2018 Congressional Generic Ballot and House Polls Megathread - the original

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

So many pollsters are bouncing between low double digits one week to mid single digits the next, then back to low double digits.

(The electorate hasn't actually changed their opinions since June of last year. Special elections have been very similar since then except slightly better for democrats since January)

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

With these numbers, the 4th is definitely in play if we can muster a good candidate.

NJ-04 is too republican and Chris Smith is a very popular moderate incumbent

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

That Monmouth poll only represents a 2.88% shift from 2016 in the GOP held districts.

Then again, dems take the house if they just do 2.88% better than Hillary in every district.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I was gonna buy predict it shares but dem is at 69 cents for the house and 40 cents for the senate.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Morning Consult: April 19-23, 1993 RV

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000162-f99c-d817-a7f2-f99cd7940001

Democrat: 44 (+1)
Republican: 35 (-1)

And this sample is 37% Hillary - 38% Trump (?)

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

According to that poll, the only shifts from 2016 (comparing Hillary-Trump vs D-R now) are among uneducated white people. every other group is roughly the same as in 2016. according to the poll, they are 8 points more D than in 2016

which, granted, are about 45% of the electorate and even more heavily concentrated in many of the swing senate seats

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Cook Political: If Democrats Are Doing so Great, Why Don't They Have a Bigger Lead on Generic Ballot?

My theory is that because both parties are so incredibly unpopular, people don't really want to pick either of them in a generic question. Many people dislike both.

However, because democrats don't have to defend unpopular Trump, tax reform, and health care, and are able to define themselves with policies not being pursued currently, they are better able to differentiate themselves from generic D, whereas most republicans are unable to get away from the generic R label.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll: http://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Final_HHP_April2018_RegisteredVoters_Topline_Memo.pdf

Interestingly there were sort of 2 generic ballot questions asked:

If the 2018 midterms were held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in your district?

Democrat: 43
Republican: 34
Other: 5
Unsure: 17

If the 2018 midterm elections were today, would you want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States House of Representatives?

Democratic Party: 56
Republican Party: 44

If the election were today, would you want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States Senate?

Democratic Party: 55
Republican Party: 45

Seems to indicate a strong preference among undecideds for the Democratic Party.

who are that odd 1% who want to see a Dem house / Rep Senate?

Given that the Senate question seems to be asked second, it could be some people who want to see dems get control of one area of Congress to check Trump but aren't comfortable giving them both the house and senate.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

GOP + 3 in Missouri is a disaster lol. I don't even believe that Wagner is vulnerable.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Trump won Wagner's seat by 10.... democrats only need to do 2.2 points better than Hillary in every seat to win. Obviously that's not exactly what's going to happen, but dems could easily get 50 seats before they get Wagner's seat. And R+3 could mean dems get Wagner's seat anyways.

Ofc, hofoid is just a troll so it doesn't matter what you respond. Democrats could gain 40 seats in November and he'd still say it's bad for the democrats. He will say dumb garbage no matter what.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

More interesting numbers from Morning Consult.  GCB by district PVI range:

Safe D (PVI > D+10): D 55, R 21 (D+34)
Lean D (D+5 to D+10): D 45, R 29 (D+16)
Tossup (R+5 to D+5): D 39, R 35 (D+4)
Lean R (R+5 to R+10): R 39, D 36 (R+3)
Safe R (> R+10): R 45, D 30 (R+15)

Too bad these results are from Morning Consult lol

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

LimoLiberal got Alabama wrong by almost 30, AZ-08 wrong by 10, Virginia-gov wrong by 10

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Since Trump's numbers remained relatively stable in that Pew poll, I'm gonna chalk up such a huge movement to a wacky sample.

I don't like the results of the poll, therefore it is bad.

Weren't you going to leave the forum for a week?

No. He is going to continue to say dumb garbage and then act like an ass whenever people call him out on it.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Since Trump's numbers remained relatively stable in that Pew poll, I'm gonna chalk up such a huge movement to a wacky sample.

I don't like the results of the poll, therefore it is bad.

Remember when Qunnipiac's Generic Ballot had dem's lead drop to +3 and everyone freaked out but their next poll 2 weeks later had it at +8? I'm not to worried about large movement in the generic ballot because they've mostly proven to be noise.

Also remember when the generic ballot was only like D+6 but then dems got a 16 point swing in AZ-08 despite 47% of voters being republican?

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Since Trump's numbers remained relatively stable in that Pew poll, I'm gonna chalk up such a huge movement to a wacky sample.

I don't like the results of the poll, therefore it is bad.

