Poll: Democrats Enthusiasm, Independent Support Weakens Ahead of 2020
500 days until the 2020 general election.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll discovered that enthusiasm and Independent support for Democrats has gone down ahead of the 2020 elections.
The poll found that “75 percent of Republican registered voters say they have high interest in the 2020 presidential election — registering a ‘9’ or ’10’ on a 10-point scale — versus 73 percent of Democratic voters who say the same thing.”
Enthusiasm
Okay, so that doesn’t seem like much of a fall, right? Compare it to the enthusiasm in 2018. Democrats held a double digit lead over Republicans until right before the election.
- April 2018: 66% Democrats, 49% Republicans.
- June 2018: 63% Democrats, 47% Republicans
- September 2018: 65% Democrats, 61% Republicans
- October 2018: 82% Democrats, 80% Republicans
Should Democrats worry? Yes, since the “overall enthusiasm for 2020 is sky-high, with 69 percent of all voters expressing a high level of interest in the upcoming election.” A poll in October 2018 found that 72% of people had a high interest in the election.
If that number is almost on par with enthusiasm circa October 2018, I predict the interest will continue to rise.
The enthusiasm for Democrats may grow as the primary field dwindles. Then again, this may not become a factor considering former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have topped the polls since polling began for 2020. Those polling beneath the two old white males aren’t even close to reaching the top.
Independents
Independents helped the Democrats capture the House of Representatives in 2018. For the first time since 2008, the Democrats received more independent votes, 54% to 41%.
This didn’t surprise anyone since polls throughout 2018 showed that independents moved towards the Democrats.
- January 2018: 50% Democrats, 34% Republicans
- June 2018: 43% Democrats, 40% Republicans
- August 2018: 34% preferred Democrats, 26% preferred Republicans, 40% undecided
The tides have turned…
Independents have not completely sided with President Donald Trump, but they have begun to stray from the Democrats. From NBC News:
His approval rating among indies is 38 percent (versus 46 percent overall); just 34 percent have a positive view of him (versus 39 percent overall); and only a combined 28 percent of them say they are enthusiastic or comfortable when it comes to his re-election (versus 41 percent overall).
They stray further when it comes to impeachment:
A plurality of indies — 45 percent — say Congress should NOT hold impeachment hearings, compared with 19 percent of them who believe there’s enough evidence to begin impeachment proceedings NOW.
Thirty-four percent take the middle ground: Congress should continue investigating to see if there’s enough evidence to hold impeachment hearings in the future.
Among all Americans, it’s 48 percent oppose impeachment hearings, while a combined 49 percent want them now or possibly in the future if there’s enough evidence.
As NBC/WSJ co-pollster Peter Hart puts it, “The American public has reached a hung jury – not innocent, not guilty and they haven’t reached a consensus.”
This could be why Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi continues to brush aside impeachment talk. Despite pressure, she has consistently said the impeachment talk will cause further division among the party. Maybe she’s taking the independent voters into consideration, too.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
Look, we’re all pretty much in agreement that Trump is a jerk. The thing is, he’s also a pretty good guy, which can seem more than a little odd. Quite a bit of the one goes along with the other, so we can’t just distill out what we like and pour it into a new candidate. We love the way he won’t take (censored) off the media, because our Republican candidates normally grovel and scrape before their media overlords, but that comes with his jerky way of not taking (censored) off *anybody*
So in 2020, I’ll be voting for him, with my sole regret being the rest of the Republicans will most probably take up all of the habits I find most annoying of his and leave behind his judicial nominee process, tax reductions, and fierce pro-Americanism.
Hopefully, the good parts of Trump will rub off on Pence, and he’ll be a useful candidate in 2024. That would be awesome.
Ivanka or Donald Jr. 2024
Liberal douchebags, unfortunately.
I’d put up with Ivanka anyway, but then, I never claimed to be a wise man.
no. No dynasties. no Clintons, no Bushes, no Obamas, no Trumps. No Nixons, Kennedys, or Adams.
