Republican Voters Not Thrilled About Voting

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Tuesday night's elections offer concrete evidence for polls showing Republican voters are comparatively less enthusiastic about doing their Democratic duty this year. They appear to have, in Army parlance, lost their hooah. Will they get it back by November? Our guide to today's polls and which ones matter.

Findings: Republicans are less excited than Democrats to vote in the 2012 election, a change from six months ago. Today 58 percent of Democrats are "very excited" to vote in the fall, while 54 percent of Republicans are. Republicans have stayed at the same level since last year, which Democrats are 10 percentage points more pumped.
Pollster: Public Policy Polling/ Daily Kos
Methodology: Robocalls to 1000 registered voters from January 26 to January 29.
Why it matters: Turnout for the Republican primaries this year seems to prove this poll true, PPP's Tom Jensen writes. In the last five Republican contests, turnout has dropped from 2008 levels. It was down 7 percent in Colorado, 24 percent in Minnesota, and 57 percent in Missouri, First Read says. It was down in Nevada and Florida, too, and flat in Iowa. "The 10 Super Tuesday contests next month should offer a clearer look at the mood of the electorate – but for now, it seems that enthusiasm among GOP base voters is mixed at best," The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez writes.
Caveat: Just because voters stayed home in February doesn't mean they will in November, Politico's Maggie Haberman says. PPP leans left (as does Daily Kos, obviously).

Findings: Romney is leads in Michigan with 31 percent; Gingrich and Santorum are tied for second with 15 percent.
Pollster: Detroit Free Press/ Michigan Research & Information Service
Methodology: Survey of 638 likely primary voters on February 2.
Why it matters: Michigan votes February 28. Romney needs a victory to make everyone forget how bad he lost Tuesday night. It's his home state, and where his father was governor. But Santorum seems to think he has a chance. "We think Michigan's a great place for us to plant our flag and talk about jobs and manufacturing -- giving opportunities for everybody in America to rise," he said on MSNBC Wednesday morning. NBC News' First Read says Santorum probably thinks he's got some blue collar appeal in Michigan, while he realizes that campaigning in the other state that votes that day, Arizona, might not pay off. In Arizona, second place gets zero delegates.
Caveat: Romney was polling way ahead of Santorum in Colorado on Tuesday. He did not win.

Findings: Obama is ahead of Romney in Virginia 47 percent to 43 percent.
Pollster: Quinnipiac University
Methodology: Interviews with 1,544 registered voters, some of them cell phone users, from February 1 to February 6.
Why it matters: In December, the Obama reelection campaign told reporters it sees five ways it can get a winning number of electoral votes. One of them was to win North Carolina and Virginia. But back then, that looked pretty difficult, with the president's approval rating at 43 percent. And, as NBC News' Domenico Montanaro points out, two months ago Romney was beating Obama in Virginia by 44 percent to 42 percent. Montanaro notes that the change in Obama's standing is thanks to women (who like him better by 9 points compared to December) and independents (who like him better by 4 points than they did then).
Caveat: Virginians still disapprove of Obama's job performance by 49 percent to 46 percent approving of it.

Findings: Bad news for lefties and Republican presidential candidates alike: Americans like Obama's national security policies. A new poll finds 70 percent of Americans approve of Obama's decision to keep Guantanamo Bay open -- including 53 percent of liberal Democrats (Obama promised to close the detention facility). And 83 percent of Americans approve of his use of drones outside of defined war zones -- including 77 percent of liberal Democrats (Obama uses more drones than Bush did). Showing their more dovish side, 78 percent of Americans like Obama's plan to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Pollster: Washington Post/ ABC News
Methodology: Survey of 1,000 adults, including some who only use cell phones, from February 1 to February 4.
Why it matters: "Attacking Obama’s national security policies, the poll suggests, may do more harm than good to Republican presidential candidates at a time when many Americans favor a national security approach that relies more on technology than troops," The Washington Post's Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen write. (Sidenote: Noting the Virginia poll above, it's worth remembering that the northern part of the state is home to America's defense industry.)
Caveat: Outside events -- like, say, an Israeli strike on Iran -- could change the way Americans see Obama's handling of foreign policy.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

About the Author

Elspeth Reeve is the former politics editor for The Wire.

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”

Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”