Remember when Qunnipiac's Generic Ballot had dem's lead drop to +3 and everyone freaked out but their next poll 2 weeks later had it at +8? I'm not to worried about large movement in the generic ballot because they've mostly proven to be noise.

Also remember when the generic ballot was only like D+6 but then dems got a 16 point swing in AZ-08 despite 47% of voters being republican?

Remember when the generic ballot was D+6 and in the 13 state legislative special elections in the past two weeks the Democrats have had a +0.5 swing on average?

That's not to say that the blue wave is dead, but the point is that single statistics (like the house special elections this year) shouldn't be treated as major evidence without backup from other statistics.  Trump's approval is its highest since May 2017. Democrats still lead by a substantial margin on the generic ballot, but it's nowhere near as large as it was in late 2017. By some degree, the political environment is getting better for Republicans. That doesn't mean they'll do good, but their chances of holding the house and senate increase every time Trump's approval ticks up a point which it has done recently.

The average of all special elections has been a swing of at least D+10. That's a lot better than just looking at 13 special elections (and ignoring the 14th which was a 16 point swing when voters were 47% republican). Obviously recent statistics generally are better... but 13 elections, most of which were in NY and FL, is obviously a dumb sample size. But you love cherrypicking to prove your narrative.

But keep saying ignorant garbage and then wondering why people on this forum aren't a fan of you, and keep digging your heels. And keep bragging about getting elections wrong by only 7% LOL.

You need to stop embarrassing yourself, kiddo.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Ipsos is rated as an A- by 538. Even really good pollsters like Monmouth have some outlier polls (like the D+2 poll recently).

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Why do people keep saying Dems are losing ground with minorities because of one mediocre pollster? The Special Elections are saying the complete opposite.

Well, they clearly won't do as well as they did among minorities as Hillary, because most democratic candidates will not be running against someone as racially charged as Donald Trump, and they tend to have lower midterm turnout. Hillary pretty much maxed out among minorities, with the exception of 2020 Trump during a recession vs a candidate with strong minority appeal.

Notice how the biggest special election swings have been coming from districts that are mostly white (PA-18, AZ-08, Wisconsin, etc.). IIRC Tipinerni did about the same as Hillary among Latinos despite doing way better overall, and got less Latino turnout. And you can see how dems underperformed Hillary in Milwaukee in the Supreme Court election, specifically in the majority black areas.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yeah, but Democrat have problems with minority turnout every midterm. It's not losing ground if it's the same exact problem we had in 2014 and 2010.

I agree somewhat, but I would also point out that 2010/2014 were years where depressed Democratic turnout would make sense. This midterm, however, is one where major portions of the Democratic Party are being shocked into a frenzy by an unpopular and controversial Republican president. If that isn't enough to push usually-ambivalent minorities (mostly Hispanic and maybe Asian voters I think) voters to the polls, then that presents a long-term problem that Democrats need to square somehow. It's risky to rely on these voters in certain states to deliver victories, only for them to show up in force every 4 years instead of 2.

The only other way to fix that is to bring more white college grads (high turnout demo) into the party and to wait until Millennials get older, where they will start voting more.

There's a reason why I think democrats are stupid for going for their stupid emerging majority educated white + minority coalition. For one, uneducated whites are 46% of the electorate, so you need at least some of them to win. And they will be over 40% of the electorate for a long time. Educated whites aren't going to ever become even 60-40 democratic. Secondly, minorities & young people have even lower turnout in midterms. It's also quite insulting to ignore a huge bloc of voters, and it's insulting to assume minorities will always be titanium D (granted, the GOP has a 40 year streak of doing a terrible job at courting minorities...) Thirdly, WWC are over represented in the electoral college and way more represented in the Senate.

States like Nevada have become way more diverse since the 1990s, but democrats aren't doing much better in Nevada today than they were in the 1990s...

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

DTC, Clinton performed worse than Obama amongst minorities. Doug Jones won 98% of the black vote in Alabama. There is no evidence to suggest that Democrats are losing minorites, besides a mediocre daily tracking poll by Reuters. I expected Atlas to know better.

Doug Jones did not get 98% of the black vote. He got ~95% vs a pedophile. He noticeably got 20-25% less votes in the major black counties than Hillary. Get your facts straight. You cherrypicked the example of the democrat who did the best with black people since 2016, and Doug Jones barely did any better than Hillary among black voters despite facing a racist pedophile.

