A large part of the battle in any political contest is getting your supporters to the polls in order to vote for you.
And it becomes extremely easy to motivate people to vote if they already think they're on the winning side - something a recent Gallup poll revealed of Democrats in this year's race:
A new Gallup Panel survey, conducted May 19-21, finds 61% of Democrats saying they are confident their party will win the election, including 35% who are "very confident." Meanwhile, only 39% of Republicans are confident, with only 13% saying they are very confident.
Thus, rank-and-file Republicans are aware the party faces an uphill battle in retaining the White House given the problems in the economy, an ongoing and unpopular war, and an incumbent Republican president with some of the lowest job approval ratings in Gallup Poll history.
While Republicans generally agree that their odds of winning are long, a majority (58%) believe that likely presidential nominee John McCain gives the GOP the best chance of any of this year's Republican candidates of winning the election. Thirty-seven percent believe another candidate would have increased the party's odds of winning, with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee mentioned most often, by 16% and 9% of Republicans, respectively.
There is, of course, a flip side to that winning attitude - overconfidence. Will Democrats be so assured of winning that they stay at home on election day and hand the presidency to John McCain and the Republicans?
It's happened before. Some historians believe that overconfident Republicans in 1948 stayed home in significant numbers and gave the election to President Truman. GOP candidate Tom Dewey was far ahead in most pre-election polls (although little noticed was a definite trend toward Truman the last 72 hours) and it is believed in some crucial states, Republican turnout was affected by overconfidence.
But most analysts this time believe the polls will reflect a tight race almost until the end making it unlikely one side will have a chance to relax before the vote is actually taken.
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