It seems obvious that pollsters must ask a question like "How enthusiastic would you say you are about [candidate specified in earlier question], very enthusiastic, enthusiastic, or not very?" Unfortunately, they don't sem to ask that question. Some ask similar questions or questions that suggest an answer, but many don't even ask anything close. Nonetheless, I was able to ferret out some useful information.
The very first site I visited looking for this data was Gallup's website. Fortunately, right at the top of the page, they had an article that seems pretty close to exactly what I was looking for: Democrats’ Election Enthusiasm Far Outweighs Republicans’.
Only 51% of Republicans say they are more enthusiastic about voting than in previous years, compared to 71% of Democrats, marking a shift from October 2004, when enthusiasm was about the same for both partisan groups.Enthusiastic about voting isn't necessarily the same thing as enthusiastic about your candidate, but the numbers should be directly relevant to the question. Gallup regularly polls this question in their national polls, and Obama has lead all year. The closest it's been was immediately after the RNC when McCain pulled within seven points when he selected Palin as his running mate.
I don't trust poll data from only one source, so I kept looking... Quinnipiac was the next site that provided any useful info (From Oct. 1):
"During the past three weeks, Florida voters lost their faith in Sen. McCain. His net favorability dropped in half and Sen. Obama's almost doubled over the same period. One look at independents shows the massive change. Three weeks ago, McCain had a seven-point edge among Florida independents. Today, Obama leads among that group by 12 points," Brown saidand
"It's easy to see why Sen. McCain is doing so poorly. On September 11, his favorable/unfavorable ratio among Ohio voters was 53 - 34 percent. Now it's just 49 - 40 percent, dropping from a 19-point plus to nine points in just 20 days, while Sen. Obama's ratings have remained as positive as they were. And the economy is the reason. Obama's five-point edge as the best candidate to handle the economy - which is by far the most important issue to voters, especially in economically distressed Ohio - has doubled," Brown said.Rasmussen also yielded some info:
Obama is viewed favorably by 56% of voters, McCain by 51%. For McCain, that figure in unchanged since yesterday and represents his lowest favorability rating since Obama clinched the Democratic Presidential Nomination.and
A closer look a these numbers suggests an even larger advantage for Obama—39% of voters have a Very Favorable opinion of the Democratic nominee while 32% have a Very Unfavorable opinion. The comparable numbers for McCain are 23% Very Favorable and 26% Very Unfavorable.
Just 48% of Republicans have a Very Favorable opinion of their party’s nominee. Seventy-two percent (72%) of Democrats are that enthusiastic about Obama. (From Oct. 13)
Forty-five percent (45%) of voters say they are certain they will vote for Obama and will not change their mind. Thirty-eight percent (38%) say the same about McCain. Thirteen percent (13%) currently have a preference for one of the candidates but might change their mind. Four percent (4%) are either undecided or plan to vote for a third-party candidate. (From Oct. 5)Yet more data that suggests that McCain needs to pull an awfully big rabbit out of his hat if he wants to pull off a victory just 21 days from today. It's certainly not impossible, but it will be very soon if he doesn't start turning things around soon.
6 comments:
There is a joke in our right-wing dominated Tennessee county that "all the Democrats could have a meeting in a phone booth and still have room to make change for a phone call."
Today, W stickers are starting to disappear from the Hummers and SUVs and they are not always being replaced by McCain/Palin stickers. The few yard signs up are 50% Obama.
I think most county voters are still voting Republican, but mainly on the abortion and anti-gay part of the platform. With McCain/Palin, that is all they have to cling to, but you can't run a government on those issues.
There is sort of "enthusiasm" among Democrats in this county, which is known for mansions built by plantation owners in the 1800s and more recently country music stars.
Democratic enthusiasm? For some. For others, like me, voting will be a solemn experience. I feel an absolute duty to vote, as soon as possible. This duty springs from a sort of sadness, which has gradually overwhelmed me after watching our country run up the deficit and body count in Iraq while neglecting heath care, the economy, education, and the environment.
Besides the war, what was the priority of our government? I remember watching my Tennessee Senator Frist declare that Terry Schiavo was not in a vegetative state and that she would recover. President Bush flew back to Washington to interfere in her death.
