After Democratic enthusiasm has been through the roof for two years since Trump's election, leaving a trail of dozens of red-to-blue seat flips in the states, the Washington media is now telling us that Democratic surge has all been wiped away by the battle over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. Specifically, one NPR headline asserted the "Democratic Enthusiasm Edge Evaporates" after its most recent poll found Democratic and Republican voters roughly split among those who said the midterms were "very important" (Ds 82 percent/Rs 80 percent).
Okay, time to take a breath. Nate Silver did a good job adding some context to the most recent polls and here was his basic conclusion (my paraphrase): Republicans' chances of keeping the House is getting slightly worse, while their chances of holding the Senate are slightly better. Here's how Silver put it:
District-level polls have generally been getting worse for Republicans, even if national indicators have stabilized or improved slightly. [...]
Republicans have been favored to keep the Senate all along. But their position has improved quite a bit over the last week in all three versions of our model.
Indeed, Cook Political Report just moved seven more House races in the direction of Democrats.
When it comes to enthusiasm, there's plenty of caveats to the notion that the Democratic advantage has evaporated. First, turnout is still what actually matters. Republicans have completely abandoned the cross-over vote in favor of stoking their base and nothing else. That strategy not only depends on turnout among their base being high, it also assumes turnout among the Democratic base will be low. Here's how the director of polling for Marist Institute, which conducted the NPR poll, framed it.
"The Republicans' approach has been, and continues to be, all about the base," [Lee] Miringoff said. "This is their M.O., and that's what we're seeing. That works if turnout is not high."
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