Enthusiasm for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections outpaces Democrats by double digits, with most GOP voters also remaining loyal to former President Donald Trump, a new poll reveals.
While engagement has leveled off for both parties since the record-high turnout of the 2020 race for the White House, a Democracy Corps survey found that 68% of Republicans remain engaged ahead of 2022. Meanwhile, Democrats have seen their engagement slip to 57%, an 11-point cushion for the GOP.
The survey also found that Republican voters remain firmly in the camp of Trump, with only 16% of Republicans identifying as “non-Trump conservatives.” In the battleground states, which most likely decide the balance of power, only 9% of Republican voters identify themselves as part of the same group.
The survey comes as the GOP plots its path forward in hopes of taking back control of Congress in 2022, recently deciding to remove Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership position in the party for continuing to be a vocal critic of the former president.
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“Any member can take whatever position they believe in. … What we’re talking about is a position in leadership,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said of the effort to oust Cheney. “As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as a messenger going forward.”
Cheney has remained defiant despite her removal from leadership, saying she “will do everything I can to make sure the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.”
“We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language,” Cheney said regarding Trump. “We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution, and I think it’s very important that we make sure whomever we elect is somebody who will be faithful to the Constitution.”
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But that position has put Cheney on the outside of the mainstream of her party as the midterm elections near, with the survey indicating Trump’s footprints will be all over what could be another high turnout election.
“Neither [party] is showing the level of interest of the presidential election in 2019 and 2020, but they are higher than a comparable point in 2018, suggesting the era of high turnout elections is not over,” read the Democracy Corps analysis of the survey. “And with such high early engagement of Republicans and white working class voters in this survey, it means the era of Donald Trump shaping the electorate is not over either.”
The survey was based on phone interviews with 1,000 voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
