Even before all the votes were counted Thursday, Hamilton County had good and bad news.
The really bad news was that we learned this week some of Hamilton County voter districts have been drawn incorrectly for almost a decade, meaning some of our residents (about 325) have unknowingly been voting in the wrong districts. Election commissioners made provisional ballots for those folks to use on Thursday.
The additional bad news was that Hamilton County had the worst early voting turnout - just 8.41 percent of registered voters - in Tennessee, a state that traditionally is dead last in voter turnout.
That makes us the worst of the worst, right?
According to the Pew Charitable Trust's much-cited analysis of the November 2014 midterm elections, the most recent figures available, Tennessee was a dismal 40th in voter registration at 74 percent of voting age population, and was 50th in voter turnout, just 28.5 percent.
But now for the good news - especially good news for Democrats.
Judging from early voting turnout in Hamilton County, there just may be a blue wave!
State election records on early voting that ended July 28 showed a significant drop in Republican balloting comparing 2014 and 2018 - and an even more significant increase in Democratic balloting for the same set of mid-term elections.
Hamilton County is seeing a long-needed shift in party turnout.
Turnout in Hamilton County among Republicans in 2014 early voting was 15,473, compared with just 11,913 in the 14 days of early voting in 2018 - a drop of more than 23 percent.
But among Democratic voters, there was a 65 percent increase - from 5,655 in 2014 to 9,338 early votes cast in 2018.
More than 43 percent of the early votes cast here in July were made on Democratic ballots. In 2014's comparable election, blue votes tallied only 26 percent.
All politics are local, and things are looking up.