2018 Congressional Generic Ballot and House Polls Megathread - the original

[Virginiá]

Has anyone analyzed how enthusiasm gap effects eventual results? Like a margin bonus?

Among self-identified partisans, it can't be too much, at least without getting into the nitty gritty of independents. IIRC, in 2006 and 2010, the split between Rs and Ds wasn't obscene or anything. The real effect I think came from the winning party winning independents BIGLY. I imagine the same dynamic will be at play for this election.

[Devout Centrist]

Just wait until the switch is made from registered voters to likely voters. Not good!

[Arkansas Yankee]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility. 

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

[GeorgiaModerate]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014.  

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility.  

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

I think each of those has less than a 50% chance of happening, so the odds of both are even less.  But they're not implausible, so you're right that it's worth considering the possibility.

However, even if they both do happen, Trump is likely to continue shooting himself and the GOP in the foot with self-inflicted crises, unless there's a complete change in his temperament and style.  And that change is not plausible.

Also, Gingrich is not an unbiased observer, nor does he have a good track record at such predictions; he famously predicted the GOP would gain seats in 1998, right up to the night before the election.

[Virginiá]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility. 

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

That link already had its own thread yesterday.

You're right, political events don't repeat alike forever. Each wave is different, not alike . The midterm dynamic of the president's party losing ground is a time-tested event with very strict conditions for an exception - conditions that Trump isn't even close to meeting.

I just find it funny how so many Republicans have somehow convinced themselves that they are exempt from this. That their midterms will be different, and that they will perhaps not even lose but gain ground. This is raw, unbridled partisanship talking, not any sort of objective analysis. No doubt it is aided by all the wins Republicans have racked up since Obama was first elected, and has given Republicans this sense of invincibility when in fact the past 8 years' worth of election results has a pretty obvious and totally unexceptional root cause: A Democratic president who was often unpopular or neutral at best, combined with a successor candidate who was a walking scandal machine with no natural ability to charm her audience. And yet, despite what at least I see as painfully obvious, people like LimoLiberal (you also give me this impression with posts like that) seem completely oblivious, having grown up in a world where the vast majority of elections favored Republicans, and thus lack any objective idea of how elections work. No matter what data or trends they read, there is always a voice in the back of their head saying Republicans will win somehow.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility. 

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

Paul Manafort is literally in jail right now because of witness tampering and will be going on trial in the middle of the campaign, but you somehow think it could all fizzle.

Sure. And I could be crowned the next King of Spain.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

And yet, despite what at least I see as painfully obvious, people like LimoLiberal (you also give me this impression with posts like that) seem completely oblivious, having grown up in a world where the vast majority of elections favored Republicans, and thus lack any objective idea of how elections work. No matter what data or trends they read, there is always a voice in the back of their head saying Republicans will win somehow.

If anything, you are giving them too much credit.

It is not even actually true that the vast majority of recent elections have favored Republicans, except in a vary narrow and selective definition of what constitutes a "recent" election.

Yes, Republicans did very well in 2014 (and 2010, though not quite so much then in the Senate).

But did they do especially well in 2012? Certainly not. Obama was re-elected easily, and Dems won a huge number of Senate seats (which is why there are so many D Senate seats to defend now in 2018). D's didn't do better in the house, but that was only because of gerrymandering, and iirc they won the House popular vote.

And then there was 2016. Yes, Trump won the electoral college. But he lost the popular vote, and Ds picked up small amounts of seats in both the House and the Senate. It was basically a neutral election, not a GOP election.

So the only way that one could think that Republicans have done especially well in recent elections is by basically only focusing on 2014, interpreting 2016 in a rosier (for the GOP) manner than is reasonable, not looking at earlier elections (which are not that long ago in political time) such as 2012 and 2008, and entirely ignoring the 2017 elections and all the special elections that have occurred since 2016.

[Virginiá]

It was more to imply the ultimate result. 2016 was more a neutral election but the end result was Republicans consolidating full control over the federal government and padding their gubernatorial win count. 2012 was a good election for Republicans - it was why I said 'vast majority' rather than 'every election', although maybe I could have excluded 'vast'. The point was to say that the end result of these elections was a huge amount of GOP power across the country, even if a particular election was neutral, it still failed to deliver many gains to Democrats at any level.

