Are you proposing those GA results for comparison with the primary results?

The 2012 primary results were:

Obama: 6,158,064

Romney: 10,031,336

The Dems' nomination of the sitting president was a foregone conclusion so no need to get out the vote.

The point is the GE was delta 5M. That's almost down in the noise. Small changes in turnout (or huge changes this case) matter.... and that's ignoring the significant crossover vote in the Rustbelt.

It looks like a wash in delta-primary-turnout nationally. The link posted above showed Dems down a lot in primary turnout in a short list of states. Nationally turnout was high on both sides, but a record for neither. That list of states was carefully chosen to make a certain impression, I guess.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/10/turnout-was-...

It'd be interesting to look at relative delta-turnout in swing states only.

"but a record for neither". Incorrect. Trump got more primary votes than any Republican in history.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/1/donald-trump-...

Turnout is the number of votes cast, not the number cast for a single person. Rep turnout was not a record. Trump's votes received were indeed a Rep record.

As a share of eligible voters, Rep turnout does appear to be a record.

14.8%(2016) vs 11.8%(1980)

http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/20...

National primary turnout (as a whole or for any one party) is neither really meaningfully comparable across elections (because of changes in methodology of particular primaries, changes in timing between primaries, differences in the course of elections which change the perceived value of voting in later primaries, etc.) nor predictive of general election turnout (so pointing to primary turnout as evidence of a party's or its nominee's strength in the general election is meaningless.)

Oops, you are right! I misread that graph. I'm sorry - you are absolutely right. My eye followed those curves backwards and mixed them up.

Thanks for a polite correction :)