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According to a new Pew Research poll (PDF) of registered voters in the upcoming congressional election, 45 percent are leaning Democratic while 44 percent are leaning Republican. This does not bode well for Democrats, since they need to have a significant lead in the generic ballot if they hope to hold onto their large majorities in the House and Senate. At the same time, these numbers also don’t point to a massive Republican wave. By comparison, at about this same time in 2006, Democrats led Republicans 50 percent to 39 percent.
The enthusiasm gap might be more important than the generic poll number. Pew, like almost every other pollster, has found Republicans far more engaged and excited about voting than Democrats. From Pew:
Republicans and conservatives continue [sic] express far greater interest in the election than do Democrats and liberals. More than half of Republicans (55%) say they have given a lot of thought to the election, compared with 37% of Democrats. Among Republican-leaning independents, 62% have given a lot of thought to the election; Democratic-leaning independents are much less engaged (29%). Among Republicans, conservatives are far more engaged than those who describe themselves as moderates or liberals (62% vs. 41%).
The poll also found engagement among young voters to be dismal. Pew found only 23 percent of voters under 30 to have “high campaign engagement.” That is less than half of the percentage of voters over 50 who have high engagement.
As a young person who is deeply involved in politics, I find this very disappointing. I know the importance of politics, and while I understand why many young people are tuning it out, this is still an unfortunate development. However, there is one small silver lining for me personally because I love good political data and care about the issue of marijuana legalization.
Since youth engagement and turnout is likely going to be very low across the country, it will be easier to determine if having Prop 19 to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana on the ballot results in increased engagement and turnout among young voters in California. Neither Democrat Jerry Brown nor Republican Meg Whitman seems to have the ability to fire up young voters for the gubernatorial race. If youth turnout in California significantly exceeds the levels in other states, it would be logical to conclude that having marijuana legalization on the ballot was responsible.
30 Comments
Can’t blame young people fo being bored. Which is too bad beccause there are so many issues that need their attention and imagination.
Don’t be fooled by those who say the midterm elections will only produce small changes. Dozens of purple Congressional districts that the Dems won in 2006 and in 2008 are in jeopardy. Same goes for quite a few purple Senate seats.
Obama is to be held doubly responsible. It is no surprise that young voters are extremely disenchanted. Obama campaigned on “Change” and “Hope” – promising to be something different. I didn’t believe him – just a lot of political hooey, but many young people did. I wouldn’t blame them if they chose to sit it out.
Obama nor none of his supports took the time to tell young people what all the “serious” Washington insider treat as gospel. All political promise are meaningless and the media doesn’t even think it is their job to hold people accountable.
That kind of thing has a tendency to happen when you promise change but deliver more of the same. Hard to get enthusiastic when all you are offered are lies and bullsh*t.
Pres. Obama escalated the US military and CIA war of genocide on the people of Pakistan with his vile robotic drone murder machines.
Have Pres. Obama and AG Holder started to investigate the thousands of crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime?
I find that Pres. Obama is basically a corporate Republican, with his BS progressive/liberal public chats and his corporate Republican actions for the last 18 months.
Why whould any progressive in his right mind help the Dems? Pelosi just cut food stamps for the poor to help the middle class teachers, firemen and policemen.
More class warfare, this time waged by corporate Democrats on the poorest people to help the middle class…
Heck of a job, Nancy, Eric and Barack.
Laura Wells could fire people up — if she’d do some campaigning outside of San Francisco.
It would be really good to see young people’s enthusiasm over time. Mid term election is nearly 3 months away; what was the enthusiasm curve like in 2008, 2006?
Paging Nate Silver.
The kids who want to smoke pot already have their supply. And, smoking all day doesn’t necessarily encourage them to want to be part of the democratic process.
In a world in which nation-states have become irrelevant and global governance has become the owning class’s latest scam (see e.g the World Economic Forum), the world’s people are reverting to the sort of tribalism which characterized preindustrial society. FDL wailing and gnashing of teeth about “mindless tribalism” will do nothing to stop this. To combat the bad kind of tribes, Republican, exploitative, capitalist tribes, we need the good kind of tribes, tribes which will resist the dominant, exploitative order.
How many times have you adults cut the school budgets on this group of young voters so you could have another tax cut?
You adults taught them to be be this way.
Think back to 2008. By this time two years ago, young people were all talking about Obama and the change he was going to bring and how better times were ahead. Of course it didn’t happen but that’s what was going on in the summer of 2008. Do you really need Nate Silver to tell you that people are much less enthusiastic this year?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulTmmTIlM_o
Do you know what blog you’re on? because judging by that question you are clueless about the kind of people that comment at FDL.
I know that song, but I fail to get your message as a response to my comment.
‘Splain, please?
“Smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer,
But a friend of ours was captured and they gave him thirty years.
Maybe we should raise a fuss and ask somebody why,
But demonstrations are a drag/ besides, we’re much too high…”
I’m amazed that I have to explain this.
Okay got it. Thanks for explaining. Really. Don’t be too amazed. There’s way more out there, doncha think? Still, I thank you so much. And, ya know I’m totally for Prop 19. For so many reasons.
PS, I took my twenty something son camping with a bunch of his friends a couple of months ago. They got into a big conversation/argument about the medical significances of pot and at the end, my husband asked them why they smoked so much dope. One of the guys, a total cutie, smiled and said, ‘Cause we’re pot heads. Cracked me up. And, yes, they shared. A little.
