NPR - Slightly more than half of Americans (51 percent) told Pew they are "more enthusiastic about voting than usual," the highest share saying so in at least the last 20 years since Pew has been asking the question.
Democrats are more enthusiastic than Republicans, but not by much — 55 percent of Democrats said they are more enthusiastic than usual, but 50 percent of GOP voters said the same. Those are both very high numbers overall for midterms.
In 2006, when Democrats benefited from the spiraling Iraq war and President George W. Bush's declining approval numbers to take control of Congress, a slightly lower number of Democrats than today said they were more enthusiastic than usual (47 percent). But they far outnumbered Republicans in who said they were more enthusiastic in 2006 (30 percent), a 17-point advantage.
In 2010, when Republicans won a whopping 63 seats in the House and regained control of that chamber, the GOP was ahead on this question by 13 points (55 to 42 percent). And in 2014, when Republicans won back the Senate, they had an 8-point overall advantage (45 to 37 percent).
So the bottom line is Democrats today are as enthusiastic about voting as Republicans were in 2010, but Republicans are also fired up, which could mitigate GOP losses in the House and help them protect their slim Senate majority.
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