40 Percent of Democrats Saying They're Unlikely to Vote, or Certain to Not Vote, in 2010?

Monday, November 30, 2009

The folks at Daily Kos finds something "shocking" in their regular polling:

The first indicator of potential peril is the right track-wrong track metric. With each passing day, the mood of the nation is going to be reflected on the current political leadership in Washington DC, rather than the transgressions and incompetencies of the past leadership. And the mood of the nation appears to be darkening, rather than growing more optimistic. After a meteoric rise in the opening few months of the new Obama adminstration, the RT/WT metric now sits at its worst level in months (-17: 40/57).

But a bigger indicator of peril comes from a new survey question added the DK tracking poll for the first time this week. The poll now includes a rather simple indicator of baseline voter enthusiasm for the year 2010. The question offered to respondents is a simple question about their intentions for 2010:

QUESTION: In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?

The results were, to put it mildly, shocking:

Voter Intensity: Definitely + Probably Voting/Not Likely + Not Voting

Republican Voters: 81/14
Independent Voters: 65/23
DEMOCRATIC VOTERS: 56/40

Two in five Democratic voters either consider themselves unlikely to vote at this point in time, or have already made the firm decision to remove themselves from the 2010 electorate pool. Indeed, Democrats were three times more likely to say that they will "definitely not vote" in 2010 than are Republicans.

Not all of us will find these numbers quite so shocking. But I would add the caveat that we're still eleven months or so away from Election Day 2010, and a lot can happen between then and now . . .

11/30 09:12 AM Share