http://nypost.com/2016/04/27/donald-trump-could-amass-most-primary-votes-in-gop-history/News
Donald Trump could amass most primary votes in GOP history
By Bob Fredericks
April 27, 2016 | 11:15pm
Donald Trump will likely wind up winning the most primary votes of any GOP presidential candidate in modern history, the author of the influential Smart Politics blog told The Post on Wednesday.
After convincing victories in Tuesday’s primaries in five East Coast states, Trump has roughly 10.1 million votes, about 200,000 more than Mitt Romney got during the entire 2012 primary campaign.
And with the primaries ahead — including in populous states such as California, New Jersey and Indiana — the former “Apprentice” reality TV star should easily break the modern record of 10.8 million held by George W. Bush in 2000, according to blogger Eric Ostermeier, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota.
“In an election cycle with a high Republican turnout, his numbers are rising, even more so now that there’s only three candidates” left in the GOP race, he said.
The reasons include a combination of Trump’s celebrity, media exposure and higher-than-usual interest in his over-the-top candidacy, Ostermeier said.
The numbers-crunching blogger uses figures compiled by Congressional Quarterly that differ from those compiled by other groups, some of which say Bush got as many as 12 million votes in the 2000 primaries.
But even if that were the case, Trump would still likely shatter the record.
The next big-state primaries include Indiana on May 3 and California and New Jersey on June 7.
Meanwhile, Trump on Wednesday night held a rally in Indianapolis, where former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight called him “the most prepared man in history to step in as president of the United States.”
