Party polarization top issue as voters more energized about midterms than previous years

Four months before casting ballots in November, voters say they are more enthusiastic about showing up to the polls than in any recent midterm election — and they’re more motivated by which party controls Congress than issues like immigration or the Russia investigation.

The partisan wars that have ground Washington to a halt, on display each day on cable news channels, are having a stronger effect on the electorate, a new survey from the Pew Research Center shows.

{mosads}More voters say they will use their ballot to send a message for or against the president than in recent midterm elections. Americans are also more likely to say the Election Day outcome is more important to the future of the country than other hot-button issues like the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, or the status of immigrants who came to the country illegally as minors.

“In this case, you have both parties that seem to be pretty energized,” said Carroll Doherty, the Pew Research Center’s director of political research. “The voters have a sense, even early on, that the stakes are high in this election.”

When asked whether they back a generic Democrat or a generic Republican for Congress, registered voters favored Democrats by a slim 48 percent to 43 percent margin. Democrats hold a 54 percent to 38 percent lead among women, while Republicans maintain a 49 percent to 43 percent edge among men.

The fallout from the electorate’s focus on partisan politics is a positive for Democrats, who say they are far more enthusiastic about voting than they were in 2010 or 2014 — two big years for Republicans — and even 2006, when Democrats reclaimed control of the House.

But the news isn’t all bad for Republicans. In an ordinary midterm election, the enthusiasm gap means one party’s voters are less motivated to show up than the other’s. This year, half of all voters who say they back Republican candidates for Congress say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting — 20 points higher than their enthusiasm levels in 2006 and only 5 points lower than their zenith in 2010.

“This is in June. This is pretty early as yet. It’s a sign that the midterms, which weren’t usually looked at through a national lens, are increasingly becoming so,” Doherty said.

What is motivating voters on both sides, the survey found, is a growing interest in which party controls Congress. More than two-thirds of voters, including 73 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans, say control of Congress is a factor in their vote this year, the highest level of interest in partisan control Pew has ever measured, dating back to 1998.

President Trump, too, is a defining issue for voters. A third of voters say they will use their ballots to register opposition to Trump, while 26 percent say they consider their ballots a vote in support of the president.

That 60 percent of voters say Trump is a factor means he is more polarizing than previous presidents. At about this point in 2010, 48 percent said they saw support for or opposition to President Obama as a motivating factor for voting. Four years before that, 53 percent said President George W. Bush would be a factor when they cast their ballot.

That polarization is good for Democratic efforts to turn out their base, but it also benefits Republicans since Trump is a motivating factor for his own voters in a way Obama and Bush were not.

“For a narrow majority of Republicans, Trump is a positive factor in their vote,” Doherty said. “And that wasn’t the case for Obama in 2010 or 2014.”

Trump’s approval rating remains at a sluggish 40 percent — the highest level ever recorded by Pew since Trump took office, but still lower than President Obama ever reached in a Pew survey. President Bush left office with a dismally low 24 percent approval rating, according to Pew.

There is no clear dominant issue voters identified as driving their votes. The poll, taken before the administration began separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, found 12 percent of registered voters cited immigration as the most important problem facing the country.

More voters said Democrats would do a better job handling immigration than Republicans, by a 48 percent to 34 percent margin.

Voters say Republicans would do a better job handling the economy than Democrats, by a 45 percent to 36 percent margin, but fewer voters than ever are thinking about the economy as the most pressing challenge to the country. Just 21 percent of Americans identified an economic issue — whether the economy in general, or jobs or wages more specifically — as the most important issue.

That’s less than a third the number of voters who identified an economic issue as the most pressing problem back in 2011, about two years into the slow recovery.

Forty-six percent of registered voters say Trump has a fair amount or a great deal of respect for people like them. Men and whites are most likely to believe Trump respects them, while more than half of women, blacks and Hispanic voters say Trump has no respect or not too much respect for them.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans say Trump has a great deal or a fair amount of respect for the nation’s democratic institutions and traditions, while 60 percent say he has not too much or no respect for those institutions.