Democrats’ enthusiasm has soared since Harris entered race. What about in SLO County?
As election day approaches and the turbulent presidential race remains as tight as ever, national polls report voter excitement at near record highs across the country.
With a switch-up in the presidential nomination by one party and an assassination attempt on the candidate for the other, this far-from-normal election season has voters riled up.
National polls say that Americans are the most excited they’ve been about a presidential election since 2000 — especially Democrats.
How are these national trends showing up in San Luis Obispo County?
In line with nationwide polls, local Democratic and Republican party leaders say that enthusiasm for their respective candidates has been through the roof, leading to what might be the most highly engaged election season in decades.
Excitement among SLO County Democrats mimics national trends
A recent Gallup poll found that 69% of American adults say they are “more enthusiastic than usual” about voting — up from 54% in March — with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents driving the national surge in enthusiasm.
Tom Fulks, chairman of the SLO County Democratic Party, said these numbers track locally.
“The current Harris-Walz mania ... is very real here, ” Fulks said. “In my 48 years in SLO County, I have never seen anything like this.”
Fulks said the frenzy started when Kamala Harris quickly consolidated support to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate after the president withdrew under pressure, later naming Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
“In the first week after that happened ... we had more than 100 people step up to volunteer to do stuff,“ he said. “As a matter of fact, we had a hard time processing all of the applications.”
In the 10 years since he’s been involved in the SLO County Democratic Party, Fulks said he’s seen “nothing of this order of magnitude in terms of just people’s willingness to help out.”
Fulks’ observations track with the national numbers.
The Gallup poll said that 78% of Democrats and Democratic leaners said they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting, up from 55% in March when Biden was the party’s standard-bearer. That is close to eight in 10 Democrats who said they are now more enthusiastic than usual about voting, according to the poll.
Another poll from Reuters/lpsos found that while 61% of respondents who intended to vote for Biden were doing so mainly to stop Trump in March, 52% of Harris voters polled in August were voting to support her as a candidate rather than primarily to oppose Trump.
Fulks said that one example of the political excitement is how attendance at the SLO County Democratic Party’s events has skyrocketed.
Tickets for their annual Labor Day BBQ at Atascadero Lake Park sold out in record time at almost double what they sold last year, Fulks said.
They reached venue capacity and were forced to limit ticket sales, he said. They had about 530 people in attendance — more than double previous years — and at least 100 people showed up without tickets, he said.
“This Labor Day BBQ is hands down the largest I’ve ever experienced in SLO County,” Fulks said.
Another indicator of increased enthusiasm is their merchandise sales, Fulks said.
He said their office sold out of their stock of 300 Harris-Walz yard signs in one day. The second batch of 600 signs lasted them less than a week, he said.
“I had to tell our volunteers to hold back 200 for the BBQ,” Fulks said. “People are pissed they can’t get a sign right now!”
Fulks said the only other Democratic presidential nominee that garnered this level of excitement was Barack Obama, who ran and won in 2008 and again in 2012.
“You can see the data show that the level of excitement for Kamala Harris is on par with the level of excitement for Obama,” Fulks said.
Sure enough, the Gallup poll showed that the last time Democrats were this excited about voting was in February 2008, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were competing for the party’s presidential nomination.
But Fulks said that it’s not just the top of the ticket that is amassing Democratic support.
“it’s not just Harris-Walz, that’s the thing,” Fulks said. “The down-ballot implications are pretty huge.”
SLO County is currently represented by two Democratic in Congress, Reps. Salud Carbajal and Jimmy Panetta, two Democrats in the State Senate, Sens. John Laird and Monique Limón, and two Democrats in the State Assembly, Assemblymembers Dawn Addis and Gregg Hart.
All of these seats, as well as many local city council, mayoral and school board seats, are up for grabs and contested by candidates from both parties.
“We’re fielding candidates for just about every seat there is. It’s kind of one of the first times we’ve actually done that,” Fulks said. “We’re raising more money than we’ve ever raised before.”
That money is going to support Democratic candidates campaigns, launch advertising blitzes and compensate volunteers, further bolstering party enthusiasm, Fulks said.
“We’re working, we’re hustling, and we’ll see what happens,” Fulks said.
Local Republican support just as high, party chair says
Randall Jordan, chairman of the SLO County Republican Party, said that local support for presidential candidate Donald Trump and and his running mate J.D. Vance has been “fantastic.”
“It’s very uplifting,” Jordan said. “The optimism and the fervor of the Republicans in SLO County is just unbelievable.”
The recent Gallup poll found that Republican enthusiasm about the 2024 election was approaching the record 70% measured in August 2020, when Trump sought a second term as president.
Similarly to the SLO County Democrats, Jordan said Republican Party events and merchandise sales have been in high demand. They’ve sold around 1,000 Trump-Vance signs and have had multiple successful events, such as the second annual Lincoln-Reagan-Trump Dinner, which had attendance levels on par with last year, he said.
Jordan said that he’s heard from local Republican Party leaders in counties across California that they are observing the same phenomenon.
“They have the same thing going on, a lot of excitement and just unbelievable numbers in fundraising,” Jordan said. “They’re all feeling this great excitement. It feels like 2016 all over again.”
Jordan said they saw a “definite uptick” in support after a bullet grazed Trump’s ear in an assassination attempt at a July 13 rally.
“Anytime that there’s an attack on President Trump, people get very, very upset and get very, very riled up, and that always adds to the fervor of the campaign,” Jordan said. “We saw a lot more interest in a lot of people wanting to get involved with the campaign.”
Sure enough, Trump was polling higher than Biden directly following the assassination attempt, but the tables have flipped in the Democrats’ favor since Harris joined the race.
Jordan’s observations are consistent with national trends, which show voting Republicans and Republican leaners at an enthusiasm score of 64% — up from 59% in March — but still trailing behind the Democrats’ 78% by a significant margin, according to the Gallup poll.
“I can imagine that it’s probably been a boost for the Democratic side,” Jordan said about the new Harris-Walz ticket.
But he said polling numbers don’t mean much to him.
“I don’t know how much I rely on the polls,” he said. “Going into the 2016 election, Donald Trump had no chance at all. It was 80-20 for Hillary Clinton, according to the polls, and we all know what happened there.”
While there is some variation in polling from different sources, most measurements leading up to the 2016 election put Clinton a few percentage points above Trump. One prediction by FiveThrityEight had Clinton leading by 3-4% over Trump in the popular vote during the week prior to Nov. 6.
What does this mean for voter turnout?
The last presidential election in 2020 saw the greatest voter participation in over a century, when two-thirds of eligible voters cast ballots.
But measurements of national voter enthusiasm for the 2024 election are beating what was seen then, suggesting a possibly even larger turnout this year.
Increased excitement from the party faithful could mean more people at the polls, but SLO County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano said that it is important to show out not just for the presidential race but for all contests on the ballot.
“As typically thought, the voter turnout for a presidential General Election is always higher, but in actuality it is only higher for the presidential contest,” Cano said. “I would strongly urge our voters to vote all of the other important contests on the ballot, as well.”
This story was originally published September 5, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
