October 5, 2018--Uncurb Your Enthusiasm

The very astute Jim Messina, Barack Obama's campaign manager for the 2012 election, says that when it comes to midterm elections what really counts is how enthusiastic voters are about voting. For midterms it's all about turnout, turnout, turnout.

In regard to the looming election, by this measure, up until October 1st, things were looking very good for Democrats. Not ideal in the senatorial races because there are up to ten Democrats seeking reelection in very red states, but for the House a Blue Wave was gathering. 

Though some pollsters and pundits felt the Dems had a decent chance of taking control of the Senate, the House was almost certain to flip. Democrats, they felt could gain perhaps 40 to 50 seats and impeachment hearing would commence January 2nd.

But, according to the very latest NPR/PBS poll it is looking as if the Republicans are more than likely to retain control of the Senate and, if current trends continue, maybe even the House.

This is because the enthusiasm numbers, the gap between the GOP and the Democrats, is narrowing fast. In fact, the Republicans have collapsed the enthusiasm gap to virtually zero.

In July "only" 68% of potential Republican voters saw the election to be "very important" while 80% of Democrats were eager to vote. A more than double-digit gap.

As of the October 1st poll, however, 80% of Republicans see the election to be very important and are feeling motivated to vote while for Democrats the number crept up to 82%. The gap is now well within the margin of error. A statistical tie.

What happened?

Simple--the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh.

The most dispassionate analysts see Republican voters to be motivated by either the excitement of his gaining a seat on the Supreme Court or, if he doesn't, it will be because the Democrats and the "mainstream" media have conspired to vilify and undermine him.

So, they are either excited or enraged. Either emotion more than enough to get Republicans eager to vote.

Thus, progressives beware. This to me is sounding spookily too much like 2016 when Trump came out of a version of political nowhere and won. We need to get even more enthusiastic about voting and work hard to assure a big turnout.

Otherwise . . .