Enthusiam is the wrong word. When I vote tomorrow (early voting starts the 15th here), pulling the lever will be like pulling the feeding tube from the Bush administration because long ago it was declared brain dead. This government has nothing left to offer its citizens or the world because Bush, and his self-serving cronies, have stolen its vibrant promise and reduced it to a broken, empty machine. We can't even trust the Justice Department because Bush allowed it to be filled with cronies and 150 graduates of ultra-right Regent University.
Enthusiasm doesn't cover the feeling. It's the feeling that the Founding Father's had when they signed the Declaration of Independence. They divorced themselves from a backward and wretched government then, and we can do it again. Luckily, we do not need to take up arms.
Wow. Great comment/post, diogenes.
Good luck. Report back on the touchscreens or what your ballot experience is, will you?
Regarding the sad broken (vegetative) state of the nation after 8 years of red-state rule: This sadness is also common to Spain. And all Latin American countries. Germany. France, too. Her colonies. Britain and her colonies. Russia. China Asia. Africa. Ah, damn, it's just the sadness of the world and its messed up history everywhere you go. But I think you mean how in some eras we seem to transcend and redeem history and in others we dig ourselves in deeper.
You are right about the Justice Department. Every law passed since the Supreme Court coup should be reviewed. The Supreme Court justices responsible can be impeached. Every person hired by federal agencies since 2001 should be suspended where possible-- as a cost-cutting measure if for no other reason, but also until it can be determined if political favoritism played a part in their hiring. The Pentagon ought to give lifelong unconditional healthcare including mental health care to every veteran without question.
I better not get started. I don't know if Obama will purge the machine as is needed but I think he will be forward-looking without being vengeful but is ready to do what is needed and brush away frozen policies such as our Cuban policy frozen since 1962 and our China policy frozen since 1972. I think he will take a fresh look at everything.
If we get McCain, perhaps his hatred of Bush would be free to emerge and he would do us the favor of destroying the Republican party(or is that what Bush has done?).
Ok, Diogenes, I officially take back all my grumbling about your pessimism. I live in liberal Seattle, so it's sometimes easy to forget that things might be darker in some other places. I suspect that if Bill Frist was my Senator, I'd be even more pessimistic than you.
The good news is that even TN is having a real growth in democratic organizing. I don't think it will be enough to swing the state, but give it another cycle or two and who and who knows what will happen.
Poll Junkie, You are really simply asking about likely voters. Your hypothesis is that enthusiastic voters will be more likely voters. One question is whether the pollsters have accounted for this.
As we have seen, voters may vote out of revulsion as well as enthusiasm, push as well as pull. (McCain couldn't get excitement, now even with Palin, so he has been trying to repel voters from Obama.) I think attempting to convert enthusiasm into votes is difficult and unreliable. Pollsters just revert to the simpler question: Do you intend to vote? --which will give better results.
You raise more questions than you answer, but you would have to see how pollsters estimate actual turnout based on previous election data which may or may not apply this year.
Unfortunately, that's not how pollsters arrive at their likely voter number, and for good reason: In the past, the number of Americans who tell pollsters they intend to vote is always much higher than the actual turnout.
Each pollster uses their own method for determining likely voters, but it usually factors in who voted in the last election. In this election, when every pundit is expecting record turnout of new voters, all those models are thrown out the window. Even the pollsters don't know how to predict who will turn out for this election. Gallup is actually reporting two completely different models for likely voters, that result in a 3 point difference in the results.
You are right that enthusiasm for a candidate doesn't automatically translate into votes, but it should be a reasonably accurate predictor of relative voter turnout. It won't be exact, but with the Republican's expressing 20% lower enthusiasm, it's reasonable to assume that they're turnout will be at least a point or two off from where it was four years ago. Considering that 22,000 voters across three states had stayed home in 2004, it would have changed the outcome of the election in 2004 (not to mention 611 voters in one state in 2000), that point or two will be a huge factor this year.
To answer the question, you would have to take a look at historical data about how the "enthusiasm" factor combined with actual poll results and age info etc correlated with the actual poll results. How much is enthusiasm worth? Youthful enthusiasm is often considered cheap or worthless. Grandmotherly enthusiasm less so.
Even if we had such correlations, each year is different, and no campaign ground game like Obama's has existed before. I suspect that potential voters will be getting e-mails, phone calls, visits to their door offering rides to the polls, and possibly even offers of sexual favors (assuming McCain/Feingold regards it as protected free speech) on election day, depending on how much info the Obama campaign has collected on them.
It's completely unpredictable, but I agree that repuglicant fatigue plus Obamania has got to be worth *something*.
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