It's difficult to know what to make of this because there are factors that have to be considered.
1) One difference this year is that the GOP had a little more than a million more folks vote in their primary than the Democrats; in 2008, when there were all those big stories about Democratic turnout, the Democrats turned out NINETEEN MILLION more folks than the GOP did in an election they wound up winning by about six points.
2) The 2008 Democratic numbers might possibly be artificially inflated because of the perception there was a two-person race from February until just before the Convention (some of you might recall a huge controversy over the delegates from both MI and FL). Make no mistake, there WAS a race but the late Tim Russert (and Olbermann, too) rightly pointed out that Hillary had no chance because she could not pick up huge blocs of delegates no matter the margin. McCain basically had the nomination in hand on February 7 (when Romney quit, leaving only McCain and Huckabee) and the Democrats were having a close and contested nomination that had voters in another 22 primaries/caucuses. How much of Rush Limbaugh's 'Operation Chaos,' where he encouraged Republicans to vote in open Democratic primaries and ensure Hillary won, might have contributed, nobody knows (I suspect not much but who really knows?)
3) Trump, in essence, clinched on March 15 (although not technically) when he won Florida (sending Rubio out) and leaving Kasich (who was not a threat to win anywhere but Ohio) and the hard-luck and despised Ted Cruz. This MAY suggest that Trump's number would, in fact, be higher (and unquestionably the total number of GOP voters would be higher, making that 1 million margin somewhat larger this year).
4) Romney, like McCain (almost) was virtually uncontested after Super Tuesday (March 6). Although folks didn't withdraw, other than Santorum winning Alabama and Kansas, it was over. This would necessarily have lowered the vote count as there wasn't much enthusiasm for Romney while Trump's presence on the ballot would have elicited more votes both for and against, again raising the numbers.
In short, I'm not sure what to make of it. What I would warn anyone, however, is the notion of:
a) extrapolating this nationally and seeing Trump win in a rout (Obama's six-point margin came among much more enthusiastic voters and a much larger D-R margin)
b) assuming a vacuum of activity. Things can happen externally that no candidate can control that affect the outcome in addition to gaffes and crystallizing assumptions about a particular candidate.
It's interesting, but I don't think it justifies a right-wing celebration (and that's what Gateway is btw).
