There’s been a lot of discussion of how well Democrats performed in the August primary in Sarasota County, something that likely contributed to Republican Eric Robinson’s ouster from the School Board and the fact only Democrats emerged from a District 2 primary for the City Commission. But how and where did they do well?

At SRQ, it’s a been a tradition for more than a decade to dig deep into ”Where The Votes Are.” Ahead of a workshop to be held Thursday morning for the first time remotely (RSVP here), I’ve already started picking apart numbers to see exactly where Democrats overperformed this cycle, something that could hold significance in November. What I found is that Democrats not only had a turnout more than 8 percentage points greater than Republicans, but they performed better in areas dominated by the GOP for a long time.

A close look at data shows that only 16 precincts in the entire county have more Democrats registered than Republicans, compared to 83 that are the other way around.

That said, Democrats who voted on Aug. 18 outnumbered Republicans in 20 precincts where there are more Republicans registered to vote. In another Republican-majority precinct, there was a tie as far as Republican and Democrat turnout. Meanwhile, there were no majority-Democrat precincts where Republicans outperformed.

Winning or tying in 37 of 99 precincts is nothing to dismiss, though it still shows Democrats are clustered in parts of the county making certain districts unwinnable. But this may also signal a significant advantage in enthusiasm gap among Democrats — at least in the August races.

Where were the precincts that flipped upside down?

Unsurprisingly, many of them lay in the greater Sarasota area, where Democrats have seen growing success over the past decade. Precincts 105, 117, 121, 131, 203, 213, 219, 223, 422 and 425 all have Sarasota addresses and serve as home precinct to more Republicans than Democrats, yet saw more Democrats come to polls than Republicans. It has seemed in recent years Democrats may be winning Republicans in this area over even if they don’t change their voter registration. But the results from the August election show it’s as likely Republicans just can’t get excited in this area about local politics at all.

There were a few more surprising areas to see Democrats overperform, including in precinct 201 on Longboat Key, in the Holiday Park precinct 341 in North Port and in precinct 403 on Siesta Key. Most startling to me, though, was a cluster of Venice precincts— 405, 413, 421, 423, 433, 513, 515, 517 and 519. Two years ago, Republican Rick Scott outperformed Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson in five of those nine seats on his way to unseating the Democrat. Considering Venice just elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in a number of years, the August results may indicate the region to be more swingy that it appears.

Some caveats. Recall, 42.7% of registered Democrats participated in the Aug. 18 primary countywide, compared to 34.4% of Republicans and 15.6% on those registered without any party affiliation. That’s obviously a sign Democrats were better organized for this election. But also remember more Republicans voted (48,199 out of 140,166) than Democrats (44,652 out of 104,526). Even on a good day for Democrats, they still get outnumbered at the polls by registered Republicans. That’s partly why Democrats could pick off Robinson while Karen Rose won a simultaneous election for an open School Board seat now held by a Democrat. Put another way, Democratic candidates still need to win over independent and Republican voters to be successful, at least in countywide races like School Board.

The presence of the Presidential election on the Nov. 3 ballot will surely rouse partisan voters on both sides of the aisle, but Democrats head into the fall confident they came out ahead in a lot of places where the odds were stacked against them.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor for SRQ Media. To RSVP for Thursday’s virtual Where The Votes Are workshop, please email wtva@srqme.com.