Republican Voter Enthusiasm Hits Record High: Poll
Excitement about voting in this year’s presidential election is up across the board, but Republican enthusiasm is at a record high in 2020, a recent poll finds.
A Gallup survey released Friday evaluated relative enthusiasm for both parties at this point in the election cycle and found that the Republicans’ eagerness to vote is at an all-time high.
More Republicans surveyed said they felt “more enthusiastic than usual about voting” in the 2020 election than they have at this point in any other election cycle since Gallup began tracking the criterion.
Republicans are “expressing the most enthusiasm they have in the early months of any election since Gallup first measured this in 2000,” Gallup noted.
According to the survey, 64 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters are feeling more enthusiastic than usual about voting this year.
The previous high for voting enthusiasm among Republicans at a similar point in the election cycle was tied at 53 percent in 2012 and 2004.
“Republicans held nonsignificant leads on enthusiasm in 2004 and 2016, both years when Republicans prevailed in the Electoral College, if not the popular vote,” Gallup said.
The survey found that Democrats’ relative enthusiasm currently stands at 58 percent.
While lagging behind the enthusiasm of Republicans, the metric is higher than it was in 2016. For comparison, relative enthusiasm among Democrats was at 43 percent in May 2016 and at 45 percent in February 2012.
Relative enthusiasm recorded for Democrats going into the 2008 election was at 79 percent in February of that year. Barack Obama easily won in the general election that year over then-Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain.
“Historically, in the early months of a campaign, there is not a clear relationship between the competitiveness of a nomination and party enthusiasm,” Gallup reported.
“In some years when only one party had a competitive race for the nomination, that party was the more enthusiastic: Republicans in 2012 and Democrats in 2004. By contrast, although President Donald Trump is seeking reelection this year and Democrats are waging a nomination contest, Republicans are the more enthusiastic.”
Gallup added that despite the fact that only the Democrats are engaged in a competitive primary, “Americans of both major party groups are giving a great deal of thought to the campaign and feel enthusiastic about the election relative to prior years.”
“The numbers provide some insight into why Republican primary turnout has been so strong, despite the lack of a serious Trump challenger,” Gallup reported.
The Trump campaign has waged a massive effort to drive voter turnout in this year’s Republican primary.
As a result, the president has racked up record numbers in some primary states.
More than 31,000 Republicans showed up to vote for Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses.
For comparison, only 25,000 Democrats voted for then-incumbent President Barack Obama in Iowa in 2012, according to Politico.
Trump’s 129,696 votes in the New Hampshire primary last month more than doubled the number of votes for incumbents Obama and former President George W. Bush in 2012 and 2004, respectively.
Politico reported that the record Republican turnout could be “a warning sign for Democrats in November.”
Gallup’s results were based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,020 adults between Feb, 17 and Feb. 28. The margin of sampling error for results based off the entire sample was plus- or minus-4 percentage points.
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