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Landmark shift in the Gallup enthusiasm readings

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 24th, 2010 at 12:42 PM  | 

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House of Representatives

National Journal noticed an event in the Gallup voter enthusiasm polling: Republicans have gone off the scale, while Democrats have fallen far off from 2006.

Since 1994 the numbers have tracked with victory and defeat, with the party ahead in enthusiasm winning the House, but this scale is… well, just look.

Voters of each party were asked if they are More or Less enthusiastic about voting this year. In 1994 the Republicans were at 42 More/43 Less for -1 net. 40/41 in 1998. 42/42 in 2002. 40/41 in 2006. But in 2010, the Republicans have shifted to 59/31 for a +28 net enthusiasm rating, 29 points higher than 1994, which set the trend for every midterm since.

Democrats were terribly unenthuiastic in 1994, hitting a -18 net rating, which climbed to -10 and -8 before hitting +10 in 2006. Now though, they’ve dropped back to -0.

But just how well do the numbers track, and what does a net 28 point enthusiasm gap predict if the extrapolation holds?

Year Enthusiasm gap House Majority
1994 +17 +26
1998 +9 +22
2002 +8 +24*
2006 -11 -31
2010 +28 ?

* Counting Bernie Sanders (Independent Socialist of Vermont) with the Democrats

I won’t lie: I’m not going to be fancy about this. I’m just going to pull up OpenOffice and get a coefficient, which OO’s LINEST tool reads as 2.11. Which means a +28 enthusiasm gap, should it continue with the trend, predicts about a 59 seat Republican majority, a 247 R-188 D house, and a 69 seat gain from 2008.

Crossposted from Unlikely Voter

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COMMENTS

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  • eastbaylarry

    I am curious though. Why are there no numbers for the presidential elections? I would think those numbers would also be revealing.

  • deano64

    I hope that holds in to November. I don’t know why it wouldn’t.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    They say the Presidential polling influences and messes up the House polling, so they don’t use the House polling in Presidential years when doing trending on off years.

  • eastbaylarry

    I can do my own discounting for the *known* major hype of presidential elections.

    I guess I’m just more suspicious of ‘partial’ results since that whole IPCC/CRU thingee.

  • cupofteaintexas

    The enthusiasm is great now….but could change if we begin to feel helpless. It’s going to be sooooo important to keep participating in every discussion you can and keep the momentum going. Remember November!

  • Tbone

    the Democrats. The economy is not turning around in 90 days, the anti-wars fools are getting screwed, the glitter has fallen from Obama for the doe-eyed liberals and Obama is not on the ticket for the blacks.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • Castor

    The Tea PartyTsunami will come rolling in!

  • msctex

    . . .it will more than likely only grow, as the death throes of Socialism try to do as much damage as possible in the time allotted. At this point, intentional destruction is all they have left, and they will do as much as they can: bend, rewrite and break whatever law stands in their way, towards a goal they cannot define, but can just FEEL as the Right Thing to Do. . .

    We are watching the end of the Cold War, and can only hope the losers are sane enough to allow it to remain as such: a non-violent conflict. There is consolation in the thought should they do otherwise, they would of course attempt to fight by proxy, and those they would command might well simply say no.

  • Scope

    it may well be for many more months. The spill will kill the Dems in November.

    OH, did you hear Napolitano doesn’t want the oil spill called an oil spill anymore. It is now to be called the BP caused disaster. About the only think Napolitano has done is rename everything from terriorists to Wars. Remember the O called the BP caused disaster a war.

  • namaste

    Obama can’t get out of office soon enough – but at least he helped to wake up America. Typically, I dread what November brings – dark, short, dreary, cold days. Not this year – I can’t wait for it to get here!

  • acat

    There’s a dangerous assumption that I’ve encountered in a lot of conservative-minded people, that somehow there can be a final victory by the defenders of freedom and of liberty.

    I hear an echo of this assumption in your second paragraph – that this is the end of the Cold War. Just as the Korean and Viet Nam wars were a subset of the Cold War, history makes it clear that the Cold War itself was a subset of the clash between those who would be oppressors and those who would have liberty.

    The Dems going down to defeat in November does not undo 40 years of undermining education and building massive bureaucratic bunkers to hide in until the Conservatives get tired and go home, until Conservatives seem to be living their lives in peace, and stop paying as much attention to matters of government.

    This is a pretty massive paradigm shift, but a necessary one if conservative ideals are to be achieved on any real scale.

