I can’t blame Stu Rothenberg for bitching about a polling firm that won’t show its work, but I think he’s just annoyed that polling keeps coming out that doesn’t look good for Republican Senate candidates and governors. In the end, Rothenberg doesn’t even really doubt that the race in Montana has grown closer and he lists it as a Toss-Up/Tilts Republican race, which is maybe even a little more of a pessimistic assessment than is warranted by the polling. I’d say that Montana Leans Republican right now, and the only toss-up part of it is that a lot can change between now and November.
A look at the latest polls shows Gov. Scott Walker in real trouble in Wisconsin, Gov. Rick Scott trailing in Florida, Udall and Hickenlooper up narrowly in Colorado, Sen. Kay Hagan up in North Carolina, Gov. Andrew Cuomo up by 37 points in New York, Michelle Nunn crushing David Perdue in Georgia, Rep. Gary Peters up by nine in Michigan, Mary Landrieu up in Louisiana, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen comfortably ahead in New Hampshire. People have already written obituaries for Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, and the Republican governors of Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, and Michigan aren’t looking like they’re in too great a shape, either. The last poll out of Maine has Democrat Mike Michaud win a narrow lead in a three-way race.
The news isn’t all good. Some races are scarily close, for example, the Senate races in Iowa, Arkansas, and Colorado. But only in Arkansas does an incumbent look to be in truly serious danger. Unless these races all tilt against the Democrats in the end, the GOP is on course for a galactically bad election night.
This is not the same kind of polling data that I was looking at in 2010. In 2010, the polling data was so consistently bad that I almost went insane. I could see that shellacking coming from a million miles away and I couldn’t believe that the “professional left” was stuck on infighting instead of girding their loins for battle. This year is different. What I’m seeing is consistently positive poll numbers. Some places I’d like to see bigger leads, but there’s also polling out of places like Virginia, California, New York, and Pennsylvania that is just astoundingly bad for the Republicans. A party can’t be losing governor’s races by 30 or 40 points, or Senate races in swing states by 25 points. The Democrats, meanwhile, have candidates that are polling ahead in states like North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida.
I’m still concerned about weak economic growth, although I think the worst of the slump ended with the cold winter. The president’s approval ratings are a bit of a drag, but there’s a good chance that they can improve.
Finally, I don’t want to get into skewed polls territory, but I think there is a possibility that the pollsters are going to miss some likely voters this time around. I don’t fault their methodology. After all, Democratic participation in the primaries has been down, and down a lot more than Republican participation. But I think this data is an artifact of the Republicans having more competitive primary contests than the Democrats. The real work is being done behind the scenes with the Democrats’ The Arbor Project and the DNC’s Voter Expansion Project. It’s not like the party hasn’t known about its midterm turnout problem.
The aggregate of polls is probably going to be very accurate, but I think there is a chance that the Democrats can do better at turning out the vote this time around, and so there is the potential for them to consistently outperform the polls. At the very least, I think it’s more likely that they will outperform than underperform.
I’m still optimistic. I’ll let you know if I see some real warning signs.
Update [2014-7-23 18:28:22 by BooMan]: Okay, things don’t look that bright in Montana.
In the end, Rothenberg doesn’t even really doubt that the race in Montana has grown closer and he lists it as a Toss-Up/Tilts Republican race, which is maybe even a little more of a pessimistic assessment than is warranted by the polling.
We’ll see how today’s revelations play going forward. Also, your old drinking buddy was warning us about Walsh.
You mean Rand Paul didn’t prove that plagiarism doesn’t matter?
Well Biden kind of proved it. What year was he running that the Labor Party speech plagiarism wrecked him?
Make no mistake I love Joe Biden.
Walsh also seems to have been coping at the time with the suicide of an Iraq combat mate and his own PTSD, as the Times notes. I can’t understand why the paper is making such a huge thing of it, except for maybe wanting to make their creative use of the TimesGraphic. I don’t think it will have any legs as a “scandal”.
yes, and the story will serve to give Walsh more visibiity. the Daines campaign has been attacking him on his service, for one, and second, he evidently lacks name recognition.
What’s the saying? IOKIYAR, or something like that.
A country awakens. It’s too much to hope for eh?
Well, who failed to vet John Walsh thoroughly? One would think that campaign teams would be aware that shit like this will come out and be ready for it.
It’s nice that the Senate looks more solid. But it’s the House and the legislatures (and a few governorships) that need solid victories. Otherwise, it’s two more years of purgatory.
If we just nominated sufficiently progressive candidates, the tidal wave would be so huge, all of that little stuff — like the falloff in midterm elections — would be swamped by the tens of millions of silent social democrats out there.
