After the numbers came in from the New Hampshire primary, I noticed that Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC was very impressed that almost 14,000 voters turned out specifically to cast a ballot against Donald Trump. But that was only one part of the story.

The president’s orbit took notice that Republican rival Bill Weld won a single electoral vote in Iowa, and Trump advisers were closely watching the New Hampshire totals.

Weld, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, ended up receiving just over 9 percent in New Hampshire…

…The vote totals in New Hampshire were even starker. The president received 129,696 votes, more than doubling Obama (2012) and Bush’s (2004) totals.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in New Hampshire by a narrow 348,526 to 345,790 margin, so it’s actually pretty significant that 13,769 people voted against Trump in the 2020 Republican primary. In the Granite State, voters must register with a party in order to vote in the that party’s primary but they are able to do so on Election Day, and they can de-register on the way out the door. This enables people to be a Democrat or Republican for a day, and to cross over just to make trouble. But it’s doubtful that too many Democrats opted to do this since they had a highly competitive primary of their own going on. Most likely, the 13,769 number is comprised overwhelmingly of disaffected Republicans who have no intention of voting for Trump in the fall.

That’s a pretty big number in the context of the margin in 2016 which was less than 3,000 votes.

Yet, the other side of the story is that droves of Republicans turned out to give their support to Trump even though it wasn’t a competitive election. This is why William Weld wound up with only 9.1. percent of the vote. Historically, his raw vote total would have given him closer to 20 percent, and that might have spawned dozens of negative articles about Trump’s standing with the faithful.

Clearly, there was an unusual amount of enthusiasm for Trump in New Hampshire, and that ought to translate to an easy get out the vote effort for him. Undoubtedly, the fact that the Senate had just concluded an impeachment trial had a lot to do with this, but another difference was that the Trump team actually worked hard to produce this outcome. They did a lot of voter outreach and contact, which is not something that Obama and Bush bothered with in their reelection years.

All of this is probably just confirmation that we’re headed to a high turnout election in November, but so far the Democrats have produced a mixed message on that front. The turnout in Iowa was better than in 2016 but nowhere near what was produced by Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton in 2008. However, the New Hampshire turnout did surpass 2008 and set a record. It’s hard to say what explains that disparity or what the numbers portend for future primaries and caucuses.

As for New Hampshire, both sides can find reasons for comfort and concern. Trump’s base is fired up, but there is also a lot of dissension in the ranks. I don’t know which factor will be more important when the voters go to the polls in November.