I don’t know why young people would care much about politics or public service today given that all most of them have seen is the snake oil of Reagan, the triangulation of Clinton, and the idiotocracy and flagrant corruption of the two Buscovite juntas.
The Kennedys, MLK, Jr., etc. were only people that they read about in their history books. And people like Paul Wellstone didn’t live long enough to make a substantial impact.
There’s not much in it for them except the fact that they will probably be handed unsolvable problems from the preceding generation who more often than not, seems more interested in enriching themselves at their expense. Until we get some more other centered and visionary leadership that is determined to leave them something worthwhile, young people will never be engaged in our politics.
I don’t know how enthusiastic young people were at this time in 2008. My recollection is that the convention wasn’t that popular with the youth demographic.
Traditional campaign season starts Labor Day. By that time college is back in session as well, at which point OFA might be working to build enthusiasm.
Young people can detect when they’re being played. I’m not surprised enthusiasm among young people is dismal.
somebody HAS to have a clip of Bush saying
‘because y’see, the economy … it broke in the middle…’:
I swear I heard the clip on npr back when Lehman fell. So if there is audio, there has to be video. This should be plastered over every sq ft advertisement of R faces or kept on a loop in the corner of every dem running for office this fall! Why isn’t it already? Is it money? Grayson’s push I heard earlier today is great as well.
Thank you for this article!
I mean, can someone make a youtube clip of bush saying ‘it broke-bro-broke- it broke in the middle…’
the thing is it would break the right’s entire argument for voting for them in the fall, or their surrogates … more stimulus, not less should be the chant in these lowly dogdays of Aug with 10% + unemployment, ‘but mr boehner, it broke in the middle’
It’s long overdue time to have a left wing boycott of all but the most solidly progressive Democrats. That includes only those that vote “correctly” when there is a potential chance of passing legislation. I’m tired of those far-left-liberals who vote for progressive measures only when it’s a guaranteed lost cause. No more resume votes. We don’t have to boycott the elections: there are important ballot measures in many states that need votes. Just don’t vote for the Democrats and let people know you didn’t. Can you hear me now?
And right on cue I find a missive from OFA in my email box this morning asking me to “commit to vote”.
From Barack Obama:
“And you can bet that I am counting on you to join them in talking to voters in your community.
This election offers a stark choice. We Democrats are hard at work trying to move America forward, repairing a decade of damage and growing an economy based on the Main Street values of hard work and responsibility.
We’ve fought for and won historic reforms to our health care system, a victory 100 years in the making, and to Wall Street, the most sweeping overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression.
But after years of policies that landed us in the worst recession since the 1930′s, the Republicans who got us there have not come up with anything different from the policies of George W. Bush.
We simply cannot afford to go backwards or let them repeal our reforms. And making sure we can continue moving forward starts with your own promise to cast your ballot in these elections.”
Yeah, I’ll vote. I haven’t not voted in 30 years. I just don’t think the votes I cast will make Plouffe happy this time around. And as for working the GOTV effort again? Not bloody likely. See, I worked through my union last time, manning phone banks, stuffing envelopes, and walking precincts.
That would be the NEA and AFT, the unions that Barack Obama sees fit to kick once or twice a month now. The unions that “wasted 10 million dollars” trying to unseat Blanche Lincoln. The union that couldn’t even get a serious hearing for the promised card check in this congress. The unions that, according to Obama, are resisting his super-duper change-o policies of tying our pay and job security to messed up single take tests and the innovation of private for-profit charter school management companies and real estate scammers.
And my health insurance premiums, despite his pronouncement of historic reforms, have just been raised again, effectively tripling it in the last 3 years and a 1 night stay in a hospital last October nearly bankrupted me and I can’t afford follow up treatment or tests. And my employers are talking about rethinking their ability to offer health insurance at all any more with the massive budget deficits we are facing, after $50 million in cuts over the last 3 years. And my state pension fund is nearly bankrupt due to risky investments in Wall Street scams that have gone unpunished and my Social Security is now in jeopardy as well.
Seems they are assuming an awful lot with this one. I’m not a young person at 50 but I work with lots of young people who worry pretty much about the same things if they aren’t worried outright about losing their jobs entirely and not being able to find another in the next few years at all. Enthusiasm? This letter doesn’t even come close to building that and if this is the great plan well, I’ll stop now.
I’ll be the first to ask….who the **** cares about democrats?
If I lived in a district with a real dem not a blue ball conservadem I’d be excited.
But who the hell would be excited for Blanche the blue b***h Lincoln and the “dems” like her.
Why the hell would anyone be enthused about voting for the republican lite candidates that Obama helped win primaries.
It would have helped the democratic party in CA to support Prop. 19.
Instead they played politics and stayed “neutral”, which is really the same as opposing the law because it won’t pass without the votes.
Clearly, you know nothing about which you speak. Quit listening to the fear mongers and do some research about the material that has a LD50 rating of over 50,000 times the effective dose. That makes it one of the safest materials in the world. Safer than Oxygen and water.
Bored? How about UNEMPLOYED!
And lets not forget about independents. Where does PEW say they are leaning….my guess is AWAY from Dems and Obama. As in 2008, independents will swing the elections to the GOP.
No wave? Then why in Russ Feingold finding himself to be vulnerable?
I wouldn’t be so resistant to the demographic point Adam makes.
Even at 31, I feel there’s a real strong tendency for policy makers to favor policies that are good for age groups older than me. And being told “it’s because they vote” doesn’t make one feel very good about the fact that one seems to be ignored by policy makers.
Hunh. Apparently Bush’s policies were worse than his war crimes. Who’da thunk it?