Nate Silver post election analysis: Enthusiasm Gap

[BootinUp]

‘Enthusiasm Gap’ Was Largest in Presidential Swing States


snip

This measure of the enthusiasm gap, however, varied quite significantly from state to state. And there is something very interesting about the states where it was larger.


Exit polls were conducted in 26 states (mostly, where there were competitive Senate contests). The largest enthusiasm gap came in New Hampshire. There, Tuesday night’s voters claimed to have voted for John McCain by a 4-point margin, when in fact Barack Obama won the state by 10 points. That’s a 14-point enthusiasm gap.

The next largest enthusiasm gap came in Indiana; the electorate there shifted from having favored Mr. Obama by 1 point in 2008 to Mr. McCain by 10 points: an 11-point gap.

The enthusiasm gap was 10 points in Nevada, and 9 points in Iowa. It was 8 points in Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri and Illinois.

snip
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Edit: He goes on to say this is actually typical. That the bigger a Presidents coattails the more his party suffers in the mid-term.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/enthusiasm-gap-was-largest-in-presidential-swing-states/#more-3305

[Egnever]

1. Pure statistics are fun

However theres a lot of things that went into those number shifts besides just the numbers. The whole country was sick of republicans in 08 they have had two years of the pukes flying under the radar to forget that outrage.

This more than anything else I think explains the "entusiasm gap" Add to that the fact that its a mid term and not a presidential election where you get a whole different set of voters and the straight satats dont nearly begin to paint the true picture.

[frazzled]

2. Not much analysis of the numbers here

(as the post above points out).

First, though we like to frame it that way, Obama was not running in these elections. The enthusiasm gap is as much about Congress as the president. And mostly a general lash-out at the economy.

Second, the enthusiasm gap would have looked less large had the youth vote that came out for the presidential election in 2008 showed up this time. They didn't--by some 12 percentage points: possibly a large part of the gap.

Last (though I doubt it pertains to a number of the states Silver is talking about), there was definitely an enthusiasm gap I noted in the Black community. I heard it most succinctly from a woman I was sitting next to while making GOTV calls on election day. During breaks from our calling we got to talking, and she made it clear she was holding her nose to even vote for Giannoulias or Quinn. There was anger that Democrats had not kept the president's back, and the only thing that was motivating her, she said, was the thought of Mitch McConnell becoming Senate Majority Leader. This was an attitude I've heard several times from the African American community, so I have to take it seriously. Yet I have heard very little about discontent from this (admittedly varied) voting bloc. It's the inverse of what a lot of people here think, but it's a significant sentiment nonetheless.

There are probably about a thousand other narratives that could be spun with respect to these numbers, not the least of which is that these were mostly all swing states to begin with: they're swingers, what can we say.