April 27th, 2010
Gallup: GOP Up 20 Points Among 'Very Enthusiastic' Voters

On the heels of yesterday's report showing nearly half of young voters aged 18-29 - a critical piece of Obama's 2008 coalition - are "not enthusiastic" about voting in this year's election, Gallup is out with another body blow for Democrats today with a survey showing that the GOP leads Democrats by 20 points among those voters most enthusiastic about the 2010 midterms.

Among all registered voters, the GOP leads in the generic congressional ballot in the current Gallup survey by just one point, 46 to 45. But among those who are "very enthusiastic" about voting in November, the GOP lead over Democrats balloons to a 57/37 gap:

Two weeks ago Sean took a look at a "doomsday" scenario for Democrats in 2010 in which he wrote the following about the generic ballot numbers:

This year, five different polling companies have put Republicans in the lead for the generic ballot in the last two weeks alone - one reason why Michael Barone calls this the worst polling environment for Democrats "during my 50 years of following politics closely."

The RCP Average has Republicans leading Democrats by 2.8 points on the generic ballot test. That should equate roughly to a 225-seat Republican majority (Republicans won the national vote by 5 points in 1994), which would almost represent a 50-seat pickup.

But many of these polls survey registered voters. Polling among likely voters, such as Rasmussen Reports, shows Republicans up by about 8-10 points, which would probably represent a seventy-seat pickup.

And the polls of the most highly energized voters are even worse for Democrats. Recent NBC/WSJ polling found that Democrats led by three points among registered voters. But among those most interested in the November elections, Republicans led by 13 points.

This reminds me of the polling that showed Martha Coakley up 15 points in early January, but which also showed her and Scott Brown tied among those most interested in the race.

The exit poll model I used in late 2009 to suggest that the Massachusetts Senate race would be a close one leads to a similar conclusion. You can read the article here for a more thorough explanation, but applying the model to a national ballot test suggests that the Democrats should lose the popular vote 57%-43%.

Sean's back of the envelope math is awfully close to Gallup's latest reading, which means that if such a huge enthusiasm gap persists all the way through November, a "doomsday" scenario of Democrats losing 80-90+ House seats is within the realm of possibility.

Let me finish by throwing out the mandatory but utterly cliche caveat that six months is an eternity in politics and that a lot can, and probably will change between now and November.


http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com ... op-up-20...