http://www.ijreview.com/2016/05/608924-popular-blog-claims-trump-has-received-most-votes-ever-in-a-gop-primary-nope/Gateway Pundit has declared that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has received more votes than any other Republican in primary history, beating former record-holder George W. Bush.
The popular blog claims that while Donald Trump has received 11.1 million votes thus far in the election, Bush only managed 10.8 million during the entire 2000 primary. However, there is no citation for the Bush number.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) data, George W. Bush actually received 12.2 million votes in 2000, not 10.8 million. Even when adjusted for a discrepancy in New York, Bush received 11.4 million votes:
In the 2000 New York primary, voters didn’t choose a presidential candidate, they chose delegates who listed their preferred candidate below their name. Voters could choose up to three delegates. Given this, we subtracted two-thirds of George W. Bush’s New York vote tally to get the lowest possible outcome.
According to Associated Press totals, Trump has indeed received 11.1 million votes. But, even with the lowered New York tally, Bush still has an edge on Trump. That will likely change as the final states go to the polls.
Trump’s post-Indiana average has been approximately 68%, and according to Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, GOP voter turnout is up approximately 60% from 2012.
Six states have yet to vote in the primaries: Washington, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. U.S. Election Atlas reports that 2.5 million Republicans voted in these six states in 2012. Factoring in a voter increase of roughly 60%, that number goes up to 3.99 million for this primary cycle. If Donald Trump continues his post-Indiana average of 68%, he’ll have 2.7 million more votes by June 7th.
According to this estimate, Independent Journal Review predicts that Trump will indeed break the record for the most votes in a GOP primary by reaching approximately 13.8 million votes going into the convention.
Putting this in perspective, however, Hillary Clinton has received 13 million votes thus far in the primary, even with slightly depressed voter turnout among Democrats.
