2018 Congressional Recruitment/Fundraising/Ratings Megathread

[KingSweden]

D+14 GCB? Nah I’m going with Marist. Doooooooom

[IceSpear]

There also are stark divides across levels of educational attainment. A substantial majority (70%) of registered voters with a postgraduate degree say they would vote for or lean toward the Democratic candidate. A smaller majority (58%) of those with a college degree say the same. By contrast, those with a high school degree or less education are more divided (45% support the Democratic candidate, 48% the Republican candidate).

Among whites, the education divide is even wider. By roughly two-to-one, a majority of whites with a postgraduate degree say they support the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate (65% vs. 29%). Among whites with a high school degree or less education, the reverse is true: 65% support the Republican candidate, compared with just about a quarter (28%) who prefer the Democratic candidate.

I can't wait to see our favorite RINO's reaction to this post.

[KingSweden]

Noncollege whites are a shrinking proportion of the population and are notoriously hard to turn out. It’ll be interesting to observe those education gaps moving forward

[PoliticalShelter]

Non-college educated whites are apparently planning on voting for Congressional Democrats in 2018 at 65 - 28 percent which is actually slightly worse than congressional democrats in 2016 did with non college whites (66 - 31).

Which I could believe if Democrats were losing in the Gemeric ballot by a few point.

This is not the case however so I'm calling junk on this.

[IceSpear]

On the generic ballot: You guys realize that Democrats had a lead in this as late as September 2014 only to get BTFO less than 2 months later, right? In fact, the Republican lead on election day itself was slim. So I don't know why you're all obsessing about the polls fluctuating 10 months in advance between a modest Democratic wave and a Democratic tsunami.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-2170.html

I swear for some of you this is babby's first election.

[kph14]

New Pew Poll. Democrats lead generic ballot by 14 points (53-39).

http://www.people-press.org/2018/01/18/public-sees-better-year-ahead-democrats-sharpen-focus-on-midterm-elections/

Lots of numbers in there showing that Democrats are more engaged than ever as well.

Those are some amazing numbers. Some of my favorites:

Winning the women vote 55-37 but also winning men 50-41
Losing the white vote only 43-49 (that Bill Clinton 1996 level)
Winning voters aged 18-19 66-27 (reallignment coming?)
Keeping it close with the senior vote
Winning white college graduates by double digits

This stuff is almost too good to be true

[Holmes]

On the generic ballot: You guys realize that Democrats had a lead in this as late as September 2014 only to get BTFO less than 2 months later, right? In fact, the Republican lead on election day itself was slim. So I don't know why you're all obsessing about the polls fluctuating 10 months in advance between a modest Democratic wave and a Democratic tsunami.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-2170.html

I swear for some of you this is babby's first election.

Who's babby?

[IceSpear]

Non-college educated whites are apparently planning on voting for Congressional Democrats in 2018 at 65 - 28 percent which is actually slightly worse than congressional democrats in 2016 did with non college whites (66 - 31).

Which I could believe if Democrats were losing in the Gemeric ballot by a few point.

This is not the case however so I'm calling junk on this.

Trump loves the poorly educated whites and they love him back. It's no surprise there would be far more swing among college educated whites.

[PoliticalShelter]

Copying from a Griff post:

Worth noting that:

Year	House PV	CNN GCB (12 months out)	PV Diff from GCB
1998	R+1.1	Tie	1.1
2002	R+4.8	R+5	0.2
2006	D+8.0	D+7	1.0
2010	R+6.8	R+6	0.8
2014	R+5.7	R+2	3.7

Historically pretty accurate; 2014 was off by the most and even that is basically margin of error territory in a normal poll.

So not completely pointless to look at the ballot this far out.

[PoliticalShelter]

Non-college educated whites are apparently planning on voting for Congressional Democrats in 2018 at 65 - 28 percent which is actually slightly worse than congressional democrats in 2016 did with non college whites (66 - 31).

Which I could believe if Democrats were losing in the Gemeric ballot by a few point.

This is not the case however so I'm calling junk on this.

Trump loves the poorly educated whites and they love him back. It's no surprise there would be far more swing among college educated whites.

So democrats are doing just as poorly with non-college whites when they lost congressional vote as they are when apparently winning the vote by 14 points.

In light of the results in Wisconsin, I don't think so.

[IceSpear]

Copying from a Griff post:

Worth noting that:

Year	House PV	CNN GCB (12 months out)	PV Diff from GCB
1998	R+1.1	Tie	1.1
2002	R+4.8	R+5	0.2
2006	D+8.0	D+7	1.0
2010	R+6.8	R+6	0.8
2014	R+5.7	R+2	3.7

Historically pretty accurate; 2014 was off by the most and even that is basically margin of error territory in a normal poll.

