Is that a good sign for Republicans?
Well, maybe -- but as I've pointed out before, primary turnout is not necessarily very predictive of general election turnout.
The question is why GOP turnout was so much higher.
The answer is that the GOP primaries for governor and secretary of state were very much a referendum on Donald Trump ... and as usual with referendua on Donald Trump, Donald Trump got his ass whipped.
Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger both won their primaries over Trump's whining about their refusal to steal the 2020 election for him, and over Trump's endorsed opponents, and they did so with actual majorities, not just pluralities to trigger run-off elections.
The Democrats, on the other hand, didn't have that kind of controversy to energize its various and sundry voting blocs. While a couple of their statewide races did proceed to run-offs, that was due to crowded fields without big names, not to major party splits of the type that get out the primary vote. Everyone Democrat who their gubernatorial and US Senate nominees were going to be, so why bother voting?
That doesn't mean the Democrats are safe in November. In fact, there's a very good chance that GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker will flip the seat away from Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and that Kemp will, once again, defeat Stacey Abrams.
On the other hand, there's also a very good chance that enough of the Trumpist voters whose candidates lost this time will boycott the election and/or just not be excited enough about it to produce Democratic victories.
So I'm still calling Georgia a toss-up. On the other hand, while 270 to Win still has Pennsylvania and Wisconsin marked as "toss-ups," I've got them as "leans Democrat." And I'll be interested to see if Ohio still "leans Republican" instead of being in "toss-up" territory when I see new polling -- in March pre-primary polling, Public Policy Polling had Democratic nominee Tim Ryan within two points of GOP nominee JD Vance.
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