A major trick to predicting election outcomes is predicting who will vote.
And in the 2014 midterm election, not many are expected to take advantage of their right to vote compared to previous midterm cycles, according to Gallup.
Poll after poll shows Americans dislike Congress, but according to Gallup polling, that anger has turned to apathy despite an election season with a large number of tight senate races.
Midterm elections generally draw less interest from voters than presidential elections filled with nationally televised debates and nonstop election discussion.
According to Gallup, only 33 percent of Americans gave “quite a lot of” or “some” thought to the election. The mark is the lowest since 2002 for midterm elections. Voter turnout that year was 39.5 percent -- lower than each of the last two midterm elections for the voting eligible population, according to the poll.
Two other turnout indicators were also lower than they have been since 2002.
Pew Research has found that only 29 percent of American are satisfied with the way things are going and voter frustration is higher than it has been in in the last two midterm cycles.
One key factor that has shown up in polls is that Republican voters are much more engaged in the election than Democratic voters, according to Pew Research. More Republicans (77 percent) have said they will definitely vote compared to 70 percent of Democrats.
Democrats, however, have invested heavily in voter turnout efforts of states that are close, whereas Republican spending has leaned toward advertisements, according to a New York Times story.
But whether that will impact the polls remains to be seen.
According to FiveThirtyEight.com, polls featuring likely voters favor Republicans. According to the site, the average likely voter poll in 2010 was 6 percentage points more favorable to Republicans than the average registered voter polls in the same state.
Though Republicans are more likely to vote than Democrats, the question remains as to how many total people will come to the polls.
