Political & Civic Engagement

Many of the millions of Americans voting in Tuesday's midterm elections will have to do so while working around the demands of their jobs – hitting their polling places before work, taking an extra-long lunch break or going afterward and hoping to make it before the polls close. As they stand in line, many of them may wonder why it is that the United States votes on a Tuesday, of all days.

Some 44% of liberal Democrats say they have used social media in the past year to encourage others to take action on an issue that was important to them. A similar share (43%) have taken part in a group that shares their interest in a cause.

Voters are more enthusiastic about voting than in any midterm election in over 20 years of Pew Research Center polling. Still, millions of Americans will not exercise their right to vote on Tuesday.

More Hispanic registered voters say they have given “quite a lot” of thought to the upcoming midterm elections compared with four years ago and are more enthusiastic to vote this year than in previous congressional elections. But they lag behind the general public on some measures of voter engagement.

On election night 2018, besides the exit polls there will be an additional source of data on who voted and why, developed by The Associated Press, Fox News and NORC at the University of Chicago and based on a very different methodology. That means that depending on where you go for election news, you may get a somewhat different portrait of this year's electorate.

Two-thirds of Americans (67%) say everything possible should be done to make it easy for every citizen to vote, but Republicans – especially conservative Republicans – are less likely to hold this view, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Aside from voting, relatively few people take part in other forms of political and civic participation. But a 14-country survey finds that some could be motivated to participate on issues like health care, poverty and education.

More than 29 million Latinos are eligible to vote nationwide in the 2018 midterm elections. See how the share of Latino voters varies by state and congressional district.

More than 29 million Latinos are eligible to vote nationwide in 2018. The pool of eligible Hispanic voters has steadily grown in recent years.

Turnout in this year's primaries for Congress and most state governorships surged compared with the last midterms in 2014, particularly among Democrats. Nearly a fifth (19.6%) of registered voters – about 37 million – cast ballots in primary elections for the U.S. House of Representatives – a 56% increase over the 23.7 million who voted in 2014's House primaries. Turnout that year was 13.7% of registered voters.