Republican voters swarmed the polls in a dozen states Tuesday night in numbers that far exceeded those seen in 2008, the last time the GOP had a chance to win the White House with no incumbent president in the way.
And while Democrats in most cases voted in greater numbers on Tuesday compared to 2012, Democratic vote totals were much smaller in 2016 in most states compared to 2008, when Obama was making his historic run for the White House.
Tuesday’s results seem to support the theory that while Republicans may be split wildly over the idea of Donald Trump becoming the nominee, the GOP has voter energy on its side, and is at least turning out huge waves of voters in the meantime.
GOP turnout was bigger in each of the 12 states that held primaries or a caucus on Tuesday night, and in some cases, turnout was double than seen in 2008.
In Texas, for example, about 1.3 million Republican voters turned out for the primary in 2008, while 2.8 million showed up Tuesday night.
Republican voter turnout doubled in Virginia, where Donald Trump narrowly won, and nearly doubled in Minnesota, where Marco Rubio notched his first win.
Hundreds of thousands of additional voters turned up for Republicans in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee as well.
But Democrats mostly saw voter turnout fall from 2008 to 2016. Fewer Democrats came out in Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
In Texas, Democratic voters were nearly cut in half from the 2.8 million who showed up in 2008.
The only exception to that trend was in Alabama, where more than 800,000 Democrats voted and gave Hillary Clinton a win, more than the 536,000 seen in 2008.
Republicans also drew bigger crowds last night compared to 2012. In the case of Virginia, Trump got as many votes this time around as the number of total people voting in the state four years ago.
Trump won over 356,000 votes by himself in Virginia, dwarfing the total 265,000 votes seen in the 2012 primary. On Tuesday night, more than 1 million people voted in the state that Trump narrowly won.
In Texas, a state that Sen. Ted Cruz won, the turnout in 2016 was roughly double the numbers seen in 2012, when 1.4 million people voted. Cruz won 1.2 million votes for himself.
Turnout in Arkansas jumped from 152,000 in 2012 to about 400,000, and Trump grabbed 130,000 votes to win it.
In Georgia, turnout grew from 900,000 to 1.3 million, and Trump took 500,000 votes.
