Poll after poll shows that supporters of President Trump say they are much more excited to vote for him than supporters of Joe Biden are to support the former vice president. But Trump’s enthusiasm advantage is not an electoral golden ticket.
An ABC News/Washington Post national poll released March 29 found that 53% of Trump supporters said that they were “very” enthusiastic about voting for him, compared to 24% for Biden.
Similarly, an Emerson College national poll in April found that 36% of Trump backers were very excited to support him, compared to 22% of Biden supporters.
And a Florida Atlantic University poll of Florida voters conducted May 8-12 found that 60% of Trump supporters said they are extremely excited to support him, while the number was 34% for the former vice president.
The consistent double-digit enthusiasm advantage for Trump seems like good news for him, with optimists hoping that it is an indication that his supporters will be more likely to turn out and vote for him than Biden’s.
The trend was present in Trump’s 2016 race against Hillary Clinton. Polls leading up to the election showed that Trump supporters were much more enthusiastic than those who intended to vote for Clinton.
Many saw a Biden enthusiasm gap coming. Excitement about a candidate was a major issue in the Democratic primaries.
Younger candidates such as former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke pitched themselves as exciting, forward-looking candidates while they painted Biden as a “return to the past.” Early state voters grappled with casting a ballot for their ideal candidate versus a vote for Biden, who might appeal to a larger swath of general election voters.
But the enthusiasm gap for Biden in the primaries has a lesson for the general election: Voter enthusiasm does not necessarily transfer to getting the most votes. Biden won the primaries despite the gap.
“It’s important to remember that an enthusiastic vote counts exactly as much as a lukewarm one,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University polling institute. “One key difference this year is that the early enthusiasm gap is not translating to electoral advantage.”
A strong, enthusiastic core base may also be a disadvantage in that it demonstrates a candidate has less ability to appeal to moderate or swing voters. Supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, for instance, were much more enthusiastic than those who supported Biden, but he did not have wide appeal among Democratic primary voters.
Another data point that shows enthusiasm does not translate to winning: Rates of enthusiasm tend to be higher for those who align with the party that does not hold the presidency, according to Gallup, yet President Barack Obama won reelection in 2012.
Levels of enthusiasm tend to even out as the campaign season moves closer to Election Day.
And despite leading in enthusiasm, the polls show a major warning sign for Trump.
“The main driver in this is that Biden is the clear leader among voters who don’t particularly like either candidate. Trump actually won this type of voter in 2016, but the outlook is different in 2020,” Murray said. “The Trump camp is unlikely to convert these negative voters, so they will have to find a way to keep those voters at home.”
That makes other election factors, such as the ease of voting and get-out-the-vote efforts, important to assess the overall effect of whether voter enthusiasm will matter.
Other measures of voter enthusiasm cast doubt on whether Republicans have a major advantage in enthusiasm.
In a series of Marquette Law School polls of Wisconsin voters, respondents were asked how excited they were to vote in the November election — not how excited they were to vote for Trump or Biden.
When those results can be broken down by other characteristics, such as gender or party affiliation. In four polls conducted from January to May, it found no difference in enthusiasm for voting by candidate choice of Trump or Biden.
Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette poll, said that while those results are not directly comparable to the polls that ask how exited Trump supporters are to vote for him, the findings “are relevant for turnout in November as well as ‘motivation’ among the supporters of each candidate.”
“For our data and for Wisconsin, I don’t see either campaign or party with an upper hand on enthusiasm at this point,” Franklin said.
