The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : The Enthusiasm Gap

Text Size

It's something we've been talking about all year, and is particularly apparent in the latest LA Times/Bloomberg poll, in which Obama leads McCain by 12 points head-to-head, and 15 points when Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are included (maybe Newsweek wasn't an outlier after all?):

Moreover, McCain suffers from a pronounced "enthusiasm gap," especially among the conservatives who usually give Republican candidates a reliable base of support. Among voters who describe themselves as conservative, only 58% say they will vote for McCain; 15% say they will vote for Obama, 14% say they will vote for someone else, and 13% say they are undecided.
By contrast, 79% of voters who describe themselves as liberal say they plan to vote for Obama.

Even among voters who say they do plan to vote for McCain, more than half say they are "not enthusiastic" about their chosen candidate; only 45% say they are enthusiastic. By contrast, 81% of Obama voters say they are enthusiastic, and almost half call themselves "very enthusiastic," a level of zeal that only 13% of McCain's supporters display.

"McCain is not capturing the full extent of the conservative base the way President Bush did in 2000 and 2004," said Susan Pinkus, director of the Times Poll. "Among conservatives, evangelicals and voters who identify themselves as part of the religious right, he is polling less than 60%.

Wherever I go, I meet conservatives who are still trying to talk themselves into supporting McCain, while liberals are generally fired up about Obama. Whatever Obama's weaknesses as a candidate, the fundamentals still overwhelmingly favor him.