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Washington Post
Saturday, October 9, 2010; 9:06 PM

President Obama and Vice President Biden will travel to Philadelphia on Sunday
for another rally designed to energize Democratic voters. The crowd at their
Madison, Wis., rally last month was impressive, and this one may be, too. But any
way you cut it, the Republicans still have the advantage in enthusiasm this fall,
thanks in large measure to the tea party movement.

Of a long series of surveys conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser
Family Foundation and Harvard University. What it shows is that tea party
supporters and other conservatives are the most energized and are prepared to work
the hardest to persuade friends and neighbors to vote Nov. 2.

The survey measured attitudes about the upcoming vote, including questions on
interest in the elections, how these elections compare in importance with those in
2008, and the activities people are likely to participate in between now and
Election Day. On every measure, strong supporters of the tea party movement
stand above the rest of the field.

For starters, take the question of whether people are very interested in these
elections. Forty-three percent of Democrats said they are. Among Republicans, 57
percent said they're very interested. Among tea party supporters the figure was 74
percent, and among the strongest tea party supporters it was 83 percent.
More telling is the measurement of who is more interested in this election than in
the election of 2008. Just 22 percent of Democrats and only 17 percent of liberal
Democrats say they are. These were many of the same people who two years ago
were turning out in enormous numbers to see Obama in the final weeks of the
campaign, crowds of 75,000 or 100,000 in places like St. Louis and Denver.
Obama, Biden and Democratic candidates will be trying to reignite that interest
over the next three weeks.

Republican candidates face no such challenges in whipping up enthusiasm. The

survey showed that 40 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of tea party
supporters say they are more interested in these elections than those of 2008, and
among strong supporters of the tea party, 49 percent describe the midterms that
way.

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