2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[Adam Griffin]

Manchin's thinking about running again...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/26/manchin-weighs-another-term-as-his-influence-peaks-500648

Joe Manchin strongly signaled in 2018 that his brutal reelection campaign that year was his last. Now, as he marshals the entire Senate in his centrist direction, he’s not so sure he’ll call it quits.

The West Virginia Democrat is steadily padding his campaign coffers, raising $1.6 million in the first six months this year and sitting on nearly $4 million for a potential race that wouldn’t occur for three years. His colleagues say he’s not acting like a senator in his last term, despite his famous assertion during his last campaign that Washington “sucks.”

...

“You never know. You don’t know. There’s always a chance, absolutely,” Manchin said in an interview. When it comes to a potential reelection campaign alongside a presidential race in 2024, Manchin said: “You better be prepared, that’s all I can say. And I’m being prepared.”

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/stella2020woof/status/1419770441191858181

It's best to assume that almost all of the undecideds are Republican. So the GCB's probably tied, which means a strong GOP year.

You're actually hilariously unbearable

I'm not sure why this would be a particularly irritating statement to anybody. It turned out (mathematically, at least) to be the case in 2014, 2016, 2020...


At any rate, given the midterm climate, reapportionment shifts and once the GOP redraws the suburbs since they're no longer GOP strongholds like in 2011, Democrats losing a dozen seats seems perfectly realistic even if we win by the same PV margin as in 2020.

[Adam Griffin]

At any rate, given the midterm climate, reapportionment shifts and once the GOP redraws the suburbs since they're no longer GOP strongholds like in 2011, Democrats losing a dozen seats seems perfectly realistic even if we win by the same PV margin as in 2020.

But this 2020 scenario has only really come to pass in Georgia. In Texas, Arizona, North Carolina the blue districts have gotten much lighter blue but very few have flipped.

I wouldn't focus too much on the shape, orientation or margins (colors) as it was just a quick 2-minute example of what we've seen throughout many states over the past few years (suburban areas going D that were R terrain 10 years ago). In relevant locales, GOP will likely carve these areas up, adding inner-suburbs to urban districts and outer-suburbs to rural districts; the process may result in an extra CD here and there for Democrats compared to 2011 but is otherwise net gain for GOP nationally.

[Adam Griffin]

Politics is an exercise in self-interest. Roughly 10% of Americans have had an abortion, a disproportionate share of them will be non-voters, and of those who do vote, it's fairly safe to assume that the vast majority have locked-in political opinions that won't change regardless of what happens on the issue.

It's hard to think of a social or cultural issue that has less of an impact on voting behavior than abortion. Even immigration possibly affects a larger segment of the populace.

[Adam Griffin]

Marist:
GCB D 47, R 42
Biden 39/56

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1099844097/abortion-polling-roe-v-wade-supreme-court-draft-opinion

https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/npr-pbs-newshour-marist-national-poll-abortion-rights-may-2022/

Democrats also got a boost on which party Americans want to control Congress. By a 47%-to-42% margin, this survey showed voters would cast their ballot in favor of a Democrat in their local congressional district if the election were held today.

For Democrats, that is a net increase on the so-called congressional ballot test of 8 points from last month's survey, when 47% said they would vote for a Republican, as compared to 44% who said they would vote for a Democrat. Those numbers were within the margin of error, but it was the first time in eight years that Republicans had done that well on the question in the Marist poll.

Also from the article/relevant to previous convo:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been circulating its latest internal battleground districts poll among the party's House members. Conducted before the Supreme Court leak, it showed a generic Republican beating a generic Democrat by a 47%-to-39% margin in battleground districts. The survey was first reported by Punchbowl News and confirmed by NPR.

A Democratic official says their polling also shows Democratic House incumbents are averaging about 5 points better than a generic candidate, however.

[Adam Griffin]

A White Gay & Black Gay running against each other in a Democratic primary? LITERALLY A HATE CRIME.

[Adam Griffin]

More Dark Brandon Energy!

