One hears a lot about the “enthusiasm gap” this election. But maybe the better term is “enthusiasm lack.” The vast majority of the American electorate is not at all jazzed up about their choices, and even if Republicans take back the House next Tuesday, it will hardly be because they inspired the American electorate. This is good news for Democrats in 2012, if they are smart enough to take advantage.
Consider the latest Associated Press-GfK Poll. With just a week until the election, one third of all likely voters say that they either haven’t yet made up their minds, or they are leaning in favor of one candidate but could still change their minds, though these undecideds are leaning slightly towards Republicans. This is hardly the sign of a passionate electorate.
Of course, midterm elections almost always have lower turnout than presidential elections anyway – typically about 40 percent of registered voters turnout in mid-term years, as opposed to 60 percent in presidential years. That missing 20 percent (or a third of those who vote in presidential elections) are often younger people and poorer people, but also those who tend to pay minimal attention to politics either because none of the candidates inspire them or they can’t see the difference.
Some quick back-of-the-envelope math: If 40 percent of the electorate winds up voting next week, but of that 40 percent only two-thirds feels strongly one way or another, we’re now down to roughly 27 percent of the electorate that has a strong feeling about the outcome. Since Republicans are doing better than Democrats among likely voters, let’s say that 15 percent of the electorate consists of Republican voters who currently feel strongly about how the election turns out. These are your hard-core, Tea Party-type Republicans who a Republican House majority would be representing.
Probably the only way this is a sustainable governing strategy is if the rest of the electorate remains so alienated and cynical that it continues to stay home while hard-core Republicans try to dismantle the idea of the modern state. Maybe this is the Republicans’ plan: make Washington so dysfunctional that nobody sees the point in voting anymore.
But here’s the more likely scenario: The presidential election of 2012 will bring out many of the voters who stayed home in 2010. Democrats will win back seats because turnout among registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent moderates will increase. (When Obama tells crowds ““If everybody who voted in 2008 shows up in 2010, we will win this election,” he is probably right.)
But in order for this to happen, Democrats have a challenge: they need to stay sane. They need to let the Republicans say and even try to do some of the ridiculous things that only 15 percent of the total electorate supports, all the while reinforcing how moderate and reasonable they are being, and not getting dragged into the gutter.
When the economy recovers (as it is already starting to), and the existential angst and fears of economic uncertainty dissipates, the Democrats (if they can refrain from counter-ranting and be the adults in the room) will come out looking much better, and will have a real mandate to proactively solve the major problems facing our country, like modernizing to meet the energy and infrastructure needs of the 21st century.
There will be, of course, many recriminations next Wednesday within the Democratic faithful that Obama didn’t do this, or didn’t do that. But the past is the past.
The hand that Democrats are being dealt is this: Republicans are likely to win the House on a platform that appeals to maybe 15 percent of the total electorate (though 30-40 percent of the active electorate). But as long as Democrats can be savvy, remaining moderate and letting hard-core Republicans fulminate hysterically as only they know how about absurdities like repealing the 17th Amendment, 2012 will be a very good year to be a Democrat.