Trump's Primary Turnout Mirrors Bush's 2004 Near Exactly As Loyalist Support Outstanding

G.W. Bush won his reelection narrowly in the Electoral College and comfortably in the popular vote. Sabato's "Crystal Ball" looked at the parallels between Bush's surprisingly large primary vote, even though he was running unopposed, and similarly Trump's basically unopposed 2020 primary vote. They found the turnout was nearly exactly the same, allowing for population growth and other factors.

This represented a solidly motivated base for Bush which carried over into the general election and indicates, although of course 2020 has major problems with the corona virus and racial disturbances, the strong possibility of a similar result for Trump.



Key Points ;

"In this respect, New Hampshire, where the Trump campaign made a relatively strong debut at the onset of the primary season, seems emblematic. Compared to 2004, Republican turnout more than doubled in 2020: going from 68,000 votes cast up to 154,000. Perhaps just as telling was that Trump received 84% of the vote in that primary, a sign that his standing with the party was solid."

 They conclude, as would be expected from a leftists site, that these results are promising for Trump but in November he would have to do better than he did in 2016.

The charts and full analysis are worth a look, especially because of the striking similarities between 2016 and 2020 at the link above in the first paragraph of this post.