Voter interest in the midterms reaches a record high, boosting Trump and Democrats

President Trump has apparently managed to make people very excited to vote in midterm elections. The percentage of voters with a high interest in the election — a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale — has jumped to 65 percent, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, the highest numbers ever recorded in the poll. A record-high 72 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans are very interested, versus 46 percent among independents.

Overall, 50 percent of likely voters want Democrats to control Congress versus 41 percent who favor Republicans, an improvement of 1 percentage point for Democrats since the September survey. Unusually for a midterm election, Democrats fare better among likely voters than the overall electorate, where they hold a 48-41 percent advantage, down from 12 points in the September survey. The percentage of engaged Latino and young voters, two groups that skew Democratic, has jumped by double digits from previous NBC/WSJ polls. Women favor Democrats by 25 points.

"Although Democrats are preferred in the national poll overall, their advantage has vanished in the House districts that matter most," The Wall Street Journal reports. And as Republican interest in the midterms has jumped, so have Trump's poll numbers — he gets his best job approval number to date in the poll, with 47 percent approving and 49 percent disapproving. Among likely voters, 45 percent approve of Trump and 52 percent disapprove.

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The "blue wave" has run into a "riptide of uncertainty" from the "surge of Republican intensity," said Democratic pollster Fred Yang. Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the poll with Yang, called the election "a barnburner." Republicans are in a better position, he added, but "you've got to look where the tilt is going. And the tilt didn't change." NBC's Chuck Todd says the data point to a "choose your own adventure" election:

The poll was conducted via telephone Oct. 14-17 among 900 registered voters and 645 likely voters, with an overall margin of error of ±3.3 percentage points, ±3.9 points among likely voters.