 years ago is still larger than the largest R-primary vote total over the last 12 years.

In 2016, it was a near tie between Clinton and Sanders. In 2020, Sanders' topline percentage went down from 48.33% (2016) to 28.75% (2020) and in a state that people love to call "Liberal", Bernie Sanders, the ultra-liberal, lost Massachusetts. Of course, the results are close enough so that Biden and Sanders will walk away from this state with a pretty even number of delegates, only, with Elizabeth Warren still in the race at that time, no one, and I mean, NO ONE was thinking that Joe Biden even had a chance in the Bay State.

Here the county maps of Massachusetts, 2016 and 2020:



On the Republican side, in terms of superlatives, also a surprise. Although Trump's raw-vote total from 2016 looks far larger than anything from the past and is indeed impressive for Republican standards in this state, the Republican record-holder for this state in the primaries is: John McCain, with 325,944 votes against George W. Bush in 2000, 20 years ago.

About the total vote in this state:



We see that in 2016, the record total vote for Massachusetts was the highest of all time, but both 2008 and 2020 are not far behind. With the huge disparity in actual registered voters in MA, it's no wonder that there is also a huge disparity in primary vote totals between the two major national parties. This disparity also shows somewhat at the respective national conventions.

At the Democratic National Convention, Massachusetts will be represented by 114 out of 4,753 total delegates. That's 2.4% of all D delegates.
At the Republican National Convention, Massachusetts will be represented by 41 out of 2,550 total delegates. That's 1.6% of all R delegates.
In the electoral "College", Massachusetts has 11 out of 538 total electors. That's 2.0% of all electors.

-Stat

 

In Massachusetts I don't think you should ignore the fact that Buttigieg was likely to hit 2 digits. His abrupt exit could help only Biden. Klobuchar was going to get the I hate Warren votes. Those defaulted not to Sanders but to Biden, since Klobuchar votes include the best possible President in the race votes. Only Klobuchar and Biden could get those votes since New Hampshire.
The state has a nasty habit of picking losing candidates: Scoop Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Tsongas, Hillary 08, and candidates that lose in November: Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Hillary 16. On the GOP side they don't do much better.

 

After the recent batch of polls from the March 10th States, and Biden's lead over Bernie:

MI 65-24
MO 62-32
MS 77-22

And, with Bernie facing a Major Blowout on March 17th, Bernie should be out in 2 weeks.

If he stays in beyond the March 17th Primaries, then he is only hurting the party.

 

So, the post-Mortem for ALABAMA is ready:



In both 2016 and 2020, Alabama has been the scene of massive landslides in which the winning candidate won every single county. In the case of Bernie Sanders, his topline percent went down only a little bit, but we should consider here that he was already in the teens to begin with. In 2020, he came dangerously close to falling under the 15%.

Here the 2020 races for both parties:



And the results from 2016:



(The graphic on the left, in gold, represents Hillary Clinton's county wins in 2016, only WIKI didn't mark it as such)

And the results from 2012:




2012 was different as Pres. Obama ran unopposed (and interestingly, 6 AL counties preferred "uncommitted" over the President, this is not the first time in history that this has happened in Alabama), whereas the R-field was split among a number of candidates. In 2012, Southerner Mike Huckabee narrowly won AL over Pennsylvanian Rick Santorum, with Utahn Mitt Romney a close third.

And here from 2008:



In the epic 2008 primary for both parties, we see a clear geographic division within the state. In the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, who lost the primary, won the lion's share of the northern part of the state, 2 counties in the middle and 8 counties on the southern border of the state. Barack Obama won the lion's share of the southern half of the state plus 6 counties in the middle. And interestingly enough, we see a very similar development in the Republican Party in the same year: Mike Huckabee, the AL primary, won all of the northern counties (geographically, he literally won the upper half of the state), 6 or 7 counties in the middle and 6 counties on the Southern border, whereas John McCain, who lost the primary, won the lion's share of the southern half of the state. Of course, without knowing the actual population density of each county, these electoral maps are just pretty images, but indeed they show - as is very often the case in the South - that there are very clear political differences with each party according to geographical area.

In terms of raw-vote getters, again, credit where credit is due: in 2020, President Trump gathered the highest number of raw votes for any candidate of any party in all of Alabama's history. With 695,469 votes, his total was more than the entire Democratic field from 2016, but not only that, his primary raw vote is greater than that of any Democratic nominee in the GE in Alabama from 2004 backwards in history and was only about 30,000 raw votes less than Hillary Clinton's GE performance in 2016.

