Thank God the primary election is over!

That’s the good news. The bad news? It’s just six months until the November general election.

For a short time, we won’t see political texts that talk about sex slaves in the office or government cars or mailers where one candidate is pointing a pistol at the face of her opponent.

We won’t see social media posts where a billionaire describes how he can best represent the non-billionaires in office, or why the non-billionaire candidates aren’t good enough to represent non-billionaire constituents.

Voter turnout was low in the primary. It is likely to be significantly higher this November.

Most local races will be voted on in November. Modesto, Turlock and other cities and school boards will see council races. Several jurisdictions will also place tax and bond measures before their citizens.

The voter participation level will be much higher because California will be electing a new governor, state constitutional officers, 80 state assembly members and 20 state senators, 52 members of congress, along with deciding the fate of several significant initiative proposals.

But there are lessons to be learned from the primary.

Hard work pays off. Stanislaus County supervisor Mani Grewal was on the ballot seeking reelection. Grewal has proved to be a very successful and effective elected leader. But that doesn’t always translate in election victories, especially in very partisan times. Despite an aggressive challenge, Grewal received an astonishing 77% of the vote, an unheard-of total in a competitive election. His success is based on is work habits, his ability to listen to folks and hear and understand their concerns, and then to find ways to address their problems. Proof is in the pudding. Grewal never would have reached that vote total if he hadn’t earned the trust of the homeowners, residents, businesses, workers, employers and employees who live in that district. To achieve this level of support in a hyper partisan year is unheard of.

Our November election will be equally if not even more partisan.

Our area will have contested congressional, and state senate races, along with the statewide partisan contests.

But we will also be deciding many local city and special district elections, which are not defined as partisan, but which some on both sides would like to make partisan.

The mayor of Turlock and city council members of Turlock, Modesto and our other cities are not partisan positions. Vote for folks in those offices who will put fixing the streets, repairing the potholes, policing the parks, teaching the kids to read, balancing the books and accounting for our tax dollars as their priorities.

If the mayor of your town has kept your faith by spending public money as promised, reelect him or her. If your council representative doesn’t have time to meet with you and your neighbors, elect one who does.

Incumbents don’t always win. And that’s a good thing. If the performance of an elected official in the conduct of his or her job is lacking, make the change. And you don’t need a scandal to justify electing someone new.

Ask the mayoral candidates what they are going to do to fix the roads. If the candidate is an incumbent, ask him or her what they have done to address city problems. If they are challengers, ask what they would do different from the incumbent they want to replace.

It they can’t give you an answer, perhaps they don’t deserve your vote.

For the statewide elections it will be hard to get to the basic facts through the full-scale partisan warfare that is likely to occur very soon. But we have the time to filter that out in our local contests.

So be prepared for an unending series of negative posts and mailers urging you to vote yes or no on specific measures or candidates. But check them out! One of the fine arts of politics is to mislead through misdirection, distraction or outright invention. Things aren’t as complicated as they want you believe.

Vote with your heart, and your head this November.