Primary turnout rose for Republicans and fell for Democrats this year, compared to previous elections, and Hillary Clinton received fewer votes than she got in 2008, reports The Gateway Pundit Participation in the Republican primaries rose to 31 million voters in 2016 from 19 million in 2012, while the Democratic contests saw a drop of about 7 million voters, to 30 million this year compared with 37 million in 2008, the last contested Democratic primary, according to The Green Papers However, primary turnout isn't a good indicator for the general election, according to Politifact . It says that since 1972 the party with the highest number of primary voters has won the election four times, and lost the election seven times."Voters see stark differences between the candidates, and they're not as happy if the opposing candidate would win," Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida, told Politifact. He says Democrats are more satisfied with either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, while Republicans are sharply divided over Trump, leading to higher turnout for the GOP contests.But Clinton received about 15.8 million votes this year, down about 11 percent from the 17.7 million she drew in 2008, according to Real Clear Politics figures."All he seems to have done is bring new people into the primary process, not bring new people into the general-election process," Alex Lundry, former director of data science for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, told Politico in May."It's exciting that these new people that are engaged in the primary but those people are people that are already going to vote Republican" in the November election, he said.