Agree 100%
Trump for two terms, then on to someone not a Trump.
Look, we’re all pretty much in agreement that Trump is a jerk.
Not at all. My only reservation about DJT is that hair. Still gives me the nerdles.
Trump isn’t a snob. Very rare for a rich person; so rare that people are disappointed. They expect a rich guy to be a jerk who carries himself with the air of Louis XIV. Trump is therefore a disappointment; he’s “crude” or something. This is a perceptual problem, but it’s not DJT’s problem.
I don’t see anything particularly outstanding about Pence, except that he isn’t an obvious jerk (a rare quality in DC, but still not what I’d consider Presidentially outstanding).
Maybe President Trump uses that about his hair to his advantage…….
“Look, we’re all pretty much in agreement that Trump is a jerk.”
Actually, no, we don’t all agree with that. I’d say you are in the minority by quite a bit.
“Look, we’re all pretty much in agreement that Trump is a jerk.”
Look, no, eat me, georgfelis.
“2018 showed that independents moved towards the Democrats”
Don’t be to sure. I think it was a RINO purge: people voted against the NeverTrump Republicans which ended up being for the Democrats who talked about healthcare (real issues). Remember, Republicans still don’t have an answer on healthcare (even though we all know HC is not a right.)
Rino purge, a bunch of retirements, and HUGE new techniques by the dems under new laws to ballot harvest.
The dems are much more aggressive in creating votes from places votes should not be gotten: people so disinterested they’re too lazy to vote, people whose minds have deteriorated, illegals, etc.
Trump may be boorish etc., but just look at that Democrat leadership … which direction are you looking ?
This is an old complaint of mine, but polls of “all Americans” should be considered disinformation. A true poll of all Americans is supposed to reflect an accurate cross section of the country, but in reality it is a fictional creation that exists in the feverish minds of the left wing media.
The underlying assumptions in any poll of all Americans taken by the media are (1) Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, (2) the overwhelming majority of the US population are urban dwellers, (3) non-whites outnumber whites by a large margin and white bigotry and voter suppression keeps them from actually voting, and (4) census data is racially biased, so media pollsters feel free to “compensate” by exaggerating the percentage of minorities. None of these assumptions has any basis in fact, yet they are baked into every media poll of “all Americans” that I have ever analyzed. Even people who are usually more skeptical of media malfeasance will oftentimes parrot this rubbish without bothering to find out if they are true.
That is why the media will switch to polls of “likely voters” just shortly befor an election. A poll of “likely voters” can actually be measured (election results), while a poll of ”all Americans” is neither practical nor possible. It is a scientific theory that is permanently safe from falsification. And any scientific theory that cannot be falsified is not science at all. “Of course the election results did not match our polls of all Americans,” the media will say. “EVERYONE KNOWS that any poll of all Americans will include millions of Democrats who never bother to vote!” It is a pure lie, and needs to be pointed out.
I voted for our President as a protest against established politicians. Happily I have not been disappointed yet. Can’t wait for 2020
As an independent voter I agree with President George Washington’s assessment of political parties: They are self-created societies that are incapable of good government. The Fascist Party did not give Italy good government. The Nazi Party did not give Germany good government. The Communist Party did not give the Soviet Union good government.
There seems to be an opinion that if there are two political parties instead of one, then it is good government, but the two-party system of the United States gives us a cycle of wars, economic failures, corruption in government, and social disorders, repeated over and over again.
The people left out of participation in these monumental decisions are independent voters. They are not allowed to vote in elections they are forced to pay for and cannot be candidates for public office because of nomination petition requirements that are out of reach for anyone but the very wealthy and political party mavericks.
But if President George Washington was correct in his assessment of political parties, then governments that hold elections require independent voters and independent candidates for office, otherwise, the contentions between competing parties destroy the freedom of the people.
“…but the two-party system of the United States gives us a cycle of wars, economic failures, corruption in government, and social disorders, repeated over and over again.”
