Gallup has some important numbers out today on the enthusiasm levels of voters as we hit the final stretch of campaigning. Enthusiasm among all groups -- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents -- has surged in the last few weeks, but more importantly, Democratic enthusiasm has now actually surpassed Republican enthusiasm.
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Gallup has some important numbers out today on the enthusiasm levels of voters as we hit the final stretch of campaigning. Enthusiasm among all groups -- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents -- has surged in the last few weeks, but more importantly, Democratic enthusiasm has now actually surpassed Republican enthusiasm.
* 68% of Democrats say they are very/extremely enthusiastic about voting, up 19% from June.
* 62% of Republicans say they are very/extremely enthusiastic about voting, up 10% from June.
* 38% of Independents say they are very/extremely enthusiastic about voting, up 9% from June.
More importantly, Democratic enthusiasm is even higher in swing states.
* 73% of Democrats in swing states say they are very/extremely enthusiastic about voting, up 20% since June.
* 64% of Republicans in swing states say they are very/extremely enthusiastic about voting, up just 9% since June.
* 43% of Independents in swing states say they are very/extremely enthusiastic about voting, up 18% since June.
These numbers help to explain the recent surge in swing state poll numbers for Obama and Democratic Senate candidates, which I outlined in my article yesterday. Republicans have been counting on an enthusiasm advantage all year, with that now seemingly gone, it is another piece of troubling news for the Romney campaign which risks losing more enthusiasm as bad poll numbers continue to be released. The Democratic convention seems to have sparked Democrats out of apathy and into enthusiasm.
We've been seeing a big gap between polls that measure all registered voters, and polls that measure likely voters. Registered voter polls have usually added 2-5% more support for Obama on top of his current leads, but because of the perceived lack of enthusiasm among Democrats, the general thinking has been that many Democratic registered voters didn't plan to vote this year and thus were not being included in likely voter models. If that changes, and the gap between registered voters and likely voters shrinks, it could create more of a move to Obama in many polls.
A lot of new swing state polls will be released today. As usual, I'll have full analysis of all the numbers later tonight.
Check out No We Can't Politics for more of my election analysis.