By
Eli Yokley
August 17, 2022 at 6:00 am ET
Over the past month, enthusiasm about voting in the midterm elections has surged to its highest point yet among Democrats and Republicans, driven at least in part by a week in which Congress passed a major piece of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda and the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida, according to Morning Consult/Politico tracking.
The latest enthusiasm bump comes after a big week for both parties: House Democrats sent the Inflation Reduction Act — a massive climate, health care and taxes measure — to Biden’s desk (likely his final major legislative victory before the midterms) and Trump used the FBI investigation into his handling of classified documents to revive Republican grievances about probes against him.
The FBI’s search activity had relatively high salience for a news event, with little partisan divide: 55% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans said they’d seen, read or heard “a lot” about it. Voters of both parties were less likely to hear a lot about the Democrats’ legislative success or the news that the average price of a gallon of gasoline dropped below $4 nationwide — two events the party sees as key to fending off losses in November.
At least last year, voters were generally more aware of legislative action once it was signed by the president than when it was passed by Congress, suggesting there’s room to expand recognition of those accomplishments. But surveys show Biden and his party are already starting to make up some much-needed ground.
The latest Morning Consult/Politico survey was conducted Aug. 12-14, 2022, among a representative sample of 2,005 registered voters, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.