Polling data just days before the U.S. presidential election has found a voter enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats, with Vice President Kamala Harris more likely to benefit.
Gallup polling released on Thursday showed that while early voting has declined compared to 2020, the rate remains higher than it did in the years before the coronavirus pandemic. More than half of registered voters say they have already voted or plan to vote before November 5, declining from 64 percent in 2020 to 54 percent in 2024.
Gallup conducted the poll between October 14 to 27 and found that 70 percent of voters say they are “more enthusiastic than usual about voting,” marking a significant jump from the 56 percent in March who said the same, but matching the roughly 71 percent in August.
More striking is the divide between the two parties, with 77 percent of Democrats saying they are more enthusiastic compared to 67 percent of Republicans. This marks a drop on both sides compared to Gallup polling from September, which found 80 percent of Democrats were more enthusiastic compared to 75 percent of Republicans.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The newest numbers roughly match the 2020 numbers, also released at the end of October that year, which found 75 percent of Democrats or Dem-leaning independents felt more enthusiastic compared to 66 percent Republican.
Both numbers are the highest they’ve been since the President Barack Obama years, where the Democrat swept in on a 76 percent enthusiasm compared to 61 percent among Republicans, or when he won despite a surge in enthusiasm for Mitt Romney with 73 percent compared to 61 percent for the Democrats.
The 2016 election had a very narrow difference, with only 53 percent of Republicans enthusiastic compared to 50 percent for Democrats.
Gallup noted that its enthusiasm measure “has not been a strong predictor of turnout, historically, but may relate to how positively Republicans and Democrats feel about their respective candidates, including their chance of winning.”
Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns by email on Thursday afternoon.
Both sides have looked for any positive sign of an advantage as national polling averages continue to narrow.
Harris holds a 1.4-point lead over Trump according to aggregator FiveThirtyEight’s average, while RealClearPolitics has found a 0.5-point advantage for the former president.
FiveThirtyEight has vital swing states standing at even odds for Nevada and Pennsylvania, while Wisconsin and Michigan have a 1-point lead for Harris, and North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona have 1- to 2-point leads for Trump.
RealClearPolitics has a marked Trump advantage in all swing states except for Michigan and Wisconsin, which Harris leads by a slender 0.4 and 0.2, respectively.
The Gallup poll was based on a sample of around 1,000 voting-age adults via telephone interviews, in English and Spanish, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points at a 95 percent confidence level.