I didn't ignore 2017+ though - it wasn't factored into my post. 2017 is when people like LimoLiberal should have adjusted their thinking, but they haven't. 2017+ serves as the basis for my argument that they are fundamentally incapable of seeing elections through any other lens other than "Republicans will always hold most of the power." Republicans keep losing, and somehow they keep rationalizing that Nov 2018 will break their way.

[Arkansas Yankee]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014.  

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility.  

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

That link already had its own thread yesterday.

You're right, political events don't repeat alike forever. Each wave is different, not alike . The midterm dynamic of the president's party losing ground is a time-tested event with very strict conditions for an exception - conditions that Trump isn't even close to meeting.

I just find it funny how so many Republicans have somehow convinced themselves that they are exempt from this. That their midterms will be different, and that they will perhaps not even lose but gain ground. This is raw, unbridled partisanship talking, not any sort of objective analysis. No doubt it is aided by all the wins Republicans have racked up since Obama was first elected, and has given Republicans this sense of invincibility when in fact the past 8 years' worth of election results has a pretty obvious and totally unexceptional root cause: A Democratic president who was often unpopular or neutral at best, combined with a successor candidate who was a walking scandal machine with no natural ability to charm her audience. And yet, despite what at least I see as painfully obvious, people like LimoLiberal (you also give me this impression with posts like that) seem completely oblivious, having grown up in a world where the vast majority of elections favored Republicans, and thus lack any objective idea of how elections work. No matter what data or trends they read, there is always a voice in the back of their head sayinge Republicans will win somehow.

I do not spend 24/7 on this site.  I miss some threads.

My son sent me this information to cheer me up. You may not have noticed, the but I posted here a few days ago that I believed a Democrat wave is coming.   I told my son it is a nice theory, but still has to validated by some election victories.  So, I will have to hope, but verify.

The idea in the article was not mine.  It was raised by Pew and set forth in Politico.  Neither are arms of the Republican Party.

I am not oblivious to the danger.  In 2010 and 2014 I worked diligently not to get excited until election night. I would suggest some of you need to develop some caution.

The 2016 election should give you a little doubt that the old rules still apply.   If they had theGOP should have been wiped out.

[Arkansas Yankee]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility. 

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

Paul Manafort is literally in jail right now because of witness tampering and will be going on trial in the middle of the campaign, but you somehow think it could all fizzle.

Sure. And I could be crowned the next King of Spain.

Manafort’s charges have absolutely nothing to do with the essence of the Russiagate allegations of election tampering and collusion by Trump, his family members, and his staff.

The prosecutors have reputation of overstepping ethical rules. We will have to see what developed.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Gingrich is going to be screaming his head off from now until the night of the midterms about a so-called "Red Wave", and how any primary result, no matter how strong of a showing for the Dems, spells doom for them. Hopefully that just creates a mood of complacency with Republicans.

[136or142]

I don't know if anybody has written something like this before me, but it looks to be clearer and clearer.

Given the way the polls in individual Congressional (House) districts look partially due to the gerrymandering, I think it is more likely the Democrats will gain 20-30 seats or 50-70 seats than 30-50 seats.

[Arkansas Yankee]

How soon will the generic polls switch to likely voters?

[Nyvin]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility. 

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

Paul Manafort is literally in jail right now because of witness tampering and will be going on trial in the middle of the campaign, but you somehow think it could all fizzle.

Sure. And I could be crowned the next King of Spain.

Manafort’s charges have absolutely nothing to do with the essence of the Russiagate allegations of election tampering and collusion by Trump, his family members, and his staff.

The prosecutors have reputation of overstepping ethical rules. We will have to see what developed.

He was witness tampering with witnesses involved in the Russia Scandal.  It was just discovered Roger Stone had meetings with Russian officials in May of 2016.   The Russia Scandal is bigger than ever, and Trump is doling out Pardon left and right in anticipation of needing them for his team.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ipsos, June 17-21, 1578 registered voters

D 43 (nc)
R 35 (-2)

[GeorgiaModerate]

How soon will the generic polls switch to likely voters?

My guess would be around Labor Day.  But it's interesting as to what likely voter screens will look like this year.

