This reader makes the same point as many:

You cite, in a variety of ways, how somewhere between thirty and forty percent of Americans basically don’t keep up with a single damn thing the government does, and how this might be to the benefit of Republicans in the midterms.
A question: Do you honestly think that the people who don’t know these sort of things are the same sort of people who will vote in Midterm elections?
I seriously doubt it.
I think that if you looked at the level of attention paid by those who vote regularly in midterm elections, it’d be a lot higher.

Me: I think this is an entirely legitimate objection and one I probably should have addressed. And, of course, it’s true that most of these “ignorant” Americans won’t be voting in midterm elections. But, even so, the fact remains that it takes a lot of work to build-up the name ID of convenient villains. The base voters on both sides are already convinced about who to vote for. It’s the marginal swing voters who need to be “educated” and there isn’t much time for the Democrats to do that.