Thursday night, Rep. Marsha Blackburn coasted to an easy primary victory, winning with 84.47% of the vote. As expected, former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen coasted to victory in the Democrat primary, winning with 91.48% of the vote.

The telling statistic isn’t the percentage of the vote the winners got. The telling statistic is how many people turned out. The Republican candidates combined to win 717,885 votes, with Rep. Blackburn winning 606,402 votes alone. The 3 Democrat candidates combined to win 378,548 votes, with Bredesen winning 346,305 votes.

That means the 2 Republicans gathered almost 350,000 more votes than did the 3 Democrat candidates. While that doesn’t guarantee a November victory for Republicans, that margin of victory, coupled with the turnout, must have Mitch McConnell and Ronna McDaniel breathing a sigh of relief. Here’s what the races looked like:

The negative news last night was that Rep. Diane Black lost. She was backed by former Reagan economic adviser Art Laffer.