Gallup pollsters spent the last two weeks taking the electorate’s temperature, and it found that registered voters are marginally more enthusiastic to vote in this year’s general election than they were in 2020, 2008, and 2004. But Democratic respondents were more jazzed than their Republican counterparts.
Today, 77 percent of prospective Democratic voters described themselves as “enthusiastic” about their vote — a two-point decline from their “joy”-fueled high-water mark in August but still up over the doldrums of March, when Joe Biden was still the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Republicans, by contrast, are significantly less enthusiastic. Just two-thirds of GOP voters expressed similar exuberance for November’s electoral contests.
And yet, enthusiasm is distinct from the positive connotations associated with “excitement.” The Associated Press’s latest survey found that there is little of that among all American adults. While the vast majority of voting-age Americans told AP-NORC pollsters they are “interested” in the race, far fewer describe themselves as “excited” by it. That’s truer for Democrats than Republicans; just 37 percent of self-identified Democrats in the survey say they’re excited by this race compared with 41 percent of Republicans. But Democrats are more likely to experience negative emotions about this campaign than Americans who lean toward the GOP.
We can deduce that, at the margins, Democrats are experiencing more negative emotions about this race than Republicans. That sentiment may be driving them to become (again, marginally) more engaged with the process.
So, which campaign is more likely to benefit from this dynamic: the GOP, which can count on the affirmative support of their voters, or the Democratic Party and its voting base that is motivated by apprehension toward Trump? There are competing schools of thought on that question. Do voters mirror the social science that suggests people are generally more motivated by pain avoidance (negative emotions) than pleasure-seeking (positive emotions)? Or is Northwestern University political scientist Costas Panagopoulos correct insofar as “voting is a prosocial behavior” and, therefore, positive sentiments like gratitude and appreciation are more likely to drive turnout?
We will see soon enough. But the campaigns cannot control their voters’ sentiments. They can, however, mobilize their voters and channel those sentiments toward productive purposes. That will be a function of how both campaigns approach their respective “ground games,” and, according to Gallup, more voters have had contact with the Democratic get-out-the-vote apparatus than the GOP’s.
“More registered voters say they have been contacted by Kamala Harris’ campaign (42%) than by Donald Trump’s campaign (35%),” Gallup’s results found:
The majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 58%, say the Harris campaign has contacted them. That compares with 40% of Republicans and Republican leaners who say the Trump campaign has contacted them, which is on the low end of what Gallup has measured in the past for supporters of the nominee’s party.
Taken together, these polling results clarify the Harris campaign’s decision to drop the “joy” in favor of paranoia and anxiety. Democratic voters will be driven to the polls more by their opposition to Trump than their support for Harris. We will learn next week whether the Harris campaign’s last-minute push to translate that trepidation into votes will pay off.