    Mew

  • Joliphant

    The democrats getting blame for something that isn’t their fault is just so appropriate. Forgetting all the things in the past that have been their fault and somehow they have managed to duck responsibility for, it just seems they make a profession out of assigning unreasonable and undeserved blame to people, so their getting unreasonable and undeserved blame here are just just. The parallels to Katrina do have me rubbing my hands and chuckling.

    On the other hand, the thought of our political system being driven by people so uninformed that they would buy the idea that there was something that the administration could have or should have done about this leaves me scratching my head.*

    *There was the Russians suggestion to use a nuke to seal the well. Which just served to remind me of all the reasons they lost the cold war despite the democrats best efforts to see that didn’t happen.

  • merryj1

    …we do tend to hit the “snooze” button while the libs are replenishing their arsenals for the next go-’round.

  • jcincy

    “The democrats getting blame for something that isn?t their fault is just so appropriate. ”

    The democrats in the White House have blockaded almost every effort to cleanup the gulf and contain the oil.

    This crisis could have been and should have been more contained.

  • merryj1

    There may be no “blame” for the disaster having happened, but there certainly is plenty of room for blame for the subsequent dithering while oil gushed throughout the Gulf — the refusal to waive the Jones Act and accept proffered help from adequately-prepared countries, etc.

  • JSobieski

    Nuclear or otherwise, its not a stupid option. A very small nuke or a large conventional explosive detonated in a parallel shaft deep beneath the earth would bring an end to the gusher.

    The US government has set of underground nukes before without radiation issues because its done far under the surface. BP doesn’t like the option because they want to get the oil out, rather than simply shut the gusher down.

    Not saying its the way to go, but I think our public discourse is pretty poor on discussing options. Reminds me of TARP (i.e. “there is only out way to deal with our crisis). Out of the box thinking should be encouraged, and the Soviets did use this technique successfully.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU

  • http://www.ArchitecturalShots.com mdyou

    Conservatives (true conservatives) are way more connected and thus way more involved than ever. Every vote is known.

    No one heard our voice before, only the din from the left. Those days are over. Do what we have done already in several primaries – make ‘em toe the line, or boot ‘em out.

  • http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

    It is the responsibility of every politically active and informed Redstater to assist in Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts.

    Join your local Republican committee if you can and become a Precinct Committeeman or Captain. If I did it, you can do it.

    The hardest part may be finding your local Party committee. Call the city or county clerk, or any other Republican elected official.

    Volunteer for phone banks, door-knocking walks, and envelope stuffing.

    We’re running downhill, but we still have to run the race.

  • Scope

    “On the other hand, the thought of our political system being driven by people so uninformed that they would buy the idea that there was something that the administration could have or should have done about this leaves me scratching my head.*”

    I am scratching my head wondering if you really believe that the Feds could not have done anything to contain the spill, and, to protect the beaches, marshes, estuaries etc. along the Gulf Coast. Sure BP needed to pay for it, but are you saying the feds could not have done anything to protect the Gulf Coast?

  • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica

    And I am mindful that the dems don’t give a hoot — they’ll continue to ram everything through.

    But this is definitely good news for the conservatives.

    We’re uniting and our efforts to communicate are working.

    Long live liberty.

    Death to creeping socialism and pacifism.

  • Joliphant

    and it most definitely is.

    I am seeing the federal government bumbling around much the way it always does.

    There is another diary I saw whose point was that the best thing the federal government could do is get out of the way. The problem is it can’t. It can’t by its very nature. If you have an agency that has a mandate to enforce laws that protect turtles and minnows thats what they are going to do and if you try and make them stop its friction that needs to be over come.

    The Obama administration is just sitting at the top of a pyramid of idiocy that has been 60 years in the making and only managed to shrink during the Regan administration.

    Jsobieski, Explosives certainly but we have never used nukes for that purpose and the Russians have had a fair numbers of whoopsees in their use. “Oh you didn’t want your natural gas radioactive ? Comrade, Why didn’t you say so ?”

  • NotSoBlueStater

    Their anti-Bush hissy fit was poorly constructed and unprincipled. It was always going to be near impossible to “undo the damage” in way that their campaigning implied they could. They mad e a lot of the damage up, and Obama, once in the big chair, simply had to say “Hey, wait a sec.”

    That’s why they continue to bash Bush. It’s the only premise that ties their inconsistent and inaccurate charges together.

