With Democratic voter turnout a full 50% above 2008 numbers, American expatriate voters from around the globe overwhelmingly chose Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the Global Presidential Primary.
Democrats Abroad reports that 69% of those who voted in the expat primary chose Sanders. Only 31% went for Clinton. This means that Bernie has earned another nine committed delegates, while Hillary will add four to her count. As is true on the other primaries and caucuses held so far, there were also some so-called “superdelegates” up for grabs. Clinton has secured the support of three out of four of those, although she lost the popular vote by a wide margin.
It is interesting to note that in countries with more of a Democratic Socialist style of government (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), Sanders won by nearly 2:1. In these countries the voters are presumably more familiar with universal, government sponsored health care and higher education. Perhaps those programs appear less idealistic to those who live with them every day.
In spite of Sander’s lack of foreign policy experience, he also won in the Middle East (Israel, UAR, Lebanon, Egypt). While the numbers of voters were low, Sanders seems to have struck a chord with expats in this part of the world as well.
Secretary Clinton won in only Guatemala, Singapore and in Nigeria.
The Global Presidential Primary is put on by Democrats Abroad, the international arm of the Democratic National Committee. The group was started in 1964, when Democrats living overseas recognized a need to participate and help the party at home.
The Republic Party has no overseas branch, so its unclear how the general expatriate community is feeling about the current election. One can hope, though, that the very large turnout for this election indicates a strong liberal leaning in our countrymen abroad.
Featured image via Flikr by Mopaw Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license
