For those who missed it (I did), Pew Research released their 2018 primary turnout report, a final look at which party’s voters showed up to vote in the primaries.
The numbers are pretty exciting for team blue. Let’s take a look at Dem and GOP turnout between this midterm’s House primaries and the last (in millions):
Democrats
2014: 10.7
2018: 20.4
(91% increase)
GOP
2014: 12.8
2018: 16.3
(27% increase)
It’s pretty self evident that this is another data point that indicates a blue wave in some intensity or other. Democrats have overcome their 2 million primary voter deficit in 2014 to turn out an amazing 4 million more voters than the GOP.
But here’s another metric I find interesting — the vote totals in districts with contested primaries:
Dem: 14.6 (vs 5.6 in 2014)
GOP: 10.8 (vs 8.9 in 2014)
(3.8 million surplus)
This is significant to me because contested primary districts are the places we need the votes in the general election, obviously. One concern about a blue wave in the popular vote is that we might run up totals in packed highly Democratic districts, while still underperforming in swing or lean R districts.
These numbers seem to indicate that Democrats are gaining ground in precisely the competitive districts we need.
As always, these figures are merely indicators of turnout, and don’t guarantee a true surge. But throw this on the pile of positive data points for us.
State houses: the untold story of 2018
I found this Pew report I’d missed when it was referenced by Charles Cook of Cook Political in his Recent column. In it, he discusses that the biggest impact of 2018 might be on the state level. He predicts a Dem pickup of 6-12 governorships, but more eye-catching is his prediction of 400-650 losses for the GOP in state legislatures.
I always personally use 2006 as a baseline for seats held by party (as opposed to 2009, which was a high water mark for Dems). By that metric, we currently sit at something like 850 seats lost during the Obama era. This means that this midterm has the potential to wipe out most...or even all...of the Republican gains in the last decade.
And as we all know, a lot of these seats are longer than two year terms...meaning that this class of newly elected Dems will play a role in preventing another GOP assault on democracy after the census.