Hillary may have won Kentucky, but

[B2G]

her vote totals are less than half of what she received in 2008. What does this tell us?

2008
Clinton - 459,511
Obama - 209,954

2016
Clinton - 212,549
Sanders - 210,626

[timmymoff]

1. What we already know.

[reddread]

2. use before expiration date

[pdsimdars]

15. too good

[JudyM]

3. Wow. Nt

[DURHAM D]

4. It tells me that Kentuckians know that

the primary was decided a long time ago so didn't bother to vote.

[Lizzie Poppet]

17. It's not like KY isn't going to go about 60/40 Republican anyway.

Even a narrow win for the Republican Lite isn't really meaningful (just surprisingly slim in such a conservative state, versus a socialist). All KY's electors are going to go to the vulgar talking yam.

[thesquanderer]

26. If so, wouldn't that have happened in 2008 as well?

In terms of remaining delegate availability, KY was even closer to the end in 2008 than it is this year, and Hillary was comparably almost mathematically eliminated. And her opponent didn't even have an FBI investigation hanging over his head.

[NWCorona]

5. That should worry team Hillary greatly!

Her numbers have been down across the board this cycle compared to 2008.

[KingFlorez]

6. A lot of people who voted for her out of purely racial reasons didn't do so this time?

We all know why Clinton did better in some areas on in 2008. This time around she's winning the coalition that Obama won.

[livetohike]

7. That tells me that Sanders isn't bringing new voters. His totals are the same

as Obama's in 2008. So another of his lies is exposed.

[peace13]

16. You do know that when you call Sanders a liar that you are projecting don't you.

Hillary has lies on tape that are real words and actions.....provable lies that show that she does not have a grasp for the truth. Sanders...not so much. Just wanted you to know that Sanders supporters understand that truth is not a biggy in the Hill camp.

[ViseGrip]

8. She's in the 'political wheelchair'....already.

[LaydeeBug]

9. that she will be the Democratic nominee. nt

[Hortensis]

11. Exactly, lol. This isn't horseshoes.

[B2G]

10. I'd love to see a state by state comparison

of vote totals across both years.

Will need to do some digging around...

[NCTraveler]

12. The nomination is over.

Look at how low the republican vote count was.

It's over.

[CrowCityDem]

13. Bernie's claims of bringing out huge numbers of voters is utter bunk. It's a teeny, tiny revolution.

[arcane1]

14. All the trolls who love her now but hated her in 2008 will go back to hating her again n/t

[reddread]

20. thats an 8 year cycle

but they claim to switch so hard and fast that basically time travel may be a real thing.

[onenote]

18. The result in Kentucky doesn't portend anything good for Sanders

In 2008, Obama was the front runner by the time of the Kentucky primary. He lost it by more than 35 points, but it didn't mean a thing in terms of dislodging him from his front runner status. Clinton, the front runner in 2016, didn't lose Kentucky by 35 points, she won it by a point -- in short she did 21 points better than Obama did as the front runner.

If losing Kentucky by a big margin didn't adversely impact Obama's march to the nomination, why would you think that Clinton winning Kentucky would portend anything bad for Clinton or good for Sanders in terms of the nomination battle?

[B2G]

21. I'm thinking more along the lines of

Dem turnout in the GE.

[onenote]

23. As has been demonstrated time and again, primary turnout is not predictive of GE results

Looking at the last 11 election cycles, the party with higher primary turnout has lost 7 times and only won four.
Even if you take out election years in which there is a strong, essentially unopposed incumbent in office (which would generally result in low turnout in the primaries for the incumbent's party), the result is basically a wash:


1976 - Ford was the incumbent, having succeeded Nixon upon the latter's resignation. Reagan mounted a strong primary challenge in what was essentially a two person race, with Ford getting the nod at the convention. On the Democratic side, the race was wide open with an extraordinary number of candidates. The top vote getter, Carter, did only slightly better than Ford in terms of popular vote, but the total Democratic turnout -- pumped up by the fact that Watergate had left the repub brand very badly damaged -- topped 15 million, compared to only around 10 million for the repubs. Carter, of course, won.

1980 - By 1980 Carter had become a fairly unpopular incumbent, with significant primary opposition (from Kennedy). The essentially two man race among the Democrats had higher turnout (17 million plus) than the three man repub race (Reagan, Bush and Anderson with 11.5 million votes) during primary season but Carter lost the GE by a wide margin.

1988 -- No incumbent -- Reagan was a relatively popular outgoing repub president (until just before the election his favorability levels had been fluctuating between 48 and 51 percent for the year). The primary turnout was much higher for Democrats (who had multiple candidates) than for the Repubs (who had basically a two person race between incumbent VP Bush and Dole), but the Democrats lost to Bush by a very large margin.

1992: -- I thought about putting this in category of an incumbent who was essentially unopposed. Bush was a not very popular incumbent president but he faced only moderate primary opposition from Buchanan. The Democrats had much higher primary turnout and won.

2000 -- No incumbent. President Clinton was a moderately popular outgoing Democratic president but carried some baggage. The incumbent VP (Gore) faced one serious primary opponent, Bradley, who was out of the race by March 9. The Republicans had higher turnout (with Bush challenged by McCain, who also was out of the race by March 9). The result: basically a tie (with Gore getting more popular votes despite the Democrats having lower primary turnout).

2008 -- No incumbent. Very unpopular outgoing repub president Bush. Higher primary numbers for Democrats, Democrats win.

In short no predictable pattern of results can be discerned based solely on primary turnout. Out of six races, the party with the higher primary turnout won three times, lost twice and had a split decision (in 2000 despite lower primary turnout the Democrats had more popular votes, but lost the electoral college thanks the Supreme Court). It is obvious that a number of variables influence the results, not just primary turnout. And the 2016 election arguably has the potential to resemble 1988 (with the repub and Democratic positions reversed).

Finally, I'm not sure why some Sanders supporters think that the lower turnout for Democrats means Clinton can't win, but somehow wouldn't mean the same thing for Sanders.

[BillZBubb]

29. Neither will win Kentucky. It stays red.

[auntpurl]

19. What we already knew - Hillary is winning the Obama coalition

And Bernie 16 is the equivalent to Hillary 08, except he's not doing as well as she did.

[k8conant]

22. If Hillary is really winning the Obama coalition,

she must have lost all her 08 voters. Otherwise she'd be at 95% now.

[auntpurl]

24. She doesn't need to win her 08 votes.

She is following the path of Obama 08. Except she's further ahead than he EVER was and she did better in KY than he did (due in part to racism and in other part to Bernie's campaign waning in my opinion). And I believe she will win California, which will be another difference.

She got shellacked in the South in 08. Just like Bernie 16. Seriously, this is not complicated. Hillary 08 cannot be compared to Hillary 16. The electoral maps for Hillary 16 and Obama 08 are almost identical.

[WhiteTara]

25. That she was running against a black man and now she is

running against a white man. Racism lives.

[B2G]

27. But that black man and that white man

Got almost exactly the same number of votes.

[amborin]

28. she can never win the GE, she needs to drop out and let Bernie win the presidency

[COLGATE4]

30. That in 2008 she was running against a black man?

[1StrongBlackMan]

31. It tells us ...

that, like in West Virginia, the same (white, male) voters that preferred the white woman over the Black guy (in 2008); prefer the white guy over the white woman (in 2016)?

And, that same demographic will likely go for the "uber-AMERICAN", white guy over, either Democratic candidate.

However, the (President) Obama coalition is holding strong and there should be enough independent support (minus the BoBers) to keep things close in Ky.