What’s Driving Unusually High Voter Turnout

American voters are motivated by a fever pitch.

That’s the message from last week’s elections.

The headlines were the Democratic sweep of the state legislature in Virginia that put the entire state government under Democrat control for the first time in 25 years and the defeat of incumbent Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in Kentucky.

An important part of the story is that voter turnout was off the charts.

In Kentucky, an estimated 43% of eligible voters turned out compared with 31% for the last gubernatorial election, in 2015.

Voter turnout in Virginia was the highest it has been for a state legislature-only election in at least the last 40-some years.

There’s a lot of noise in the political and cultural arenas in America today, and it’s exactly what I talk about in my new book, released this week, “Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Cultural War and Why This is Good News for America.”

A new Gallup poll measuring voter enthusiasm reports that 64% are “more enthusiastic” compared with previous elections, a percentage “among the highest Gallup has measured across presidential election years.”

It’s actually the highest ever measured because previous levels in this range were reported one to five months before upcoming election. Voter enthusiasm at this accelerated level one year before an election is unprecedented.

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