[UncleSam]

According to Pew, “Trump is turbocharging” voters on both sides.  Pew is predicting an election different than those in 2006, 2010, or 2014. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/20/poll-voter-enthusiasm-trump-655682

Gingrich is predicting a GOP wave

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5794479452001/?#sp=show-clips

Political events do not repeat exactly alike forever.

Please do not have a stroke or light your hair on fire.  Consider the possibility. 

Consider what happens if Russiagate fizzles and North Korea de-arming takes hold.

Paul Manafort is literally in jail right now because of witness tampering and will be going on trial in the middle of the campaign, but you somehow think it could all fizzle.

Sure. And I could be crowned the next King of Spain.

Manafort’s charges have absolutely nothing to do with the essence of the Russiagate allegations of election tampering and collusion by Trump, his family members, and his staff.

The prosecutors have reputation of overstepping ethical rules. We will have to see what developed.

He was witness tampering with witnesses involved in the Russia Scandal.  It was just discovered Roger Stone had meetings with Russian officials in May of 2016.   The Russia Scandal is bigger than ever, and Trump is doling out Pardon left and right in anticipation of needing them for his team.

What witnesses were supposedly tampered with? Manafort’s charges stem from money laundering and other financial crimes that are not related to the Russia investigation.

Additionally, meeting with Russian officials is not illegal, nor was being backed by Russia openly during the election. Hillary was openly backed by most of the world’s leaders and no one is clamoring for an investigation into it. Even if Trump merely took advantage of illegal hacking for his own political gain and negotiated with the Russians to release said information (he probably or even almost certainly did), that would not be illegal any more than Hillary’s team pressuring the release of  the access Hollywood tapes (also obtained illegally, which no one wants to talk about) would have been (and to be clear, there is no evidence there was pressure from the Clinton campaign, I am merely drawing a hypothetical for the purposes of elucidating a point). The only way it would be criminal is if Trump expressly requested that an external party hack into emails (which remains a possibility, but it is much more in doubt and is a much higher bar than most Dems want to admit).

The simple fact is that for Trump to be charged, much less impeached, there will need to be a lot more than random meetings with Russian officials. People really don’t seem to realize how high of a bar it is to prove criminality in the form of treason in self-serving political dealings. The best chance is probably an obstruction of justice charge but that always is super subjective and it is doubtful Republicans would sign on to removing Trump from office over something that soft (see: the impeachment of Bill Clinton, who was provably guilty of a chickensh**t charge of perjury but who his own party was never going to abandon wholesale over because, again, everyone knew it was a chickensh**t charge that he had been essentially entrapped into).

The odds of the Russia investigation bringing down Trump are very slim. The odds of him being impeached - even if Dems take the House - over the investigation are at best a coin flip. The simple fact is that the politically savvy Democrats like Pelosi know that it doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding barring much stronger evidence than has been seen so far (something along the lines of the Nixon tapes with Trump talking about funding the DNC hack or at least encouraging Putin to go after it). Since impeachment will incite the R base in a way Dems do not want to see happen, they would much rather have the investigation drag on and give their base in the form of surrogates a plausible excuse to call Trump all sorts of nasty things in interviews on MSNBC.

Long story short, impeachment won’t happen unless there’s a good chance it’ll succeed in a removal from office, and that won’t happen until there is at the least more substantive evidence than we have seen thus far by a long shot - probably pure witness testimony wouldn’t cut it either, there would have to be hard proof. Dems aren’t idiots like the Rs were back in the 90s - they know when to push on this and when to let it sit festering without a real hope of killing Trump but as a means of weakening him and his legitimacy.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Additionally, meeting with Russian officials is not illegal, nor was being backed by Russia openly during the election. Hillary was openly backed by most of the world’s leaders and no one is clamoring for an investigation into it.

What exactly do you mean by "backed?" If all that Putin did was say "Trump is a good guy, I hope America elects him, you should," that would not be a big deal. Although I don't think that most world leaders actually even went that far in terms of "openly backing" Hillary.

