Democrats are around 50%, year in, year out. Republicans ebb and flow dramatically in heaving cycles.
The last chart on this page is interesting in that respect:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127439/Election-2010-Key-Indicators.aspxTo me, the measure of how Republicans are doing is public assholery. When Republicans are doing well there is a lot of bullying... people intentionally say hateful things in public in a provocatively loud tone. They want a fight.
In 1994 and 2002 and 2004 I couldn't go to nay public eatery without hearing Limbaugh listeners aggressively challenging the whole place with loud idiocy. In 2006 and 2008 those loud-mouths talked about sports or money.
The other night I had a drunk man come up to a group of people talking in the parking lot of a bar/restaurant and start screaming at the group that "Obama is a fucking joke! I hate him! He's a socialist. A socialist!"
It was provoked by nothing... there was no political conversation going on. No shirts or stickers. And they guy was doing it with the assumption that this group of strangers would embrace his view.
He felt so
empowered to yell these things.
Enthusiasm? Emotional breakdown? Simple madness?
Not really meaningful distinctions when the RW is involved.