2018 Congressional Generic Ballot and House Polls Megathread - the original

[Blackacre]

Our lead in the GCB is sub-7 (per 538) for the first time in a long time. Consider me very worried.

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https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-poll

While Trump's approvals were hurt by the shutdown, it seems as though it has helped the GOP on the generic ballot (now with 6.5 points).

No idea why the ABC poll isn't in there.

It hasnt been updated in a day.

[Blackacre]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-poll

While Trump's approvals were hurt by the shutdown, it seems as though it has helped the GOP on the generic ballot (now with 6.5 points).

No idea why the ABC poll isn't in there.

It hasnt been updated in a day.

No matter how many times I reload.

To get a sense of how much this will affect the average, the last ABC/WaPo poll was D+11 (this is D+12) and took place October 31st/Nov 1st

[Blackacre]

No longer a sub-7! Woo!!

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Yeah, Fox isn't an R-baised pollster. These findings aren't great for Dems, but they're not awful either.

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Back to out regularly scheduled programming of Blue Wave Imminent!

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It's interesting how similar the shapes of those two curves are.

Incumbent parties probably usually get a holiday bump followed by a SOTU bump near this time, then keep declining again. Then I guess a slight recovery in August (which I'm sure will make some posters here pee their pants), then more decline until most voters make up there minds near the end. Slight uptick for the incumbent party at the end from some voters coming home at the last minute.

These two shapes really are similar, just shifted about 10 points downward. If this continues, we'd be due for a House PV in 2018 just shy of D+15

[Blackacre]

Another fun graph:

....oh my god

sidenote: what happened in 1998??

[Blackacre]

Another fun graph:

....oh my god

sidenote: what happened in 1998??

Bill Clinton, Impeachment of

Ah, of course.

Im also noticing that, outlier nonwithstanding, this shows that special elections undershoot Dem performances (1988, 1996, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2012) more than it overshoots Dems (2000, 2014). It's even undershot Dems by huge amounts before. If the difference observed in 2006 is observed again in 2018, that's a D+17 election.

[Blackacre]

Does the "special elections index" do anything to control for which party is the incumbent in the special election?  The thing with special elections is that, by definition, whoever is the incumbent in that party isn't running, and so has no incumbency advantage.  Whereas in the midterms as a whole, there are plenty of seats up where the incumbent is running....but if the special elections are held in both Dem- and GOP-held districts, then I guess this effect cancels out.

In 2017, almost all (all?) of the special elections were held in Republican-held seats.  Was that the case in past years as well, that the incumbent party was the one holding all the seats that were up in special elections?  If not, then I'm not sure if this past year's results are going to be so predictive.

That usually is the case, because the incumbent party's numbers are inflated by House members going to the cabinet, for instance

[Blackacre]

Yeah. The bump is smaller and so is their absolute position on the GCB

[Blackacre]

As Trump begins to dip in approval, Dems become much more complacent and will stop voting as a check on him. Anyone calling for a Blue Wave is staring at a foolish fantasy.

When has anything like that ever happened, to any party, in any election? I'm serious; you are describing something that, to the best of my knowledge, has never happened before.

And before you say 2016, Trump won in 2016 because of the Comey letter, a superior electoral strategy on the ground, and Wikileaks, not because of complacency.

[Blackacre]

GOP + 3 in Missouri is a disaster lol. I don't even believe that Wagner is vulnerable.

Yep, it's a disaster for the Dems. Considering that they've banked on winning suburban seats like Wagner's...this will be a rough November. I can see the GOP gaining 10 seats at this rate. Just wait for the N. Korea bounce.

Let's crunch some numbers, shall we?

This GCB is for the entire state of Missouri, that is mostly hyper-republican rural areas. The GOP won the House vote in MO's 8 districts by 20.34 percentage points in 2016. So first of all, R+3 is more than a 17 point overperformance by Ds. (consistent with AZ-8) Such an overperformance (or anything CLOSE to it) in other states like, say, Michigan, where the GOP won the House vote by 1.06 percentage points, would lead to a floodgate of D pickups.

Now, you cite Wagner as interpreting this GCB as good news. Wagner won her last election by 20.87 points. Such an overperformance, if universally distributed among all 8 CDs in Missouri, would have her winning by 3.53 points. Which means she's vulnerable, if a slight favorite. Of course, that's assuming that the overperformance is distributed evenly, when the data tells us that the overperformance is more pronounced in GOP-held districts and less so in Democratic-held districts, which means it would be greater in Wagner's district, which means she's even more vulnerable.

This is a disaster for the Republican Party.

[Blackacre]

Virginia you have the patience of Job. You have my admiration and respect.

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538's GCB average is bearing this out somewhat, but I'll say it anyway: based on this graph and how good it's been so far, we should expect the Democrats' position on the GCB to improve pretty consistently from here until the 100 Day mark or so.

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HOW

HOW IS THIS GRAPH SO DAMN GOOD

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Love live the chart:

Huh; I havent seen that dip in GCB averages myself so IDK where the chart is pulling it from

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I kind of want to ask G. Elliot Morris to do an AMA here lol

He has a patreon. Pledging $2 to it gets you his private discord server, and every tuesday night they talk elections.

https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=10081802&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thecrosstab.com%2F&utm_medium=widget

[Blackacre]

The bizarre trend of Trump approval going slightly up while CGB gets worse continues

It’s supposed to continue getting better for the Dems from now leading up to Election Day, plus premiums are expected to sky rocket in the fall. Like we saw in that Tennessee Senate PPP Poll, Bredesen is winning because voters are concerned about healthcare. Things are only going to get worse for the GOP.

Not quite. There's expected to be a small surge for the GOP around Labor Day, and then a final boost for Dems from there until election night

[Blackacre]

That was 10 points a little while ago. Something's happening...

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That was 10 points a little while ago. Something's happening...

Do not start.

One doesn't have to be a concern troll to see those fluctuations and worry juuuust a little bit.

[Blackacre]

Monmoth are the real FFs.

I wonder if we can get them to poll Montana-Senate next

[Blackacre]

Monmoth are the real FFs.

I wonder if we can get them to poll Montana-Senate next

Why bother? Even Vermont is more competitive.

We've had polls of Virginia, New York, California, Washington State, and Michigan. Is a Montana poll too much to ask, even if the premise of your argument was true? (which I dont think it is)