GOOD NEWS: The Point, by Chris Cillizza and Saba Hamedy, CNN email

[applegrove]

"SNIP......

Buried in a new national poll from Quinnipiac University is this question: "Compared to past elections for the US House of Representatives, how motivated would you say you are to vote in this year's election; are you more motivated to vote than usual, less motivated, or are you just as motivated as usual?"

The responses are, at first glance, nothing terribly interesting: 49% say they are more motivated while 46% say they are as motivated as usual. Just 6% of people say they are less motivated to vote in this election as compared to past contests.

But one look at the breakdowns by party reveals something very interesting -- and important:

58% of Democrats say are more motivated than usual to vote in this election while 38% say they are as motivated as usual.

41% of Republicans say they are more motivated than usual while 58% say they are about as motivated as always.

That 17 percentage point delta is critical to understanding the fate of both parties -- at least right now -- heading into the 2018 election. Democrats are fired up beyond belief to vote, motivated almost exclusively by their white-hot hatred of President Donald Trump and his White House. Republicans, who currently control the House, Senate and White House, are generally happy with the current state of affairs.

That passion gap is nothing new -- although it is more pronounced with Trump than with most past presidents. It's why, with three exceptions -- 1934, 1998 and 2002 -- the president's party has lost House seats in the first midterm election.

.........SNIP"

[mr_lebowski]

1. OTOH, some quick math tells me that Dems are about 4x more likely to answer ...

'Less Motivated Than Usual' ... which seems stunning to me.

Wonder if that's a typical D/R split when answering this question historically.

I mean, on average, Dems are probably a bit more likely statistically to answer ANY question as 'yeah, man, i just can't motivate ya know?' than a Rethug.

Fortunately it's only 4% vs 1% so that's not too 'alarming' in scope at least.

[applegrove]

2. I added another paragraph at the end which goes into the historical.

Here it is:

"SNIP....

That passion gap is nothing new -- although it is more pronounced with Trump than with most past presidents. It's why, with three exceptions -- 1934, 1998 and 2002 -- the president's party has lost House seats in the first midterm election.

.....SNIP"

[mr_lebowski]

5. Thanks but curious if it's regularly more pronounced for Dems, and more importantly ...

'is it portentous', if you know what I mean.

Also ... 1998? Impossibruh. Clinton's first midterm was 1994 and we got destroyed.

[hedda_foil]

6. Those are the exceptions when the party in power did NOT lose seats.

[mr_lebowski]

7. I understand but it also says 'first midterm'. 1998 was not a first midterm for Clinton ...

So it should not have 'counted' either way it went is what I'm saying

[hedda_foil]

8. True. 1998 was his second midterm, not his first one when we got trounced by Next and his boys.

[applegrove]

3. 1% for the republicans to 4% for democrats. That is not much of a significant

difference, only 3%points. A greater % of people always stay home. Say 4x greater less motivated to vote is a bit misleading.

[mr_lebowski]

4. You could argue it's 'misleading' but it's still roughly correct depending on the population size

of each ... of course.