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Democratic voter turnout has been way up this year. Let's put that in a bit of historical context.

The New York Times has a great graphic showing how Democratic primary election turnout has changed between 2014 and 2018. Their analysis found that Democratic turnout is up in at least 123 congressional races. Republicans experienced a similar boost between 2006 and 2010, the year they picked up 63 congressional seats and took control of the House of Representatives.

The news in this last week of June 2018 — packed with controversial Supreme Court decisions and the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy — is in many ways the result of Republican enthusiasm in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. While a lot of Democrats are (probably rightly) feeling good about the energy they've seen so far (a trend that held up on June 27), it only matters if people actually show up in November.

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