(GALLUP) Amount of thought given to an election tends to correlate with voter turnout

The following is from Gallup News.

Seventy-one percent of Americans say they have given “quite a lot” of thought to the upcoming presidential election, which is on par with election year readings at similar points in the 2008 and 2020 campaigns but higher than in 2000, 2004 and 2012.

This suggests voter turnout could be robust this year, as Gallup research has shown that, historically, the amount of thought given to an election tends to correspond with turnout.

Voter turnout in the 2008 and 2020 elections — when thought given to the election at this stage mirrored today’s — was the highest since 1968.

Gallup has tracked the amount of thought Americans have given to presidential elections at various points during every cycle since 1952. The latest data are from an April 1-22 poll, conducted several weeks after Donald Trump won enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination.

Attention Among Democrats and Republicans Particularly High This Year

Americans who identify with either of the major political parties are highly engaged this year, with 84% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans saying they have given the presidential election a lot of thought.

The six-percentage-point gap between Democrats and Republicans is not statistically significant. As is typically the case, political independents are less likely to be thinking about the election, at 61%.

The current reading is the highest for Democrats at this point in the campaign over the same period. Similarly, Republicans’ level of thought matches the group’s 2020 high point. Each group’s lowest reading at this point in the campaign was in 2000 when George W. Bush and Al Gore were running.

Gallup data from 2023 show that more Americans identify as political independents than as Republicans or Democrats, and more independents lean toward the Republican than Democratic Party.

As a result, the party gap in thought given to the election narrows to four points when partisan-leaning independents are added to the party subgroups — 76% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents versus 72% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents report giving it a lot of thought. (Continued…)