Admittedly, the sample size is small, but this is a useful consideration. Despite the buildup of presidential politics and a longstanding conversation centered around the decisions of the most powerful people in politics, that conversation has been repeating itself horribly lately. And, as an NBC News poll suggests, Americans aren’t keen on getting into it again.
The network on Sunday released the results of a national poll that asked respondents to rate their interest in the election on a scale of 1 to 10. Fewer than two in three people chose 9 or 10, the lowest of any other answer. Similar measurements by NBC pollsters have been conducted at this time of presidential election year since at least 2008.
Among Republicans, 70% said they were very interested in the election. Among Democrats, it was just 65%. Among the independents? It’s less than half.
This isn’t all that surprising. It is a consistent fact that independents (generally meaning independents who tend to vote for one political party and independents who do not) are less politically engaged and less likely to vote. Comparing national polls conducted by the Pew Research Center with the Census Bureau’s estimates of the number of eligible voters shows how much of the nonvoter population in recent elections is made up of independents.
At least two-thirds of partisans voted in 2016 and 2020, according to the analysis. Roughly 6 in 10 independents who lean towards a political party voted, compared to about half of independents who lean toward a party.
But this year there is an important asterisk. That means people who are less likely to vote are also much more likely to support Trump.
You can find out in the data from NBC News. Biden holds a 9-point lead over those who voted in 2020 and 2022. Is he among those who did not vote in either election?Trump leads 22 points.
It also appears in other places. A Harvard Youth Poll released last week found a single-digit difference between Trump and Biden among Americans under 30 overall, but Biden among those most likely to vote. He had a lead of nearly 20 points.
Youth voting is also interesting because it overlaps with independent voter identification. Because many independents are young voters and vice versa, apathy among independents correlates with apathy among young voters. Also interesting is that, revisiting the point I made at the beginning of this article, voters under the age of 29 have not previously been able to vote for any Republican other than President Trump.
A study by University of Pennsylvania political scientist Dan Hopkins published by 538 earlier this month used an Associated Press poll conducted by NORC (formerly the National Opinion Research Center) to assess support and voting frequency in the general election. compared. The same pattern prevailed. People who vote infrequently are more likely to support Trump. That includes Black and Hispanic voters, who have been in the spotlight since 2020.
This suggests that Gallup’s finding that young and nonwhite voters have moved to the right over the past few years may be an effect of those who are less politically engaged.
Looking at the same point through a different lens: Pew’s analysis of recent voting habits shows that Black and Hispanic voters are also more likely to have not voted in recent elections.
This creates a strange dynamic. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that some Democratic groups have begun registering younger voters, who are typically a strong base for the party, over concerns that Trump voters will be included as candidates. It was reported that the company is taking second chances. The expected pattern of Democrats benefiting from higher turnout may be reversed this year.
The result could be an election in which the president is determined by who stays at home. Again, this is not unprecedented (see 2016), but it does not bode well for democracy.
