People are debating back and forth about whether Florida "counts" in any of a number of ways: whether the delegates will eventually be counted, whether the vote signifies anything about potential support on Super Tuesday and beyond, and whether the vote will impact media coverage of the race.
Well, I don't intend in this diary to argue any of those points. I simply intend to share quantitative data about the state and the vote. More below the fold.
(1) Demographics
Florida is the fourth most populate state in the U.S. It's population of 18,251,243 is 1.6 times the size of the populations of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina combined.
Also, when performing a chi square test on percentage of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and senior citizens, in comparison to the U.S. population as a whole, Florida is shown to be far more typical of national demographics than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina are. Only Nevada even approaches Florida as being a demographically typical state. In contrast, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are highly atypical demographically when statistically compared to the U.S. overall.
(2) Democratic Turnout
Roughly 1.7 million voters turned out for the Democratic primary in Florida. That's compared to 712,000 in 2004. In other words, even though voters had been told that they would not be allocated delegates, the turnout was aout 2.4 times as great this year as four years ago. The number of Democratics who turned out in Florida was 50% larger than the number that turned out in Iowa, new Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina combined.
(3) Hillary Clinton's Vote Total and Margins
Hillary won more than 850,000 votes. She won 300,000 more votes than Barack Obama and approximately 160,000 more than the winner of the Republican primary, John McCain. (Obama's vote margin over Clinton in South Carolina and Iowa combined was abut 170,000).
(4) Exit Polls
Women (59% of voters):
Clinton 54%
Obama 31%
Edwards 13%
Men (41% of voters):
Clinton 42%
Obama 38%
Edwards 17%
White (67% of voters):
Clinton 53%
Obama 23%
Edwards 20%
Latino (12% of voters):
Clinton 59%
Obama 30%
Edwards 8%
African American (19% of voters)
Clinton 25%
Obama 73%
Edwards 1%
Democrats (79% of voters):
Clinton 53%
Obama 33%
Edwards 12%
Independents (17% of voters):
Clinton 42%
Obama 28%
Edwards 27%
Republicans (4% of voters):
Clinton 24%
Obama 26%
Edwards 34%
People who decided who to vote for on last day (10% of voters)
Clinton 34%
Obama 30%
Edwards 29%