While true to some degree, you left out a few rather important things, like:
Freedom and liberty on a scale never seen in the history of man.
Wealth, so much wealth that our poor are wealthy in comparison with 99.9999% of humanity, and wealthy when compared with 75% of the current inhabitants of this rock called earth.
So wealthy our poor are fat as there is no hunger.
So wealthy our poor live twice as long as the mean for humanity.
Yep, you left a little bit out.
Well, I did not forget things like liberty, freedom, etc. But, although you may not be aware of it, those things were the result of independent voters, not political parties. The people of the United States declared independence because of a political party in England, the Tory Party, which was imposing new taxes on the colonies to pay for party excesses in England. So when the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution were written, political parties were unpopular, and one of the goals of the framers of the Constitution was to have a partyless government, which is why no mention of political parties was made in the Constitution. At the same time, candidates for public office were created, which were voted on by voters, all of whom were independent, so all of these good things you mentioned were created by independent voters. In 1796 George Washington was still saying that it was the duty of all Americans to discourage political parties. In 1800 a political party started by Thomas Jefferson took over the American government, setting in motion all of the bad effects that Washington had predicted, but there was a brief time when the nation was being formed when there were no organized political parties, so certain traditions of freedom, justice, etc. were established, a shadow of which still exists to the present day, notwithstanding two hundred years of party control. The words are still used by party politicians and party members, but they seem to have little idea of what the words mean.
“But, although you may not be aware of it, those things were the result of independent voters…”
Thanks for the unneeded history lesson. I can vote for anyone I want. You still ignore the plain and simple facts, that parties freely organized and you are free to do so yourself. The result up until now has been the wealthiest country and people in history and with the most liberty ever.
The danger we face is not having parties, it’s having an idiot electorate.
Well, obviously, you count success as ability to organize faction, which would make people like Mussolini, Hitler, and Chairman Mao among the most successful who have ever lived. George Washington saw organization of faction as a cause of problems. He was not as impressed with the results of mob rule as you are. What I would point out is that you cannot vote for whoever you want unless you want to vote for people like Donald J. Trump or Hillary Clinton. The only people who can be candidates for office in party-controlled elections are party candidates.
Personally, I am overjoyed that Trump has exceeded my wildest expectations. I fully expected he would disappoint, reverting to his liberal Democrat roots and cutting “deals” with his fellow New Yorker, Chuck Schumer. (Like a big border wall in exchange for blanket amnesty.) I voted for him solely to keep the Clinton mafia out of the White House. I’ve rarely been so happy to have been wrong!
“…reverting to his liberal Democrat roots…”
A neverTrumper created misconception. He doesn’t have liberal democratic roots. Any fair minded study, say read some of his writing/books, would show he is pragmatic and leans conservative.
This is why DJT will be in a far stronger position in 2020 than he was in 2016. After 2016, it was easy to predict that he’d be a disappointment; winners of elections generally are. But now, as 2020 approaches, we know better.
Re: Professor’s belief that Michelle Obama can be, might be, the Dems savior:
Kevin Costner is “interested” in her being a candidate.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/46791/kevin-costner-angry-american-politics-shame-us-paul-bois
On the GOP side, I cannot think of one person with the backbone and insight to equal Trump. And Ivanka is a bleeding heart and therefore unacceptable. Don, Jr., his positions on issues and principles are unclear.
Newt Gingrich has insight, although sometimes he loses it spectacularly. But he’s pretty old, born in 1943.
We have a lot of good people on second string, but no one I see that equals Trump. And that’s a sad thing, because for all of his accomplishments, we still have a couple million illegals streaming in….
by the looks of the LI poll, “Look, we’re all pretty much in agreement that georgefelis is a jerk”….
as for djt, he’s what the founders sought, a businessman, not much political savy & the ability to get things done… bring more to dc & get rid of the swamp creatures… (& take george w u)
If you rated Presidents on their children, President Trump would be on Mount Rushmore.