  • Joliphant

    as being able to get out of its own way anymore. People ask why wasn’t the Jones act waived, I wonder why is it still around ? Complaining about federal agencies hindering things is like complaining about the sun rising, they are what they are.

  • msctex

    Just because a war ends does not mean the same circumstances cannot arise again, if such a thing is allowed. Hopefully we will have learned our lesson, and will do what it takes to keep the circumstances that allowed the current farce from ever repeating. As far as I can tell, this will involve not a purge of the schools and the Media, as much as an unwavering insistence that the truth and facts of any matter be presented, alongside whatever nonsense the Left wants to pretend to be the case. Simple Reality, presented as a choice of what to believe, will net us the smart ones, 90% of the time. They can have the rest.

  • Dr. Botkin

    about the weather and all. Let’s just hope there is an election. Aspiring dictators sometimes call them off, especially in time of “crisis.”

  • Scope

    I was ready to think that you believed that the Federal Gov. had no responsibility. They do, and they have claimed that responsibility. That will be the downfall of the O’s response to the spill. Excuse me, the BP caused disaster, according to Napolitano.

  • zuckey6

    I hope that your view prooves permanent.

    I think that Socialism could come bach again and perhaps in a much worse way.

  • JSobieski

    I agree that the government is bad at most things. It does however have a relative comparative advantage in certain things, like access to nuclear submarines.

    I 100% agree that getting out of the way would be a huge improvement. However, demolotions is an area of comparative advantage over the private sector.

    You can set off an explosion deep enough where the radiation stays below the surface. As I stated above, the US has set off nuclear devices both above and below ground. Setting off nuclear weapons under ground is something we are actually quite good at.

  • Flagstaff

    Mark Foley?

    Will be interesting to see if the prediction is good.

  • dudette

    of the new cold war; not the end. We are making changes, sending conservatives to DC to neuter the pussycat in chief—-but you are right we have to use this as only the tip of the spear. We have to move on the schools, re-educate a whole generation, & untangle 60 years of liberal mischief. Getting the judiciary back is going to be difficult –i wonder what people think of this and how can we effect change there? I guess lifetime appointments like the 9th circuit are going to be hard to effect.

  • dudette

    of this president. He is not that stupid, he wants as much damage as possible to this country to render us helpless.

  • dudette

    Often they forget, so get on the phones to seniors and make sure they have rides–we can all assist in this–it is a huge thing, getting them there.

  • phatphan

    . . . . . Thomas Jefferson affirmed that the God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time. However, preserving that liberty requires eternal vigilance against those who would rob us of it through an incessant greed for power.

    No wonder Jefferson also said that he had sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

    Here are a few other comments by the venerable Mr. Jefferson:

    I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living off the labors of the industrious. (Attention, Mr. Obama!)

    To take from one because it is thought that his industry and that of his father has acquired too muchm in order to spare others who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association — the guarantee to everyone of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

    The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

    __________________

    A little refresher course in some of the principles of our founders would be a good thing for all of us.

    __________________________

    ” i believe the greates threat to America . . . is that we have not passed on what it means to be an American to this generation. . . . This goes back 100 years . . ..” ———- Dennis Prager

  • kb3mkd

    more like one hundred fifty years.

    income taxes, popular vote of Senate, the Fed, all done way before the sixty year mark, and that was put in because education initiatives put in by leftists had already been working since the 1860′s.

  • realskinny

    administration is there is only one other choice.

  • JSobieski

    nt

  • suzyq

    they’re good at doing that

  • olddog

    of an old man, Coincidences , Zoros buys big in brazilian petro. co. , Obama pledges 2 billion loan to the same company that makes billions every year (not a usa company), boom goes bp’s oil rig. moratorium on all gulf drilling (except for those countries not under our control who are also drilling in the Gulf. Ahh ! but then I’m just a paranoid old man!
    Support our Troops
    One Old Dog

  • sccrenny

    you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they AREN’T out to get you. From another old man… and we don’t get this old without being at least a little paranoid!

  • f100drivr

    At the risk of appearing paranoid , I must agree with the post by Dr Botkin . There are those with in this disgusting administration who have the abilities to “rig” the elections in November as I believe the SC Dem primary election was rigged for the 13 year Army vet who had no party support and no money !!
    And a crisis could very well postpone or cancel the elections NOT !!!!
    At any rate keep your powder dry my friends .
    Russ Lewis

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