Republicans are the Most Motivated for 2024, and Most Excited about their Candidate Choices
New polling from All In Together fielded by Echelon Insights finds that Republicans are extremely motivated for the 2024 elections. 92% of Republicans say they are “extremely or very motivated” to vote compared to 87% of Democrats and 74% of Independents.
- Enthusiasm is much higher on the Republican side – 80% say they are “extremely motivated”. Compared to 67% of Dems and only 55% of Independents.
- Republican women are the most motivated group at 93% “extremely or very motivated”. Independent women are the least motivated at 70%, continuing a trend we’ve seen in previous polls
- Democratic women are more motivated than their male counterparts – 89% to 84% “extremely/very motivated”. There’s no notable gender gap between GOP and Independent voters on motivation.
- There is a 20-point gap between the oldest and youngest voters on motivation to vote, and an even bigger 33-point age gap between those extremely motivated to vote in 2024. Older voters (65+) are intensely motivated – 94% extremely/very combined, 85% extremely motivated.
- In contrast, only 52% of 18–29-year-olds and 51% of 30–39-year-olds say they are “extremely motivated” to turnout, 74% “extremely and very motivated” combined – a concerning sign as gen-z and millennial voters will make up half of the potential voters in this election, and a majority by 2028.
- Consistent with trends seen in other surveys, enthusiasm among black and Hispanic voters is also lower than among white voters.
- 77% of white voters say they are extremely motivated – 24 points higher than black voters (53%) and 18 points higher than Hispanic voters (59%).
Not only are Republican voters more motivated, but they are more optimistic about their choices in candidates. 58% of GOP voters believe that “there will likely be a candidate they really want to support in 2024” – compared to 43% of Democrats and only 34% of Independents.
- Trump supporters are the most optimistic that there will be a candidate they like on the ballot at 67% – likely due to the former President’s strength in Republican primary polling.
- There is a sharp age divide among Democratic voters – 55% of Democrats over 50 say “there will likely be a candidate they want to support”, compared to only 32% of Dems under 50
- A majority of young voters say they will be choosing a candidate “because their opponent is worse” (59% among 18-29-year-olds).
Abortion Access is Radically Reshaping Young People’s Life Choices
While abortion is not a top issue among young voters (more on top issues TC), the aftermath of Dobbs has drastically reshaped the life choices of young people in the United States.
34% of women 18-39 “have or know someone who decided not to get pregnant” due to concerns about managing pregnancy-related medical emergencies.” And in what is a sign of the pervasiveness of this issue, we found the numbers were the same in the states where abortion is banned, restricted, and legal.
- 22% of women 18-39 “have or know someone who has been unable to obtain an abortion in their state”, almost three times higher than any other age group
Pregnancy related medical care is also a rising concern among younger people. A third of young people either faced constraints in receiving care in a pregnancy related medical emergency or know someone who did. That percentage is much higher than other age groups.
Methodology
These questions were fielded as part of the August 2023 Echelon Insights Verified Voter Omnibus. The survey was fielded online from August 28-31, 2023 in English among a sample of N=1,022 voters in the Likely Electorate (LV) nationwide using non-probability sampling. The sample was drawn from the Lucid sample exchange and matched to the L2 voter file.
The sample was weighted to population benchmarks for registered voters and the 2024 Likely Electorate on gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, region, party, past primary participation, and 2020 presidential vote adjusted for 2024 turnout probability. All benchmarks for the 2024 Likely Electorate were adjusted for turnout estimates based on a probabilistic model of the likely 2024 electorate derived from the L2 voter file.
Estimates for gender, age, and party were derived from the L2 voter file. Estimates for race/ethnicity and education were derived from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey demographic data adjusted to match voter registration estimates from the November 2020 Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement.
Data quality measures included the use of a trap question to check for attentiveness and measures to prevent and remove duplicate responses based on IP address and voter file matches.
Calculated the way it would be for a random sample and adjusted to incorporate the effect of weighting, the margin of sampling error is +/- 4.1 percentage points.
