I have remained detached from the US primary buzz. The Republican offering is nothing short of disgusting and the Democratic field of candidates, while more inspiring, seem to have their hands full fighting the TV pundits and the interest of that group on hair, skin colour, tear ducts and whether any of them has too much education to replace their hero in the White House.
There is, however, something interesting happening in New Hampshire. And it should not be dismissed lightly.
The state of New Hampshire has 850,836 registered voters which identify as follows:
Democrat: 26%
Republican: 30%
Independent: 44%
The vote itself is "semi-open". What that means is that all registered voters may cast a ballot but those registered as either Democrat or Republican must vote within their own party. Registered independents may choose to vote in either party primary, but not both.
With 91% of the New Hampshire precincts reporting, the votes cast in each party breaks down this way:
Democrats: 258,613
Republicans: 213,656
First, in a state where the the registered Republicans outnumber the registered Democrats by a full four points, the Democrats attracted more voters to the tune of a whopping 45,000 votes.
Secondly, the vote attracted by the Democrats exceeded the number of those declared and registered as Democrats by 37,396 voters.
The Republicans, on the other hand, failed to attract 41,595 registered Republicans.
The Democrats attracted a huge number of independents. The Republicans.... stayed home.
Now the primaries are worth watching.
Source: CNN
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