The Enthusiasm Gap

Are Democrats fired up for the 2020 election? Undoubtedly. But are they as fired up as Republicans? I don’t think so. A number of polls have found more intensity on the GOP side, but what makes me think of this question is (via InstaPundit) this headline: Trump campaign says ticket requests for Oklahoma rally surpass 800,000. That’s enthusiasm!

Then there is the fact that, even though there was no race on the Republican side, primary vote totals for President Trump often exceeded the combined totals for all Democratic presidential candidates, and easily surpassed the numbers cast for President Obama in 2012. This happened recently in Georgia, but it was true when there was still a genuine contest on the Democratic side, too.

Michael Moore and I were two of the very few pundits who predicted Trump’s win in 2016. Now Moore is warning Democrats not to underestimate the intensity of the Republican base’s support for the president, as Trump himself tweeted:


“Rage” is liberal-speak for the deep concern so many of us share that the Democrats’ far-left, anti-American agenda would destroy our country. It translates into voter intensity.

The Democrats know they can’t match Republicans’ eagerness to go to the polls, so they have come up with an alternative–no one goes to the polls. Instead, we have a mail-in vote system in which many millions of ballots are mailed to people who have died, moved or are ineligible to vote. Those ballots will fall into a wide variety of hands, but the Democrats know that law-abiding Republicans won’t fill them out and fraudulently send them back. Many Democrats will.

In order to combat voter fraud, Republicans need a wide advantage in voter enthusiasm. At the moment, I think they have it.

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