What the numbers in last week's Michigan and Missouri primaries tell us

In St. Louis, the most liberal area of the Missouri the Republican candidate got more votes than his Democratic rival. That should simply never happen-it should not even be close. Republican turnout in both states was enormous and energetic. In Michigan, a fairly blue state with high Democratic voter registration, about a million people voted in the Republican primary and about 500,000 voted in the Democratic primary. I've never seen numbers like this before. In Missouri you could make the case that the ObamaCare proposition brought additional conservative votes out but that would only be a part of the explanation since a large segment of Democrats in the state voted for the referendum. Michigan in many ways should be an even greater warning. Both parties had contested races for governor and, if this was a normal year, would have brought out similar numbers. It is simply unbelievable that in a Democratic state like Michigan Republicans can outnumber Democrats in a primary by a ratio of 2 to 1.

Of course this is bad news for Democratic candidates who are running in statwide and congressional races but it is also terrible for those who are running in marginal districts for state assembly and senate seats. I suspect several state legislatures will change from Democratic to Republican control. That, along with a lot of winning GOP candidates winning governor's races will have long-term effects because it will be in the next term that state legislatures and their governors will be redrawing congressional district lines as well as their own state assembly and senate seats.

I've said for many weeks that the GOP will take control of the House in November. I suspect strongly that they will gain at least 55 seats. It is quite possible that they will get 60 or even 70. With Independents fleeing and Republicans coming out in droves to vote along with an anemic economy the Democrats are heading for a real beating in November.