2020 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread v2

[Virginiá]

Two seats is a fairly good deal, but whoever at the NDRC and in the Democratic Party in general was responsible for pushing/supporting gerrymandering lawsuits should be forced out over the bungled decision to wait so long to file a lawsuit here that they almost didn't even have enough time to get any redraw, let alone a 3rd possible seat if they had just sued months ago and allowed the court long enough to go through the process (which includes time spent waiting for the legislature to try and draw a fresh gerrymander). Instead, they filed the lawsuit so late that we have to choke down whatever the GOP decided to draw, of which was predictably bad.

[Virginiá]

Tbh I’m not convinced that each dollar matters as much as the next. Obviously it’s nice to have a COH advantage but how much do a few extra ad buys really get you? I’d much rather be ahead like 4 million to 1 million than 20 to 10, even though the raw gap in the latter two numbers is larger.

I wonder if anyone has done a study on this, or on the efficacy of spending in politics in general.

Money in a campaign does reach a saturation level at some point,  there was a study on it somewhere, but can't remember it.   

Probably also depends on what the money is spent on. TV/radio ads are already pretty ineffective as it is, but whatever meager benefits they might provide has a limit when a state is saturated with ad buys.

A state like Arizona could benefit more from a massive investment (many millions) in GOTV/organizing. Especially given the demographic composition of the Democratic Party's base.

[Virginiá]

It’s hard to believe that 2020 will be as lopsided a house vote as 2018. Even going off of the GCB at this point in the 2018 cycle Dems generally had double digit leads. Still, top 20 seems reasonable even with the big recruiting question mark for Dems there.

With the economy imploding and Trump completely bumbling through a pandemic, seems very possible that Republicans will have a bad year.

[Virginiá]

Oh it is extremely likely Republicans will have a bad year. There’s a lot of room between bad and 2018-esque wipeout though

What would you consider an average 'bad' result for Republicans though? Because depending on how you look at 2018, it could easily be described as underwhelming. Democrats got large vote shares in states / nationally but translation to actual seats was not always that great due to clustering and gerrymandering.

Trump's general unpopularity, a botched pandemic response and a possible recession seems like more than enough to send Republicans to the cleaners 2018-style, if not worse. Not to say it's guaranteed, but the way things are playing out, it's definitely in the cards, imo.

[Virginiá]

McLaughlin GCB poll shows Democrats up by 3:

https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1245205231308345344?s=20

I stopped reading at “McLaughlin”

Technically, McLaughlin is near the end of the tweet, so you read just about everything

[Virginiá]

$3 million against Fletcher also seems ridiculous

fwiw, it's Super PAC money (so higher rates) in an expensive media market.

[Virginiá]

Because the dscc is run by morons that's why! They should spend a cent on IA and go all in on GA, GA-S and TX. What, do they want to have a useless 51-52 seat majority that cant pass any legislation?

To be fair, we would need more like 61 - 63 to pass anything major. First the filibuster-proof majority, and then up to a extra votes to deal with R-state Democrats who are afraid of voting on anything major.

But it's all moot anyway. Biden is an institutionalist and so he's not going to support Senate Democrats changing the filibuster rules. I'd be very surprised if he did push for that, because let's be honest, this is a guy who is still talking about somehow cutting deals with Mitch McConnell and about how he'll consider everyone for his cabinet, including Republicans.

Until the party moves on from people like that, nothing major is going to change. After all, Biden said it himself.

[Virginiá]

Could Harrison's fundraising help Joe Cunningham win?

Plausibly if that money was being poured into a massive GOTV effort that overlapped heavily with SC-01. If it's just being pumped into ads promoting Harrison, then no.

[Virginiá]

Could Harrison's fundraising help Joe Cunningham win?

Plausibly if that money was being poured into a massive GOTV effort that overlapped heavily with SC-01. If it's just being pumped into ads promoting Harrison, then no.

If Harrison wins, I'm guessing he carries SC-01

It won't help in SC-01, though. Coattails flow from the top, not the middle.

[Virginiá]

I mean theoretically Harrisons fundraising does help SC-01. Because if Harrison can bring out as many voters as he can to the SC race, that helps Cunningham.

In a high-turnout election like this, how many people would turn out just because of Harrison though? If these people were going to vote anyway, it's not Harrison causing it. It's pretty obvious that Trump, in one way or another, is causing a surge of interest in politics under his presidency.

Granted, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say there are small amounts of disillusioned Dem-leaning people in SC who may be pushed to vote because they think they have a chance at real representation in an otherwise conservative Republican-led state, but I doubt it's a game-changing amount.

[Virginiá]

Generic ballot - USC/Dornsife

Democrat 50.7% (nc)
Republican 44.9% (+0.3)

https://election.usc.edu/

Given the intense polarization and the ensuing party-line voting we've had up to now, it's hard to believe this of all elections would have that level of ticket splitting.

[Virginiá]

Easy to see a difference considering that there are almost always imbalances in contested/uncontested House races. Also, some races just have stronger incumbents and/or weaker challengers, which may lead to the party not maximizing their potential in the district.

I'd actually find it surprising if it were to exactly match the presidential margin, but I expect it to strongly correlate. Enough so that you can say that people mostly vote for parties now, not candidates.