[Adam Griffin]

More Dark Brandon Energy!

These are wonderful memes!

Thank goodness they've given him his biennial adrenochrome therapy just in time for the midterms!

[Adam Griffin]

Groups with >15% undecided in Pew poll:

26% Moderate/Liberal Rs   
24% Black
24% 18-29         
19% HS or Less      
18% Conservative/Mod Ds   
18% Hispanic      
17% Asian         
16% 30-49   

These combined groups (weighted by share of electorate and overall group lean) would have been a 57-43 Democratic bloc in 2020. The remaining undecideds would tilt GOP, but just barely.

[Adam Griffin]

A follow-up to Rick Scott previously scamming people via text messages to unknowingly donate $25 in order to inflate their figures (so egregious that even the right-wing ActBlue equivalent shut it down):

GOP donor pool unexpectedly shrinks as midterms near

Online fundraising usually ramps up dramatically and predictably over the course of an election cycle. But campaign finance data show that in the first half of this year, the number of people giving federal contributions to Republican candidates and committees through WinRed — the GOP’s widely used donation processing platform — fell to around 913,000 down from roughly 956,000 contributors during the six months prior.

...

By contrast, the number of donors giving to Democrats through ActBlue, their preferred online donor platform, has increased over the course of the 2022 election cycle, from about 1.9 million who gave through ActBlue to federal committees in the last six months of 2021 to 2.5 million in the first half of 2022.

[Adam Griffin]

To win they should surrender on taxes and federal spending programs.

So basically get rid of the things people actually like about Democrats, and just go full woke cancel-culture corporatism? Seems legit.

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1585261022490787840

You saw my map, turnout is higher...in GOP areas. Unless you think that coalitions flipped overnight and now Detroit is the most Republican part of Michigan, I don't see any good evidence for these claims. And his logic is still using very flawed specials, but the specials overperformances were all still low turnout relative to the midterms in areas where Dems can be expected to do better among high propensity voters. I have heard zero arguments against this. The ONLY possible argument would be Peltola, but even then she had HUGE crossover support and still does.

I have a hard time squaring this information. On one hand, he’s not wrong in certain states like Michigan and Georgia that numbers look good for democrats based on modeled partisanship. On the other hand, the map above and other target smart graphics make it clear that rural turnout is up and white turnout is up in these same states (yes, even in Georgia, at the expense of Hispanics/Asians). I will note that those are two states without partisan registration, so it’s possible that their model is garbage and way too democrat-friendly. This can’t explain it entirely though.

What may be the missing final key, especially in GA, is also the 9% of voters who also are "unidentified" in terms of race right now. Wish we had more data on how they may be factoring out

I have a method for determining this (below are the outputs for the most recent elections), but a fairly rough and quick approximation can be gleaned by simply taking the under-30 GA electorate and reassigning the Other/Unknowns proportionately among the racial/ethnic groups that are explicitly identified. This is fairly effective because the vast, vast majority of Other/Unknowns are newly-registered, and obviously a very large chunk of the newly-registered are under-30.

(Note that this crude method sometimes will underestimate white and overestimate Latino/Asian voters to a degree, but you'll still arrive within the ballpark.)


(Note that the "Other" in these tables are Latino+Asian+NatAm, while the "Unknown" are the ones who are actually unidentified; I make this distinction because in SoS data, there are two groups of unidentified voters: "Other" and "Unknown". Sorry for any confusion.)

Alright, here is the above chart with gender for each year added:

[Adam Griffin]

ABC/Washington Post GCB Poll

Likely Voters
Republicans 50%, Democrats 48%

Registered Voters
Republicans 49%, Democrats 48%

[Adam Griffin]

^^^ Only 13% of their sample said they had already voted, compared to the period of the survey (Oct 30 - Nov 2) where 20% or more of all voters in this election would have already cast their ballots. Obvious implications for toplines are obvious.

[Adam Griffin]

Even if they guess it right, the will be right for the wrong reasons.

"right versus accurate"