Republican voters are now in a statistical tie with Democrats when it comes to voter enthusiasm regarding the midterm elections, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

The poll, conducted Monday, October 1 — just as the FBI began its probe into the allegations against Kavanaugh — and released on Wednesday, found 80 percent of Republicans, 82 percent of Democrats, and 65 percent of Independents consider the 2018 midterm elections to be “very important.”

Interestingly, GOP women were four percent more motivated than Democratic women, at 83 percent to 79 percent.

July, the last time Marist conducted a national poll into voter enthusiasm, saw Democrats leading Republicans in midterm enthusiasm by a margin of 78 percent to 68 percent. Although the Kavanaugh controversy seems to have galvanized voters on both sides, Republicans at 12 percent to 4 percent enjoyed by far the higher increase from the last polling.

July’s poll did not record data on that question by sex.

Independent voter enthusiasm remained statistically the same, increasing only one percent from July’s 64 percent.

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