by Tony Petrangelo

Apr 5, 2012, 8:48 PM

The Enthusiasm Gap is back

It’s back! The dreaded juggernaut that toppled Democratic legislative majorities all over the country in 2010, the Enthusiasm Gap, has again reared it’s head, huffing and snorting for more politicians blood.

Only this time, the Enthusiasm Gap appears to have switched sides and will now be trampling over GOPers.

PPP (3/26):

“Are you very excited, somewhat excited, or not at all excited about voting in the 2012 elections?”

Democrats
Very excited 57
Somewhat excited 28
Not at all excited 15

Republicans
Very excited 46
Somewhat excited 30
Not at all excited 24
(MoE: ±3.1%)

57% very excited Democrats and 46% very excited Republicans is a gap of 11 points. On March 28th 2011, almost exactly one year before this poll was taken, the Democrats numbers were about the same, 55% very excited. The big difference is that last year 56% of Republicans were very excited as well.

This graph helps to illustrate my point:

The blue line is Democrats who are very excited and the red line is Republicans who are very excited. The black lines running through them are linear trend lines, which highlight the erosion of Republican enthusiasm since the start of the GOP nominating process.

Past performance, as they say, is no guarantee of future results. Its too early for us to conclude that this dynamic will persist until November, but the Enthusiasm Gap is in our favor right now and has been steadily moving that way for months now, so we can have some confidence in the trends.

To be sure, this weekend you should offer up a sacrifice of Grilled Foodstuffs and Fermented Beverages to the almighty Enthusiasm Gap so that it may see our gratitude and remain on our side for the coming battle. If you have any recommendations for Foodstuffs and Beverages that may please the Enthusiasm Gap please leave them in the comments so that we may prepare a pleasing offering to our new ally.