Now that we have the official July 7 primary results, we can see that many more Democrats voted on July 7 than Republicans.

Officially, the count was a bit more than a million Democrats and about 457,000 Republicans. On one hand, this is to be expected as the state on primary day had about 2.4 million Democrats and 1.3 million Republicans.

Yet at the same time, Democrats outperformed – if that’s the right word – Republicans in four seemingly battleground congressional districts – 2, 3, 7 and 11.

Putting names to the numbers, the incumbents here in sequential order are Democrat-turned-Republican Jeff Van Drew and Democrats Andy Kim, Tom Malinowski and Mikie Sherrill. In each district, more Democrats voted than Republicans.

And in some cases, the gulf was pretty wide. In CD-7, Malinowski “outpolled” three Republicans on the ballot, including the primary winner Tom Kean Jr., by an estimated 23,000 votes. In CD-11, Sherill “topped” Republican Rosemary Becchi by about 33,000.

I put “outpolled” and “topped” in quotes, because the candidates were not actually running against each other.

So, what, if anything, does this mean?

I offer an anecdote. It was two years ago on primary night and I was at Jay Webber’s campaign night party. If you recall, he was that year’s GOP candidate in CD-11.

I vividly recall a Republican who had worked the polls in one of the Chathams saying how she was surprised  so many Democrats voted that day. A fellow Republican dismissed that observation as meaningless. After all, he said, primary voters are different from general election voters.

Yep, they certainly are.

But a few months later, Democrats won the district by a comfortable margin.

One doesn’t truly know what primary turnout means, but it seems reasonable to conclude that voting in a primary – especially when there is no contest – suggests at least a degree of voter enthusiasm.

This can’t be minimized. The feeling here is that Democrats won Republican-held seats in CD-7 and 11 two years ago because many voters were determined to vote “against” Donald Trump. That theory is supported by the fact that prior to 2018, those districts were not even competitive.

So, is that anti-Trump excitement among Democrats still there?

Some Republicans posit the notion that excitement among Democrats has lagged a bit. That sentiment is based on the premise Joe Biden is not the kind of candidate who inflames passion.

Fair point. Biden is very much an establishment figure, not one to rouse up the populace as, say, a Bernie Sanders would. Then again, if there is excitement among Dems, it’s likely excitement at the chance to oust President Trump first and foremost. Just about any opposition candidate would do – within reason, that is.

Does the Dem primary turnout show that? Perhaps.

Let’s confront another election issue with turnout implications – voting by mail. One GOP official told me on primary day that Republicans don’t like voting by mail.

Considering what the president has been saying about the topic, that’s not a surprise.

But this is also a simmering problem, especially if the November election is mostly vote-by-mail like the primary was.

Surely, Republicans don’t want Democrats outpolling them by thousands of votes in competitive districts in November.