How to bridge enthusiasm gap for 2024 election

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Jared McDonald / For The Conversation

Now that Super Tuesday is over and the Democratic and Republican nominees are all but officially chosen, as everyone expected, voters can turn the page to the general election.

But they’re not excited about it, and they haven’t been for months.

A September 2023 Monmouth University poll showed no more than 40 percent of Americans said they were “enthusiastic” for either Biden or Trump to run again. That same month, the Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Americans were exhausted with the current state of American politics. In February 2024, The New York Times said Democrats in particular were burned out by the seemingly endless avalanche of political crises.

It is not surprising that a rematch of the 2020 election is failing to inspire excitement in the American people. Yet, as a political scientist who studies citizen engagement and the public’s feelings toward the candidates, I find these trends disturbing. It’s not just polarization that’s driving voters’ malaise; it’s something else, which carries a stark warning for the health of American democracy.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-how-to-bridge-enthusiam-gap-for-2024-election/

[LoisB]

1. My Gen Z granddaughter was filling out her non-partisan primary ballot and said:

"Wait, where's Joe?" I explained to her that she would have to go into the polling place and request a cross-oveer Democratic ballot. She was fired up to vote for "Joe".