Since these are primaries, it is not too straight forward to make those comparisons...but we do have some evidence.
A couple of those.
Trump is bringing in A LOT of people. He is getting democrats to cross over and vote for him. Some of that may be political in terms of some hoping to make him the nominee...but I know for a fact that some of it is democrats who are sick of the establishment on both sides and believe Trump will shake all of that up.
In addition, his appeal to independents is strong.
Also,and I think this is important, IMHO it is very likely that Trump will put places like New York and other states where the GOP has not won there since Reagan, in play.
I will talk more about that as we get to those states.
But a clear trend is that the GOP is attracting a lot more excitement and voters in 2016. Right now there is a 60-40 split in terms of overall actual turnout. And that bodes very well too if they will also show up in November.
Any data or chart anywhere that compares voter turnout (R and D) to 2012 and/or 2008 primaries? We keep hearing “record turnouts” — but data seems hard to find.
Visual/chart form might be very interesting.