2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[MT Treasurer]

There was ample polling evidence during the campaign supporting the idea that Bush could win big. It wasn’t a consensus and it wasn’t the case in the final weeks, and some polls turned out to be duds, but data was there. [...]

Red California, Illinois, and Washington were unlikely in 2000 but not nearly as unthinkable as they are now.

This is off-topic, but since I also discussed this with another user recently, I’d again note that it cannot be overstated how close the Bush campaign came to blowing a solid lead/utter EC rout in the final 2-3 weeks of the 2000 campaign-

https://youtu.be/Cmu_2TWgTXc

We’re very used to Republicans making up ground as we get closer to the election or undecideds breaking heavily Republican, and usually at least one of those things does happen, but 2000 was a truly remarkable exception to that pattern.

[MT Treasurer]

It also has the GOP only up by 22 with non-college Whites, when Trump won them by 35pts. Definitely not the worst case scenario for the Dems. Don’t play the cross tab game.

I think the Tranel internal showing Zinke +2 is bad for the GOP because it oversampled Republican-leaning vegan college-educated postgraduates like me, personally.

[MT Treasurer]

Special elections were not "incredibly indicative" in 2017/2018 — the dramatic Nov. 2016 -> 2017/2018 swings we saw in those special elections far exceeded the Nov. 2016 -> Nov. 2018 swings of that cycle.

[MT Treasurer]

Maybe they're trying to be clever by claiming it's because he's allegedly strong, when they have internals showing him actually losing and in fact Smith doesn't need the money.

no

[MT Treasurer]

Maybe they're trying to be clever by claiming it's because he's allegedly strong, when they have internals showing him actually losing and in fact Smith doesn't need the money.

no

I threw it out as a serious possibility and I stand by that. Of course, neither you nor I are inside the Democrats' campaign structure and seeing their unpublished internals, which would provide the answer for this...

No, it’s not a serious possibility, it’s a weird Baghdad Bob-style conspiracy theory designed to put a positive spin on something that is an unambiguously bad sign for your party.

It also doesn’t make sense, regardless of the perspective from which you entertain it. Think about it:

You don’t cancel those types of reservations in any race in which there’s still a serious risk that you’re going to lose. If your theory that Smith is so far ahead that national Democrats (or at least this PAC) view the race as a done deal, then surely Garcia's own internals/national Republicans' polls would reflect that. And in that case, they surely wouldn’t be 'tricked' by that statement/narrative but be busy pressing the 'panic' button.

Unless you’re implying that Republicans aren’t conducting their own internal polling here, which makes even less sense.

I'll be so bold to predict that if Garcia wins reelection, then every Republican incumbent in the House will be reelected. It's hard for me to see Valadao or Flores losing on such a night.

Disagree — this doesn’t necessarily mean that people like Chabot or Bacon are safe.

[MT Treasurer]

You do realize that there is a difference between private internals and publicly released internals, right? Right? There's a reason I put "private" in there. It's Janus-faced...campaigns have generally really accurate private internals, and then publically released ones they put out to fuel narratives or do other things. Obviously, duh, both sides are conducting their own internals, every campaign worth their salt, and many that don't, do that.

Okay, but if both sides are conducting their own internals, why is it "clever" to fuel the narrative that Garcia is in the driver's seat? You didn’t address that part anywhere in your post even though you based your entire theory on it:

Maybe they're trying to be clever by claiming it's because he's allegedly strong, when they have internals showing him actually losing and in fact Smith doesn't need the money.

Also, with all due respect, if "an incumbent who votes as though he represents AL-04" and those "urban Latino precincts ... probably [being] rather inflexible in their D partisanship" are some of your strongest arguments as to why this cancelation isn’t bad news for Smith, then I think it’s going to be a rather grim night for House Democrats.

You’re right about "fundamentals" being important (and it’s arguably the only reason why Smith even has a chance this year), but as you also know, I believe that no election is predetermined by uniform PVI shift. Garcia is vulnerable, but "Biden +13 seat ololo" a very simplistic way of looking at things, and one that’s certainly not backed up by the jungle primary results of this year. It’s not a good sign for Democrats that Republicans already received a (bare) majority of votes in this district in June.

[MT Treasurer]

You know it’s a bad cycle for Democrats when Morning Consult is the best they got.

[MT Treasurer]

Not sure I buy any of that. I don’t think he’s lying but I doubt those things are true and that he has actual knowledge of them. GA sounds like pushing that narrative just to work on turnout. PA sounds like he’s trying to convince the average voter that the neighbor down the street hasn’t turned on Fetterman so you shouldn’t either.

Also, the fact that he seemed so *surprised* by AZ being competitive this year tells me his 'internal' data is about as reliable as the insider reports in my signature

[MT Treasurer]

How do we know he wasn't sounding surprised while not actually being surprised? I wasn't sure how much of this was faked and how much of it was genuine, but hearing this makes me think the former more. Of course a state like AZ might be competitive in a midterm following a presidential election result like what the state had in 2020...it's plainly obvious.

The fact that it apparently wasn’t obvious to him either means (a) he’s lying (and in that case there’s no reason to take any of his assessments of the other races seriously), (b) he genuinely didn’t believe it would be competitive, and that’s because his 'super accurate' internal polling showed the same thing as public polling — an inflated high single-digit/low double-digit Kelly lead but with Kelly's vote share very close to Warnock's (maybe Pollster can teach him to focus on D vote share rather than D margins from now on), or (c) he’s just a very erratic person (and in that case there’s no reason to take any of his assessments of the other races seriously).

There is (and remains) absolutely no sign that GA is clearly more likely to go R than NV/AZ/PA. Warnock isn’t safe by any means, but if Herschel Walker wins a majority of the vote in November, I’m pretty sure that GA will be the least of Schumer's/national Democrats' worries.

[MT Treasurer]

*snip*

I dunno man, what about YouGov and Morning Consult?

[MT Treasurer]

Still some conflicting data, but based on the spending decisions by both D and R national groups and the trends in certain statewide races/polls (NY-GOV, WA-SEN, FL, etc.), I’m increasingly getting the impression that the bottom is falling out for Democrats. Not changing my prediction of a 'normal' R-leaning night (52R-48D in the Senate, ∼240R-195D in the House) yet, but I think a complete GOP sweep (54R-46D in the Senate, ∼250R-185D in the House) is a very possible outcome at this point.

[MT Treasurer]

CCM = UTDH, guys. Already called it in late 2020/early 2021 (some of you may remember).

Incredibly ironic and amusing, actually — we’re having a lot of fun with this meme on Discord right now, so a sincere thank you to Jon Ralston and Sabato's Crystal Ball for making this possible by letting us in on the secret of CCM's irresistible candidate quality

Those Senate predictions seem way too bullish for Democrats given some of their House calls in AZ, PA, and NV.

I’m a Sam Peters/Jim Marchant/CCM Republican, personally....