Poll: Democratic voters’ enthusiasm high as midterms approach

Democratic voters’ desire to participate in the midterm elections is strong ahead of November, according to a poll released Friday.

A Reuters–Ipsos poll posted Friday found that Democrats have an edge among all demographics of voters when it comes to likelihood of participating in the midterms.

{mosads}The number of Democrats who said they will likely vote this year increased by 9 percentage points compared to the same poll in 2014, the last midterm elections. The number of Republicans, on the other hand, who said they would vote in 2018 decreased by 3 percentage points relative to 2014.

The greatest source of strength for Democrats in the poll came from left-leaning older women, 74 percent of whom say they are enthusiastic about voting in the midterms, an 18-point increase from 2014.

The poll, which was taken Aug. 20–Sept. 10 and compared with a Reuters poll from the same period in 2014, found that every demographic of Democratic-identified voters said they were more likely to vote this year than in 2014, while the opposite was true for Republican demographics.

In particular, the GOP faces an enthusiasm gap among young women and minorities. The number of young GOP women who said they were less enthusiastic about voting this year than in the previous midterms was down 10 points, while the number of Republican minorities who said the same fell by 9 points.

Even among older men, typically the GOP’s strongest demographic, enthusiasm is down 5 points relative to 2014, while enthusiasm among Democratic-leaning men increased by 10 points.

Reuters’s 2018 poll surveyed 14,620 adults, including 6,003 Democrats and 5,436 Republicans, and contained a credibility interval of 1 percentage point for the overall data and 5 percentage points for smaller groups.

The previous poll surveyed 9,179 adults, including 3,625 Democrats and 3,058 Republicans, between Aug. 20 to Sept. 16, 2014.