WASHINGTON – Voter turnout in this year’s presidential primaries and caucuses are breaking records – but only on the Republican side.
GOP contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have drawn more than 1.2 million voters, up 24 percent over 2012.
“There’s no question about it: Donald Trump is the main cause of high Republican turnout,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at University of Virginia.
“Love him or hate him, he’s the center of attention. If Trump becomes the Republican nominee, I’d bet right now on a very large November turnout.”
Trump has raked in about a third of the votes cast so far and managed to unify both conservative and moderate wings of the party who are willing to “put their ideological leanings into a blind trust right now because they are that fed up,” said Patrick Murray, founding director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
“Trump is giving them a voice,” Murray said.
In sharp contrast, the showdown between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders has drawn just 510,000 voters, down 21 percent from the last contested Democratic primaries in 2008.
Democratic turnout has dropped in all three early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, compared to 2008 when Barack Obama shattered records with his winning coalition of young people, first-time voters and minorities.
Sanders blamed low-turnout for his loss in Nevada last week. Less than 84,000 people turned out to caucus Saturday, according to the Nevada Democratic Party, compared to 117,599 in 2008.