Worry? About what?
Seriously, the idea that democrats are going to outpace republicans by 6% in national turnout is laughable on its face. Do you know how many votes equals 1% of the turnout?
121 Million people voted in 04, and 101 Million voted in 00, 86 Million in 96. Based on these trends you are looking at about 130-140 Million votes will be cast this election... 1% of the vote = 1.3 to 1.4 Million 6% is 7.8 to 8.4 Million votes. There is no way you are going to have around 8 Million more democrats show up on election day than republicans nationally, it just ain’t going to happen.
People really need to relax. Work hard, never get complacent, but this sky is falling nonsense is just that, NONSENSE. It defies every rational analysis to believe that the guy who can’t get middle class white voter support, has the PUMA issue and who has never actually faced a hard campaign, is going to show up on election day when his support even among straight democrats is lower than Kerry’s in the demographic polling.
I am not saying be complacent, but if you examine the internals of polling when you can get them, you can see the race is not remotely what’s being portrayed on TV.
In the 2006 midterms 5.4% more Democrats showed up than Republicans to vote for House members. Senate voting records show that 9.4% more Democrats showed up to vote for the Senate than Republicans did.
Of course, what you are really discounting here in your Republican vs. Democrat argument are the Independents. They make up a huge voting block (about 25% to 30%.) Which way they go decides this election. That is the group that gave us 2006, as they turned their backs on Republicans. If they are in the same mood this time then we get a repeat of 2006. Even the GOP projects losses in the House and Senate and they are trying to keep those as low as possible, so it is not a complete fabrication that we are finding ourselves in a downcycle for Republicans this year.
People take out their anger on the incumbent party - always has and always will.
Obama apparently has a spectacular ground game. The McCain campaign has acknowledged that and has said they can't match the ground game that Bush had in 2004. That is a problem, because who shows up on Nov. 4 is important.
I also understand the self identification of party has been fairly close on election day, but who is to say that Nov. 4 will show the same historical trend? You can't and I can't.
Rasmussen is only reporting how people self identify themselves and the trend in the past few weeks is a slight tick towards the democrats. That is not a good thing.