With 311,141 votes garnered in 2016, Hillary Clinton is the raw-vote primary record-setter on the Democratic side.

And the state totals overall:



We can see that in 3 of the last four presidential primary cycles, the Republican Party has far outstripped the Democratic Party.

-Stat

 

So, the post-mortem for ARKANSAS is ready:



If you look at the winning %-margins for both parties from 2008 to 2020, you see that, excepting the R-race in 2016, they have been large landslide margins.

Here is Arkansas 2020, by county (no map for Trump):



In 2020, Joe Biden won every single county in Arkansas, save one.

Here 2016, both D and R:


In 2016, Hillary Clinton won every county in Arkansas, save 2. The county results on the R-side are fascinating, when you consider how lean Trump's win over Ted Cruz was. This means that his win was lean, but evenly spread over most of the state.

Here 2012, both D and R:



In 2012, Pres. Obama, who was officially running unchallenged nationally, had a declared challenger in Arkansas: John Wolfe, a perennial candidate for all sorts of offices (also in Florida), who has always lost. LOL. We see that on the Republican side, without a favorite son (or daughter) on the ballot, Mitt Romney swept all counties.

And here, 2008, both D and R:



2008 was a banner year in Arkansas politics, because Arkansans had both a favorite son (R) and a favorite daughter (D) on the primary ballot and you can see the results. Hillary Clinton swept all but 3 counties against Obama, whilst Mike Huckabee swept all counties. So, on the Republican side, we had two cycles in a row (2008, 2012) in a competitive national primary where it was a clean sweep in Arkansas.

In terms of the raw-vote record setter in this this, it's Clinton, but not the one you are thinking of, and not from this time frame:



Indeed, with 344,758 votes, Bill Clinton, Arkansas' most famous favorite-son, is the all time primary raw vote record-holder, from 28 years ago! Also, with a total of 506,679 D-votes in the 1992 primaries, 1992 is also the record setting year in terms of raw votes. However, the D-primary of 1988, with 497,544 D-votes, holds second place, without a favorite son on the ballot. And until around 2000, there were far more D-voters in Arkansas than R-voters. Even the year 1996, where Bill Clinton was officially unchallenged for the D-nomination, showed a HUGE disparity between the D-vote and the R-vote, you can see that HERE. Since then, with the election of George W. Bush (43) in 2000, there has been a paradigm shift in this state. It should also be noted that with 193,750 raw-votes in 2000, Al Gore's showing here was not shabby at all.

On the R-side, with 240,789 votes, Pres. Trump is indeed the raw-vote record holder for this state at this time.

BTW, Arksansas tried a caucus instead of a primary, in 1984, and apparently, it did not go well.

As far as the total vote:



Interestingly, in both 2008 AND 2012 (in spite of the fact that Obama officially ran unopposed for re-election), the Ds had the edge in total raw votes in the primaries. In 2016, during the (at that time) highly contested R-primary, the R-votes in this state literally shot through the roof.

An observation from me: in 1976, with a winning margin of +30.01% over Gerald Ford, Arkansas was Jimmy Carter's third strongest state, after DC and his home state of Georgia. Imagine that: a Democrat who wins the presidency and whose top two states are southern states. In 2016, with a +26.92% winning margin over Hillary Clinton, Arkansas was Trump's 10th strongest state, after Wyoming, West Virgina, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota and Alabama. So, in 40 years, there has been an almost +57% swing to team read in this state, and most of it was already there in 2012: Romney also wine her by more than +20. Bill Clinton indeed won his home state both times, in 1992 and 1996, but favorite daughter Hillary Clinton got clobbered in her own former home-state, posting the lowest topline Democratic percentage in this state since the 1972 landslide election of Richard Nixon, where the wheels literally fell of George McGovern's campaign. In the 60s through 2000, Arkansas was either pretty much called immediately at poll-closing time (08:30 PM EDT) for the Democratic nominee, or it was a nail-biter that took hours to figure out (1968, 1980, 2000). Even during the 1984 Reagan 49-state sweep, most networks took about 2 hours to declare Arkansas for the Gipper. However, since 2004, the state has been called very quickly for the Republican candidate, and since 2012, usually right at poll-closing time. So, the huge shift in this state, which parallels West Virginia very closely, tells me that even in the face of a massive D landslide, this state is probably very safe D, come hell or high water.

-Stat