When Biden began winning one primary after another, it was taken as a double refutation of Sanders’s theory, first because Democratic voters were rejecting it by choosing Biden, and second because there wasn’t a huge infusion of young voters for Sanders.

But let’s turn the question around. Is it possible that there will be a large Democratic turnout for Biden, even if he isn’t all that exciting or inspiring? Or to put it a different way, might Trump be all the turnout motivation Democrats need?

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Turnout in the midterm elections was positively huge. It hit 50 percent, the kind of number we are used to seeing only in presidential years. That was the highest midterms turnout since 1914. Compare that with what we saw in 2014 (37 percent), 2010 (41 percent) or 2006 (40 percent).

And while Democrats fielded plenty of good candidates, turnout didn’t spike that high because they were so compelling. It was a backlash against Trump.

Soon after, analysts began predicting enormous turnout for the fall. As William Galston observed late last year, over the past few decades, the increase in turnout from a midterm to the next presidential election has ranged from 11 percent to 23 percent, with an average of 18 percent. Now add that 18 percent to the 50 percent turnout in 2018.

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If 2020 turnout hit 68 percent, that would be the highest turnout since 1900; even at the low end of the range of increase, 61 percent, it would be the highest since the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971.

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Yet there’s a paradox here. Despite all that, so far in this year’s primaries, turnout has been strong but not overwhelming, and not everywhere. Iowa was a notable disappointment, with turnout barely topping 2016. In South Carolina, on the other hand, it exceeded the recent high-water mark of 2008.

And oddly enough, Republicans have been turning out to vote for Trump, even though he has only token opposition. In New Hampshire, over 150,000 Republicans voted in the primary, half the number of Democrats who voted, even though the latter were the only ones who had a real race.

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It’s tricky to predict what will happen in the general election based on that, however. GOP turnout is a sign of intense support for Trump, but the question isn’t whether his most passionate supporters will show up this fall. Those people will vote regardless. But it remains unclear whether he’ll pull in new voters who didn’t cast ballots in 2016.

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What about the Democrats? How come they aren’t flocking to the polls in overwhelming numbers?

It’s at least possible that, in this particular situation, turnout in primaries is not as predictive of turnout in the general election as it might otherwise be. Trump was, for all intents and purposes, on the ballot in 2018. He isn’t quite as much on the Democratic primary ballot.

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And so, if you’re a Democrat who hates Trump but was lukewarm on the primary candidates (or the ones remaining when your state voted), you might not have bothered to vote. But that doesn’t mean you won’t in November.

Now let’s consider Biden. It’s true that he’s not the most enthralling candidate. If he were running against an ordinary Republican, that could be a real problem. But because he’ll be running against Trump, it might not matter. The hunger to get Trump out may be strong enough that Democratic turnout will be as high as it can be anyway.

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If so, then if Biden can win over even a small number of disgruntled Republicans, particularly in fast-growing suburban areas, that might be enough to get him to victory, and his theory will have been proved correct.

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On the other hand, what Democrats need is not just strong turnout among their own voters, but turnout that’s stronger than what Republicans can achieve among theirs.

There’s another factor that could drive heavy turnout in the fall: dissatisfaction. Had the economy simply kept purring, there might have been a good number who didn’t like Trump much, but weren’t upset enough to get to the polls. But if the coronavirus continues to disrupt our lives and we fall into a recession, the level of dissatisfaction will rise, potentially bringing some voters off the sidelines.

None of that requires Biden to be a blinding supernova of charisma. It’s always possible that large numbers of Sanders voters will protest their candidate losing by staying home, or that the Trump campaign’s demobilization efforts will be successful, or that the virus will fade, the recession will be forestalled, and booting Trump will lose its urgency for some occasional voters.

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But it’s more likely that this will seem like one of the most important elections anyone can remember, especially for Democrats.

In other words, while Democrats desperately need to motivate their voters, and Biden might not do that in a different year, this time he probably won’t have to. Trump will prove to be all the motivation they need.

Opinion Who could win the Democratic primary? Use the Post Opinions Simulator to pick a state and see what might happen in upcoming primaries and caucuses.