But that is not what Putin did, and that is not the issue. The issue is that Putin conducted foreign intelligence operations aimed against Clinton and aimed at supporting Trump. Are you saying that world leaders conducted foreign intelligence operations aimed against Trump and aimed at supporting Clinton?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Wait, was Access Hollywood tapes a result of a foreign intelligence operation?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It is a crime (namely espionage) to support a foreign intelligence operation against the United States. So there is a question of to what extent (if any) Trump and/or people on his campaign did that, which is TBD by Mueller.

[GeorgiaModerate]

How about taking the Russia discussion to another thread?

[KingSweden]

How about taking the Russia discussion to another thread?

Such as the great megathread for such things

[RogueBeaver]

Remington has Donovan up 47/40 in NY-11.

[KingSweden]

Remington has Donovan up 47/40 in NY-11.

I could see Grimm with the upset quite easily

[UncleSam]

Additionally, meeting with Russian officials is not illegal, nor was being backed by Russia openly during the election. Hillary was openly backed by most of the world’s leaders and no one is clamoring for an investigation into it.

What exactly do you mean by "backed?" If all that Putin did was say "Trump is a good guy, I hope America elects him, you should," that would not be a big deal. Although I don't think that most world leaders actually even went that far in terms of "openly backing" Hillary.

But that is not what Putin did, and that is not the issue. The issue is that Putin conducted foreign intelligence operations aimed against Clinton and aimed at supporting Trump. Are you saying that world leaders conducted foreign intelligence operations aimed against Trump and aimed at supporting Clinton?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Wait, was Access Hollywood tapes a result of a foreign intelligence operation?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It is a crime (namely espionage) to support a foreign intelligence operation against the United States. So there is a question of to what extent (if any) Trump and/or people on his campaign did that, which is TBD by Mueller.

Backed is pretty simple. Financially and through influence in the media both foreign and domestic, numerous world leaders backed Clinton. Saudi Arabia and the Ukraine were perhaps the worst in this regard, but most of the EU were very openly pro-Clinton and used whatever influence they had to project a positive image of her.

Supporting an intelligence operation against the United States is different from against a political party, but supporting one has to be more than just a verbal affirmation. If it required only verbal affirmation, then millions of Americans who have openly supported various foreign regimes over the years could have been arrested for espionage. Support requires financial or logistical backing, this why I drew the line at Trump knowingly paying for or providing support for Russia’s activities.

The Access Hollywood tapes were protected by American law as being confidential - you can think of them as being rather similar to part of an NDA that was illegally opened because once it is opened it was known that it would hurt Trump, regardless of how it was obtained. It was not a foreign power violating American law in this case, but that wasn’t even the point. The point was to create a hypothetical situation based on a real one but which did not actually happen (aka the Clinton campaign pressuring for the release of these tapes) to demonstrate that even in that circumstance, such behavior would not be considered illegal. The purpose being, of course, to show how high the bar is on what constitutes criminality by association when you are not the one who actively performs or financially solicits a crime.

I’m also not saying that there isn’t a difference between what Putin did and what other world leaders did. I’m saying that the kinda of evidence Dems have consistently pointed to of Russian collusion / espionage support from the Trump campaign are really just evidence of support of the same kind that the Clinton campaign received from other foreign powers. Meeting with a Russian official does not imply support for illegal intelligence activities, whether targeted directly at the US government (which it was not in this case, which would be espionage) or private organizations like the DNC (which it was, which is still illegal but association with it would not cause one to be guilty of espionage but rather lesser intelligence hacking and privacy intrusion crimes), and I have seen no hard evidence of any kind indicating Trump or anyone else openly supported illegal activities indisputably committed by Russia.

I have no doubt that the Trump campaign implicitly approved of such activities, which is a terrible thing in its’ own right. I have no doubt that someone in the Trump c ampaign or perhaps even Trump himself may have committed crimes in terms of financially backing or otherwise making political promises in exchange for illegal intelligence operations to be performed on their behalf. But I also haven’t seen any proof of that actually being the case, and until there is proof then Trump will not be removed from office.

[Virginiá]

Please limit big discussions in this thread to the original topic - polls and such. Any posts after this warning not germane to the thread's stated purpose will be digitally brutalized with extreme prejudice.

[136or142]

Remington has Donovan up 47/40 in NY-11.

I could see Grimm with the upset quite easily

My King, is that the best you could come up with?  Since this is a Remington Poll, how about "looks like this race will be a close shave!"