Rural voters are the most enthusiastic about the midterms

"Interest in the midterms is at an all-time high, but Republicans and Rural America are more enthusiastic than Democrats and Urban America are," NBC News reports on its latest poll. The more rural a part of the poll sample was, the more enthusiasm voters showed; the more urban, the less.

"Urban voters prefer a Democratically-controlled Congress by 34 points (64%-30%), suburban voters prefer a GOP-controlled Congress by 4 points (48%-44%) and rural voters prefer a Republican-controlled Congress by a whopping 53 points (75%-22%)," Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Ben Kamisar, Bridget Bowman and Alexandra Marquez of the NBC News Political Unit report.

They summarize major results of the poll: "Yes, Democrats had closed the enthusiasm gap in the recent months. Yes, rural voters make up a smaller share all of voters (about 15% in our poll). And, yes, the fight for Senate control remains a Toss Up. But that GOP/rural intensity, those GOP/rural margins and President Biden’s 45 percent job rating (it was 46 percent in the VA-GOV exit poll) sure look like what we saw a year ago." They conclude, "Democrats are fired up. It’s just that Republicans are fired up a lot more."

“This is what Virginia looked like,” said NBC's Republican pollster, Bill McInturff, referring to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s overwhelming margins with rural Republicans that drove his Virginia gubernatorial win a year ago.