Poll: Democrats in Dumps About Election 2012

With more than a year until Election Day, Democrats are down in the dumps about going to the polls, as a poll released Thursday shows 44 percent are less enthusiastic about voting than usual.

While the poll from USA Today/Gallup shows 45 percent of Democrats and like-minded independents more enthusiastic about voting, that figure marks a 10-year low and is trumped by eagerness among the GOP and Republican-leaning independents to vote next year.

Democrats' enthusiasm gap was evident in the 2010 midterm elections, when the party lost the House of Representatives and came close to seeing the U.S. Senate flip to Republican control only two years after sweeping Barack Obama into the White House.

The Gallup Poll was conducted from Sept. 15-18. In that time, Obama had yet to deliver his jobs speech that called for tax increases on the wealthy and ending tax breaks for oil companies, and Democrats had come off an embarrassing loss in New York City Congressional race.

Given that President Obama's job approval rating continues to hover around 40 percent and that he appears vulnerable in the general election, it is not surprising that Democrats are currently less enthusiastic than Republicans about voting in 2012, wrote Gallup's Lydia Saad.