Released just this morning is this ABC News/Washington Post poll, graded A+ by FiveThirtyEight. The poll was conducted 22-25 March among registered voters (it remains too early to survey you-bet-I-will voters) with a sampling of 1,003, has a 3.5 percent margin of error and blocs of Democrats-Republicans-independents of 30-24-37 percent, respectively.
Regrettably, the poll was also released in the absence of a trigger warning — which for once, I really could have used, even though the poll's findings were predictable. After all, these are Democrats we're talking about.
Joe Biden has … only bare majority support within his party and a massive enthusiasm gap in a November matchup against Donald Trump. Indeed, strong enthusiasm for Biden among his supporters – at just 24 percent – is the lowest on record for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years of ABC/Post polls. More than twice as many of Trump’s supporters are highly enthusiastic….
Another challenge for Biden … is this: Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who prefer Bernie Sanders for the nomination, 15 percent say they’d back Trump over Biden in the fall…. This is familiar: Twenty percent of Sanders supporters said they’d vote for Trump in spring 2016….
There’s déjà vu in these results: Hillary Clinton found herself in largely the same position four years ago. She, too, had a slim lead among Democrats for the nomination and ran essentially evenly with Trump among registered voters. And she lagged in enthusiasm, with a low of 32 percent very enthusiastic in September 2016. Biden is 8 points under that mark now.
The effects of enthusiasm on 2020 turnout cannot be overstated, especially for Democrats, since Republicans are both fanatical in their support of Trump and strangely wise enough to comprehend the power of the vote. Trump's vast incompetence and widely impeachable behavior have little to no negative effect on Republican voters; indeed, his wretchedness inspires them.
Meanwhile, though knowing that anybody with merely a pulse and no bunco-laden rap sheet would be a boundless improvement over Trump, three-fourths of Democrats sit and ponder, and sit and ponder, if voting for probably the most presidentially qualified man since LBJ deserves their strong enthusiasm. This familiar phenomenon is, to instead understate things, distressing.
And then there's Bernie, dear, devoted, man of the people, horribly destructive Bernie. The days in which he could be firing up his 85 percent are flying away like calendar pages in an old movie. The 15 percent are hopeless, of course; but many among the 85, being tepid at best in their enthusiasm, could use some of the senator's rousing, roiling, evangelical tub-thumping for Joe. Turnout among this bloc is, or could be, singularly critical to Biden's victory. And yet Bernie just sits and ponders — much akin to the shameful three-fourths of Dems.
Panic is not yet called for. But it seems to me that panic, as a motivator, would not be a bad thing. For in politics, complacency can be a killer.