While the media and many Americans naturally focused on the five-car pileup that was the Democrat side of Super Tuesday, few noticed what was cruising past that traffic jam: the Trump Train.
Almost every week, we are treated to tens of thousands of people lining up for hours, taking time off from work and braving the elements to attend a Trump rally. But now the world can also see that he is translating that energy into votes — and the numbers are astonishing.
In state after state on Super Tuesday, people turned out in record numbers to vote for President Donald J. Trump in Republican primaries that weren’t even contested. Think about that statement for a moment — in an era when voter apathy has been on the rise and turnout has been on the decline, record numbers stood in line to cast a ballot for the President in a race he had already won.
In Texas, President Trump received nearly the same number of votes as all the Democrat candidates combined, and 1.2 million more votes than the Democrat winner.
In Colorado, turnout for the Republican Primary was higher than for the three previous presidential primaries combined.
In Alabama, President Trump nearly doubled the number of votes any other candidate in the state has received in the last 40 years, and added 300,000 votes to his 2016 primary result.
In Arkansas, the President received more votes than all the Democrat candidates combined.
In Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Vermont, President Trump received more votes than any incumbent in more than three decades.
In North Carolina and Oklahoma, the President won a higher vote percentage than any incumbent president since before Reagan.
This was not a new trend, President Trump more than doubled the total number of votes received in New Hampshire by then-incumbent Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and even Ronald Reagan. None of those presidents faced serious primary challenges, either, yet President Trump rocketed past the number of votes they received.
There is a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm across America to re-elect the President. It manifests itself in the enormous lines at his rallies. We see it every month when the Trump Campaign and the Republican National Committee report yet another record-breaking month of fundraising. You can see it in the polling, as Gallup now places President Trump’s approval rating two points higher than President Obama’s at the same point in his first term. And now we are seeing it at the ballot box in the form of record voter turnout.
It is no secret Republicans are light years ahead of the Democrats when it comes to data, and these early 2020 results show that the gap is widening. With a text, email or social media post, the President can turn voters out by the hundreds of thousands – and that should worry Democrats and their eventual nominee.
Americans are busy people. Outside of Washington, D.C., politics isn’t the driving force in most people’s lives. The fact that President Trump can turn out voters in record numbers, even for primary contests that never really existed, is a testament to the passion Americans feel for this President and the results he is producing for our country.
As media pundits hyper-analyze Super Tuesday’s results, looking for clues about the primary and general election races to come, they should take note: while Democrats are mired in a traffic jam of their own making, the Trump Train is barreling full speed ahead toward November 3.
Marc Lotter, Director of Strategic Communications, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. He previously served as Special Assistant to President Trump and Press Secretary to Vice President Mike Pence.