Gallup: GOP Enthusiasm Matches 1994
Posted by: Jan Larimer
A new Gallup poll shows that the enthusiasm of GOP voters for this fall’s elections is at its highest point since 1994 when Republicans reclaimed control of Congress in an historic wave election.
According to the Gallup organization, “an average of 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have said they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting this year compared with past elections, the highest average Gallup has found in a midterm election year for either party since the question was first asked in 1994.”
The numbers on the Democrat side of the ledger tell a much different story. When asked if they were more or less enthusiastic about voting this fall than in previous elections, just 44% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents described themselves as “more enthusiastic.” This enthusiasm gap, according to Gallup, represents the largest relative party advantage measured in a single midterm election-year poll.
The reasons for this gap are well known. The efforts by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama to shove ObamaCare into law angered conservatives and moderates alike. The mountain of debt and spending proposed since President Obama was sworn into office has raised eyebrows across the political spectrum and helped spawn a conservative movement that is poised to sweep incumbent Democrats out of office this fall – including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. And the comparison by President Obama between the attacks of 9/11 and the BP oil spill have called into question the president’s ability to prosecute the war on terror and manage the federal response to the Gulf oil spill.
By almost every metric out there, from turnout in primary elections to polling data such as Gallup’s, the GOP has a significant advantage heading into the fall. Already, an army of conservative volunteers and activists are knocking on doors and running phone banks to return common sense, conservative leadership to Congress. If these trends continue through November, and given the Democrats’ failure to lead there is every reason to think they will, we are just months away from sending Harry Reid back to Nevada and Nancy Pelosi into the back benches of the U.S. House.
