Wednesday, March 16, 2016

2016 Primary Election Results for Camden County

This data is from the Missouri Secretary of State's office.  You can go see the results for any county in Missouri here.

For Camden County though, here are the results for the six (five now) remaining candidates. Total votes cast in Camden County were 12,815, and the results are in order of most votes.  While Missouri is an open primary state voters can only vote once, and for only one party of choice.

Democrats: Out of 2841 total ballots
Bernie Sanders: 1419, or 49.947%
Hillary Clinton: 1388, or 48.856%

Bernie wins by the slimmest of margins, 31 votes.

For the Republicans it was very close between Senator Cruz and Donald Trump overall in the state, but not in Camden county where Trump won by nearly twenty five points!

Republicans: Out of 9961 total ballots
Donald Trump: 5467, or 54.844%
Ted Cruz:          2985, or 29.967%
John Kasich:     846, or 8.493%
Marco Rubio:   473, or 4.749% (campaign now suspended)

As we can see from the numbers, over 3 times the number of our Republican neighbors voted compared to Democrats. I'm of the opinion that most Democrats stayed home as either candidate works for them really.

With a 2014 U.S. Census estimated population of 44,021, and 77% of that number of voting age, means there should be about 34,000 eligible voters.  A turnout of 12,815 represents a participation rate of 29.1%.

Putting it another way, every person that voted just made the choice for two others as well. While primaries are only the political party nominee process, in our two-party system it is easily the vote that has the most impact.  Once the process comes down to just two candidates for the general election, things are reduced to a simple popularity contest.

Vote. Democracy is a participation sport.