Trump triggers massive midterm turnout

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has inspired outrage, love, fear and every emotion in between. He also inspired record-breaking turnout at the ballot box.

With votes still being counted, an estimated 113 million Americans cast ballots in the first nationwide election of the Trump presidency. That’s a stunning 30 million more people who participated in the 2014 midterms and represents the highest raw vote total for a non-presidential election in U.S. history and the highest overall voter participation rate in a midterm election in a half century.

Democrats’ blue wave was real. But so was a corresponding surge in Republican enthusiasm that allowed the president’s party to counter the Democrats’ new House majority with big wins in top contests for the Senate and governorships this week.