Poll Shows Challenges Democrats Face in Upcoming Senate Elections

A new poll shows that minorities, millennials, and single women are less interested in next year’s Senate elections than Republican-leaning voter groups.

The poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner indicates that the voting blocs Democrats usually rely on–unmarried women, minorities, and millennials–are less engaged in the 2016 election than seniors, conservatives, and non-white college men.

When participants were asked how interested they were in the 2016 election, 71 percent of seniors said they were extremely interested. When they polled conservatives and Republicans, 70 percent of them said they were extremely interested in the election.

On the other hand, only 42 percent of millennials and 39 percent of white millennials said they were extremely interested. As it pertains to unmarried women, 60 percent said they were extremely interested. Only 57 percent of minorities, millennials, and single women said they were extremely interested.

The poll, conducted by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, concluded that the best way for Democrats to overcome these challenges is to do the following:

• Run unambiguously on middle class reform money and government message and agenda like the one tested in this poll;
• Increase the turnout of unmarried women and millennials;
• Improve the margin among unmarried women and white working class women, who are increasingly open to voting for Democrats;
• Brand the tarnished GOP that is too partisan for these times.

The survey was conducted from October 24 to October 28, 2015. Participants were chosen from the national voter file and are likely 2016 voters. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points at 95% confidence.