The intensity gap

A party’s get-out-the-vote efforts are always easier when their supporters are actually anxious to get to the polls. And as National Journal’s Charlie Cook noted in his column this week, right now, Dems are motivated and ready to vote — and Republicans are less so.

When Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster Bill McInturff interviewed 893 registered voters in their March 10-13 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, they asked voters how interested they were in this November’s midterm election on a scale of one to 10, with one representing not at all interested and 10 being very interested.

The result: 53 percent of Democrats chose 10, compared to only 43 percent of Republicans. And only 34 percent of independents were 10s. Only 7 percent of Democrats, and the same percentage of Republicans, chose 9, so that doesn’t close the gap much.

To look at the same situation from a slightly different angle, of those who said they preferred to see Democrats in control of Congress after the November elections, 53 percent chose 10, but of those that wanted to see Republicans in control, only 38 percent chose 10.

Yes, it’s early. No, we don’t know what’s going to happen between now and November. Yes, I too shudder to think what Republicans might do to help motivate their base over the next six months.

But as Cook explained, electoral changes are typically more likely to happen when one party’s voters are “complacent or disillusioned,” while the other side is “hungry or angry.” At this point, Dems are the latter and Republicans are the prior.

Consider this your morale booster for the day.

I’m so effin pissed at Bush that 10 doesn’t even begin to cover it, so count in me as hungry AND angry.

  • I also shudder to think of what the next few months are going to be like. The Feingold attack ads are just the start. I was so motivated this morning, that I volunteered with the Michigan dem party for the first time.

  • Why would any real conservative be psyc’d about voting for a republican to keep raising the debt ceiling in this country?

    Did you hear about the Senators who went to China to threaten them with tarriffs if they did not float the Chinese currency? Don’t these guys know that we need the money the Chinese are making off us to pay for the debt we are racking up by not having a high enough tax rate to collect the revenue we need to build bridges to nowhere in Alaska?

    Nine Trillion and change, most of it from Reagen, Bush 1 and Bush 2.

    Nope, there is no reason for a conservative to come out and vote Republican in November. Now theocrat reactionaries, they may have a reason.

  • “The apocalypse” – kali

    Well, actually, the Rapture. They don’t plan on being around for the Apocalypse. That’s for people like me and you.

    What gags me about the these Rapture/Apocalypse waiting/wanting Theocrat Reactionaries is their insistence on coming up with truely STUPID policies meant to bring the End Times (like encouraging Isreal never to make an accomidation with the Palestinians). Or seeing a bumber sticker on a Ford Explorer (gas-guzzling away) that says “In case of Rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned”. Nice of him to be destroying the world he hopes to skip out on. Sort of like dealing drugs to the mother of your children because you plan to run out on her.

    I take great comfort from the thought that every Rapturist who has ever died has died wrong. 😉

  • A coworker of mine had a bumper sticker that cracked me up every time I saw it. When the rapture comes, can I have your car?

  • Rapture –
    Not much different that the 72 virgins in paradise that await the the holy warrior of the Koran.
    They are all versions of the same fairy tale incentive for suicide.

    Theocrats of the world seem to be in collusion to bring on the dark ages, or the end of time. Dogmatic religion…. the mother of all terrorists.

  • We here at the Carpetbagger blog may be hungry and angry, but I don’t see many signs of activity from elected Democrats (who seem fearful of losing their positions at the hind tits of the federal sow and are obviously embarrassed by the likes of Dean and Conyers and Feingold). I wonder if the Great American Asylum for the Insane will fall for the Bush Crime Family’s *Iran* feelers this time around.

  • Let’s just hope we can keep up the momentum–and the Dems can quit tearing down their own (hello, Russ Feingold)–until November. I just can’t understand why the Dems can’t formulate a coordinated attack against the Bush regime and the Rethugs. Why aren’t more Dems taking advantage of what’s happening and just taking over, making changes, standing boldly against what this administration has done, as Conyers and Feingold have? Are those conspiracy theorists who claim that all politicans, Dem or Rep, are really after the same things (money/power for themselves and pals) really right? I just can’t accept that; there HAS to be hope somewhere.

  • If this poll is about measuring hunger and anger, you can mark me down under the category of “Werewolf”.

    RAWWWRRRRR!!!!! 🙂

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