Political Bear, News, Politics

Voter Turnout Record

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I have heard over and over again about the amazing voter turnout this year, and while it has been very high it hasn’t been a record. The record was set in 1972.

So, let’s take a trip down memory lane to 1972 when the Vietnam War caused a fierce divide among the Democrats and stoked that year’s turnout. That was the year the new procedures set by the commission led by George McGovern shifted the power to choose the nominee towards the primaries, and though McGovern actually got slightly fewer overall votes than Hubert Humphrey (25.34 percent to Humphrey’s 25.77 percent), he won the nomination. It was also the year that George Wallace entered the presidential fray and garnered 23.48 percent of the primary votes. Coming out of the disastrous (for them) 1968 elections, many Democrats had been looking towards Ted Kennedy as the next standard-bearer, but that hope was dashed by Chappaquiddick the next year. Edmund Muskie, who was Humphrey’s running mate in 1968, was the favorite going into the 1972 Democratic race, but after the (in)famous New Hampshire incident where the press reported Muskie had let some tears roll over criticism of his wife, that was that for another presumed frontunner.

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May 20, 2008
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