Nate Silver contradicts the conventional wisdom and demonstrates that Democrats are actually more enthused about the upcoming elections than they are normally in midterm cycles. The problem is that the Republicans are off-the-charts excited about voting.
I have one question about how these pollsters are looking at things. During the last two cycles, voters dropped their Republican affiliation in droves and become independents and Democrats. How are these pollsters accounting for this? Registered Republicans make up a much smaller slice of the pie than they did in 2006.
With that caveat, I still think we’re in trouble in these upcoming elections, and I have thought that for a while. My great hope is that many of the Republican candidates wither under close scrutiny. But, in the meantime, we have to figure out how to do a combination of exciting our own base and depressing the Republican base, We’re doing okay with registered voters, but the likely voter models are showing this big turnout gap. We can’t allow that to happen. If our base is already more excited than normal, how do we get them even more fired up?
