Not according to a nonpartisan study of primary turnout.
At the height of this year's presidential primaries, on Feb. 20, Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe declared that "people are turning out in record numbers" -- even though in the Virginia primary 10 days earlier, the 7.5 percent of Democrats who voted failed to match the only previous Democratic primary, and the figure was well below the 13.2 percent of Republicans who voted in their party's 2000 primary.Only New Hampshire and Wisconsin saw truly impressive increases, according to Curtis Gans, who conducted the survey for the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.
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In New York, on the other hand, the Super Tuesday primary on March 2 marked a historic low: just 5.39 percent showed up to vote in the Democratic primary, down from 7.40 percent in the 2000 race between Al Gore and Bill Bradley. In Massachusetts, Republican participation plummeted this year, understandably, given that Bush has no competition on the GOP ballot. Democrats voted at a rate of 13.65 percent, up from 12.55 percent in 2000, but down from the 17.99 percent who voted in 1992 and the record 22.24 percent who voted in 1980.
Instapundit
