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Plenty of Democrats in Red States

Via the invaluable Pollster.com, I came across some information on the demographics of Democratic Primary voters from the current national Newsweek poll. Newsweek’s sample consisted of 573 self-identified Democrats. Of those, 268 (46.8%) were in states that George Bush won in 2004, and 305 (53.2%) were in states that John Kerry won in 2004. That is hardly a seismic divide in red-blue allegiances, and speaks to why states that were not in play in the 2004 cycle may well be in play this time around.

For comparison’s sake, there were 32,480,059 Kerry voters in Kerry states in 2004 (55.0%) and 26,547,419 in Bush states (45.0%). So, it looks like the map has turned at least incrementally more purple since then.

UPDATE: In fact, it appears that there has been slightly more turnout so far in Bush states than in Kerry states in Democratic primaries and caucuses. Using turnout figures primarily from this source, I get the following:

Red States

TX 2,865,945
OH 2,231,156
FL 1,734,456
GA 1,060,767
VA 973,931
MO 823,376
TN 622,586
AL 536,293
SC 532,468
AZ 443,324
OK 417,095
LA 384,243
AR 310,915
IA 236,000
NM 153,299
UT 124,307
CO 120,001
NV 117,559
KS 37,089
ID 21,224
NE 12,445
AK 8,621
TOTAL 13,767,100

Blue States

CA 4,416,779
IL 2,038,614
NY 1,891,143
MA 1,244,133
NJ 1,108,044
MD 760,314
MI 592,261
CT 337,269
NH 288,058
MN 206,559
WA 200,000
RI 186,036
VT 151,380
DC 114,012
DE 94,675
ME 44,670
HI 37,562
TOTAL 13,711,509

So thus far, about 50,000 more people have participated in Democratic nomination contests in Red States than in Blue States. And I don’t know if the Blue States are going to have the chance to retake the lead. While there will be plenty of turnout in Pennsylvania, the same will also be true in North Carolina and Indiana; the Blue States may be banking on a re-vote in Michigan.

Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.

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