I blame Obama.
Again, you mean this as snark, but it depends on what you mean by ‘progressive’.
I think that a socially liberal or even a broadly economically liberal campaign blitz probably wouldn’t work too well, but if the Democrats harped on specifically populist things like another payroll tax holiday + minimum wage increase + of course jobs esp. in Appalachia/Rockies it’d make a difference. Only by a couple of percentage points, but a couple of percentage points makes a huge difference in off-year elections.
Now, some people say, that our policies only help the poor and leave the working and middle classes to pay for it. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not true.
Our policies help you because…
Sometimes I just wish the Democrats could use really plain language using the language structure of the fascist professionals who usually keep them ramped up.
The Booman —
Keeping Progressives sane for 15 years.
“Finally, I don’t want to get into skewed polls territory, but I think there is a possibility that the pollsters are going to miss some likely voters this time around. I don’t fault their methodology”
Regarding Methodology and 2012 pools.
Didn’t the polls that wound up more accurate that the competition use more “mobile phone numbers” in their polling, compared to many that used NO mobile phone numbers, ONLY land lines in Their polling?
I could be wrong on this, and I would like to be corrected.
I’m glad you’re optimistic, and I agree with your assessment that we are not facing a democratic wipeout. But I also think you are cherry picking your polls a little bit, which is giving you too much of a positive view.
According to Huffpost Pollster, here are the current polling averages in the competitive senate races:
Alaska 45 Beigich-45 Sullivan
Arkansas 47 Cotton-44 Pryor
Colorado 45 Udall-45 Gardner
Georgia 45 Nunn-43 Perdue
Iowa 43 Braley-43 Ernst
Kentucky 48 McConnell-45 Grimes
Louisiana 47 Cassidy-47 Landrieu
Michigan 44 Peters-37 Land
Montana 47 Daines-38 Walsh
NH 49 Shaheen-41 Brown
NC 42 Hagen-37 Tillis
So we are clearly ahead in NH, Michigan, and doing okay in NC. The republicans are clearly ahead in Montana. That leaves seven races that are within 3 points:
Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana
Perhaps you are right that the polls are under-estimating the eventual democratic share. But assuming the polls are correct, the most reasonable thing to suppose is that that we will win half of these toss-up seats and lose half. That give us about a 50% chance of a Republican Senate.
Basically, it seems that the overall picture is unchanged from a few months ago. Alaska, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and perhaps NC are tossups. Georgia and Kentucky are looking better for us than we might have thought – but on the other hand, Colorado and Iowa are looking worse.
can you give a link to this – I want to look up some you don’t give
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster
Sorry for the delay!
thanks, I appreciate your posting the link
Couple of things.
If I’m cherry-picking, I’m cherry-picking the most recent polls. The aggregators are averaging polls that a month or sometimes several months old.
Also, you’re focusing solely on the Senate, where our position has always been grim. But I’m including governor’s races, and there we are looking very good indeed.
Lolwut??
The poll you’re referencing is discussed here. The short story is that the polling results have not changed significantly since May. Walker is far from being “in real trouble” because that 46%-47% of the voters who are on his side will crawl over broken glass to vote for him. They did it in 2010, they did it in 2012, they’ll do it in 2014 and they’ll keep on doing it until Walker’s policies affect them. Until that point they will be happy to take the benefits of Walker’s policies (mainly in the form of slightly lower taxes) as long as the costs get shifted onto someone poorer.
Furthermore, Walker won’t be “in real trouble” until Burke is up by about 5 percentage points. First of all, as a candidate in an election that basically is about class warfare she’s not that compelling. And in addition, you have to throw in a general handicap because the Wisconsin Democrats would have trouble organizing a sleep-over for a bunch of 4th-graders, never mind an election against a popular incumbent with a big war chest and a solid base of support.
Infighting among the “professional left”? Quelle surprise! — it’s about as unusual as death and taxes so I can’t imagine why you couldn’t believe it when you saw it. It’s not surprising: it’s what they do. But here’s the thing: I don’t know what happened in PA or anywhere else but Scott Walker did not win the election in 2010 because of “infighting among the professional left”. The “professional left”
isn’t big enough here to make any difference one way or the other, they simply don’t mean shit. That’s why nobody pays any attention to them until the time comes to make excuses which is what I think you’re doing here and what the Democrats do everywhere and always.
So, the problem is not with the “professional left”. As a politician Walker is not all that great — fundamentally he’s just a lying, sweaty little weasel — but he’s a lying, sweaty little weasel who still stands a good chance of getting re-elected if the Democrats can’t begin to admit their mistakes, and then learn from them.
Maybe in 2018.