So not completely pointless to look at the ballot this far out.

Seems more like coincidence than anything. It makes no logical sense why the generic ballot would just happen to be far more predictive one year out than it would be two months out.

It reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/1122/

[Virginiá]

Copying from a Griff post:

Worth noting that:

Year	House PV	CNN GCB (12 months out)	PV Diff from GCB
1998	R+1.1	Tie	1.1
2002	R+4.8	R+5	0.2
2006	D+8.0	D+7	1.0
2010	R+6.8	R+6	0.8
2014	R+5.7	R+2	3.7

Historically pretty accurate; 2014 was off by the most and even that is basically margin of error territory in a normal poll.

So not completely pointless to look at the ballot this far out.

Right, in which case, we might expect a House PV of D+11 or D+12.

[IceSpear]

Non-college educated whites are apparently planning on voting for Congressional Democrats in 2018 at 65 - 28 percent which is actually slightly worse than congressional democrats in 2016 did with non college whites (66 - 31).

Which I could believe if Democrats were losing in the Gemeric ballot by a few point.

This is not the case however so I'm calling junk on this.

Trump loves the poorly educated whites and they love him back. It's no surprise there would be far more swing among college educated whites.

So democrats are doing just as poorly with non-college whites when they lost congressional vote as they are when apparently winning the vote by 14 points.

In light of the results in Wisconsin, I don't think so.

You really can't extrapolate nationwide from one special election. Relatively high turnout elections in Virginia and Alabama match up with Pew's findings, Dems gaining among white college educated voters.

[PoliticalShelter]

Non-college educated whites are apparently planning on voting for Congressional Democrats in 2018 at 65 - 28 percent which is actually slightly worse than congressional democrats in 2016 did with non college whites (66 - 31).

Which I could believe if Democrats were losing in the Gemeric ballot by a few point.

This is not the case however so I'm calling junk on this.

Trump loves the poorly educated whites and they love him back. It's no surprise there would be far more swing among college educated whites.

So democrats are doing just as poorly with non-college whites when they lost congressional vote as they are when apparently winning the vote by 14 points.

In light of the results in Wisconsin, I don't think so.

You really can't extrapolate nationwide from one special election. Relatively high turnout elections in Virginia and Alabama match up with Pew's findings, Dems gaining among white college educated voters.

First Wisconsin I believe was actually had fairly high turnout from what I hear.

Also I could use New Jersey as an example of Democrats gaining Non-college whites in a non-special election, at least in Northern states.

[Landslide Lyndon]

First Wisconsin I believe was actually had fairly high turnout from what I hear.

No.

[PoliticalShelter]

First Wisconsin I believe was actually had fairly high turnout from what I hear.

No.

Ok looking it up you were right. What I meant to say was unlike in a state like Alabma where turnout in democratic areas was very high but turnout in republican areas was extremely low, turnout in Wisconsin was relatively similar in both GOP and Democratic stronghold areas, suggesting that they probably were able to swing a good number of non-college whites who had voted for Trump.

[Young Conservative]

Can we return this thread to its original purpose? Updates on fundraising, recruitment, rating changes, etc.

Analysis should be on other threads.

[Brittain33]

Should we split out Generic ballot from all other items into its own thread?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Should we split out Generic ballot from all other items into its own thread?

I think that's a good idea.

[OneJ]

Should we split out Generic ballot from all other items into its own thread?

I think that's a good idea.

I agree.

[Doimper]

Should we split out Generic ballot from all other items into its own thread?

I think that's a good idea.

[Brittain33]

Done. Please post all new Congressional polls here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=282555.0

[Oryxslayer]

Anyone know why clown Gonzales is rating NJ-2 as Leans R? Is he one of those idiotic "MUH Trump seat/state" people?

https://insideelections.com/ratings/house

Because Gonzales has a 'tilt' catergory, I find him to be the most soft-c conservative rater, taking his sweet time to move seat where they should be. At least traditionally, is goes from most soft c-conservative, to most soft-l liberal Gonzalez > Cook > Sabato.

Another thing is that that site has gone through a change of lead pundants, so it is hard to exact a bias. It was originally the Rothenberg Political Report in 2014, then the Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report in 2016, and now is Inside Elections with Gonzalez.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Nj 5th is lean D, and Nj 2nd is Likely R.

[Holmes]

Nj 5th is lean D, and Nj 2nd is Likely R.

An open NJ-02 with Van Drew running and national Republicans basically writing the seat off already is not Likely R.