Looking at the results from Florida last night, we can see that the total of all persons who voted in the Democratic primary is only about 200,000 less than the number who voted in the Republican primary -- despite the fact that the Democratic primary was only a "beauty pageant" while the Republican primary was heavily contested by candidates on their side.  Approx. 1,925,000 voted in the Rep. primary, while 1,725,000 voted in the Dem. primary -- http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primari es/results/state/#FL

What's even more interesting is examining the vote break-down among the different candidates using exit polling information (see same link above), and also comparing this data using numbers for both Democrats and Republicans.  Looking at just the sheer percentages is confusing, so I extrapolated the estimated numbers of voters from the numerical results combined with the exit polling info.  Specifically, I wanted to look at categories of voters who in the recent past have constituted "swing" voting groups -- independents, Hispanics (in this case, using non-Cuban Latinos as a gauge), white Catholics, white women and suburban voters. These groups will be very important for us in November.  Here's what I got:

Before anything else, here’s how the different swing-voter groups voted in 2004 -- NOTE: these are numbers for the whole US, not just FL; http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html Independents: Bush 48% - Kerry 49%; Hispanics: Bush 44% - Kerry 53%; Catholics: Bush 52% - Kerry 47% (no numbers are provided for “white Catholics” but they voted even more lopsidedly in favor of Bush as the total number of “Catholics” here includes Hispanics); White Women: Bush 55% - Kerry 44%; Suburban Voters: Bush 52% - Kerry 47%. Now to the numbers for Florida from yesterday; the total votes first:

Hillary 856,944
McCain 693,425
Romney 598,152
Obama 568,930
Giuliani 281,755
Huckabee 259,703
Edwards 248,575
Paul 62,060

Among self-identified Independents:

Independents originally were not supposed to vote in this closed primary, but apparently were allowed in at the last minute if they asked for a party ballot; estimate based on exit polling:

McCain 144,000
Hillary 117,000
Obama 88,000
Romney 75,000
Edwards 73,000
Giuliani 43,000
Huckabee 36,000
Paul 29,000

It's interesting to note that more independents in Florida voted for Hillary than for Obama.  Also, Hillary received 81% of the independents that McCain got, despite the fact that the Democratic primary was only a "beauty pageant" while the Republicans heavily contested theirs.

Among Non-Cuban Latinos:

Hillary 84,000
McCain 41,000
Obama 39,000
Romney 16,000
Edwards 14,000
Giuliani 10,000
Huckabee 7,000

As you can see, Hillary received more non-Cuban Hispanic votes than all the Republicans combined, and more than twice as many as Obama.

Among White Catholics:

Hillary 165,000
Romney 137,000
McCain 133,000
Giuliani 85,000
Edwards 47,000
Obama 41,000
Huckabee 16,000

Among white Catholics, Hillary received over 4 times as many votes as Obama.

Among White Women:

Hillary 397,000
Romney 222,000
McCain 215,000
Obama 141,000
Huckabee 132,000
Edwards 114,000
Giuliani 97,000

Among suburban voters:

Hillary 574,000
McCain 444,000
Romney 370,000
Obama 364,000
Giuliani 197,000
Huckabee 160,000
Edwards 132,000

The numbers above mostly speak for themselves.  It will be interesting to see how they translate in the February 5 states, but even more importantly, on November 4.