Why Do Most Americans Choose a Democratic Candidate? Demographic Divides in the House of Representatives and the 2018 U.S. Election Results

The race is close with 50% of likely voters backing the Democratic candidate and 45% backing the Republican. But in competitive congressional districts, Democratic support among likely voters dips and preferences tilt toward the Republicans: 48% of likely voters in that group prefer the Republican candidate, 43% the Democrat.

Republican registered voters nationwide and in competitive congressional districts are a bit more likely to say they are deeply motivated to vote than are Democratic registered voters (52% extremely motivated among Republicans nationally, 46% among Democrats; in competitive districts, it’s 55% among Republicans vs. 45% among Democrats).

Younger voters, Black and Latino voters as well as some degree women are less likely to vote for Democrats in this election than they have in the past, according to demographic divides found in the poll. According to a CNN Poll, in October of 2018, more than half of women backed Democratic candidates in their district. Democrats won the support of 75% of voters of color, but just 61% do now. Latino voters are split on whether to support the Democrats or Republican, with 22% saying they would back the Republican and 22% saying they wouldn’t. For the Democrat to win, black voters split 8:1% in their favor. The Democrats held a 15-point advantage over the Republicans among voters under 45 in the year 2018, compared with 8 points now. Likely voters in each of these groups currently tilt a bit more Democratic than registered voters, but motivation to vote among younger voters and voters of color is markedly lower than among older voters or White voters.

Climate change, voting and elections, abortion, gun policy, and inflation are all highly rated issues for Democrats, but the economy, immigration and voting are just as important for Republicans.

Although results from the same poll released Wednesday revealed that views of the economy remain sharply negative, those figures have rebounded somewhat from summer lows. Democrats and independents have become less likely to consider the economy or inflation because of that shift. It has grown that the issue priorities by the party have been the same this year.

Former President Donald Trump – though also not a factor for about half of voters (50%) – prompts a more even partisan reaction, and may work in Democrats’ favor in the competitive districts. All told, 28% of voters nationwide say they are voting to send a message of opposition to Trump while 20% say they’ll be sending a message of support. Republicans in competitive districts say they will vote to express their opposition to the former President, while most of the Democrats say they will vote to express their support.

The new CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS on September 3 through October 5 among a random national sample of 1,982 adults initially reached by mail, including 1,577 registered voters and 1,198 likely voters. The surveys were conducted online or over the phone. It is 3.5 points among registered voters and 4.0 points among likely voters for the full sample to show an error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The 50 competitive congressional districts were selected based on publicly available race ratings at the time the sample was chosen. Results among the 540 registered voters in that sample have an error margin of plus or minus 5.4 points; it is 5.6 points among the 484 likely voters. The weighted subset was adjusted to reflect the overall adult population of the United States.

Republicans are more confident in their ability to win the election, even though they have a lot of problems like weak fund-raising and low quality Senate candidates.

Republicans made a decision to demonize early voting after years of dominating the practice in states like Arizona and Florida. In some states, Republican Party officials have quietly sent out mailers or digital ads urging their supporters to vote early, but more prominent Republican politicians dare not amplify those appeals — lest they be on the receiving end of a rocket from Donald Trump.

It has often fallen to conservative groups to get the attention of voters. A get-out- the-vote event is being held in Phoenix by the group run by the controversial pro-Trump activist.

“When you’ve convinced your base that it’s a fraudulent method of voting, you have very little room to change their minds this late in the game,” said Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm. “There are so many things that can go wrong on Election Day.”

Get-out-the-vote operations became objects of media fascination after Barack Obama’s 2008 victory, which capitalized on new ways of organizing volunteers, sophisticated social-science techniques and innovative social media strategy to run circles around John McCain’s more traditional operation.

It led many Democrats to think that they had an edge over Republicans in data and field operations after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, but it was Trump who put an end to that. Fieldwork, never glamorous, has not had the same cachet since.

“My assumption is that Republicans are at least as good as Democrats in almost every area they do.” said David Nickerson, a political scientist who studies turnout.