Democrats will almost surely do worse with minorities in 2016 because most Republicans are not as racial charged as Donald Trump. It's been a consistent trend in the special elections. It's simply extremely hard to win minorities by 60+ points. Isn't that obvious? Why do you think dems did worse in GA-06 than Hillary (it's 40% minority). Because minorities aren't going to be nearly as D if you're not vs Donald Trump, and they're not going to turn out as much.

The huge swings in special elections have been from places that are 80+% white after all, like PA-18.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

DTC, Clinton performed worse than Obama amongst minorities. Doug Jones won 98% of the black vote in Alabama. There is no evidence to suggest that Democrats are losing minorites, besides a mediocre daily tracking poll by Reuters. I expected Atlas to know better.

Doug Jones did not get 98% of the black vote. He got ~95% vs a pedophile. He noticeably got 20-25% less votes in the major black counties than Hillary. Get your facts straight. You cherrypicked the example of the democrat who did the best with black people since 2016, and Doug Jones barely did any better than Hillary among black voters despite facing a racist pedophile.

Democrats will almost surely do worse with minorities in 2016 because most Republicans are not as racial charged as Donald Trump. It's been a consistent trend in the special elections. It's simply extremely hard to win minorities by 60+ points. Isn't that obvious? Why do you think dems did worse in GA-06 than Hillary (it's 40% minority). Because minorities aren't going to be nearly as D if you're not vs Donald Trump, and they're not going to turn out as much.

The huge swings in special elections have been from places that are 80+% white after all, like PA-18.

you are cherrypicking data. sure, jones got 20-25% less, but roy got about 50% less, consistent with the state trend. I am seriously tired of people not recognizing how important minorities our to our coalition, it is sick.

I am not saying democrats should ignore minorities. In fact, my data is actively saying they should try to get more minorities! I am saying that they have consistently been doing worse with minorities in special elections from 2016. Black turnout completely bombed in Milwaukee in the Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, black turnout and margins were worse in Virginia governor, Latino turnout was worse in AZ-08 (the only places Hiral Tipinerni underperformed Hillary in was minorities). It's a very consistent trend, actually. Even as democrats are doing way better in elections across the country, they are doing worse among minorities than Hillary did (although better than Generic D vs Generic R in the 2016 vote).

And the Doug Jones point was to make it clear that even though he was facing a pedophile racist, he barely did any better than Hillary among minorities. You'd expect him to do a lot better, but it goes to show that minorities aren't as happy with the democratic party as they used to be.

Where did you get the idea that I said minorities are not important? Why are you putting words in my mouth? Very disrespectful of you. Please apologize for your petulance.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

DTC, Clinton performed worse than Obama amongst minorities. Doug Jones won 98% of the black vote in Alabama. There is no evidence to suggest that Democrats are losing minorites, besides a mediocre daily tracking poll by Reuters. I expected Atlas to know better.

Doug Jones did not get 98% of the black vote. He got ~95% vs a pedophile. He noticeably got 20-25% less votes in the major black counties than Hillary. Get your facts straight. You cherrypicked the example of the democrat who did the best with black people since 2016, and Doug Jones barely did any better than Hillary among black voters despite facing a racist pedophile.

Democrats will almost surely do worse with minorities in 2016 because most Republicans are not as racial charged as Donald Trump. It's been a consistent trend in the special elections. It's simply extremely hard to win minorities by 60+ points. Isn't that obvious? Why do you think dems did worse in GA-06 than Hillary (it's 40% minority). Because minorities aren't going to be nearly as D if you're not vs Donald Trump, and they're not going to turn out as much.

The huge swings in special elections have been from places that are 80+% white after all, like PA-18.

you are cherrypicking data. sure, jones got 20-25% less, but roy got about 50% less, consistent with the state trend. I am seriously tired of people not recognizing how important minorities our to our coalition, it is sick.

I am not saying democrats should ignore minorities. In fact, my data is actively saying they should try to get more minorities! I am saying that they have consistently been doing worse with minorities in special elections from 2016. Black turnout completely bombed in Milwaukee in the Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, black turnout and margins were worse in Virginia governor, Latino turnout was worse in AZ-08 (the only places Hiral Tipinerni underperformed Hillary in was minorities). It's a very consistent trend, actually. Even as democrats are doing way better in elections across the country, they are doing worse among minorities than Hillary did (although better than Generic D vs Generic R in the 2016 vote).

And the Doug Jones point was to make it clear that even though he was facing a pedophile racist, he barely did any better than Hillary among minorities. You'd expect him to do a lot better, but it goes to show that minorities aren't as happy with the democratic party as they used to be.

Where did you get the idea that I said minorities are not important? Why are you putting words in my mouth? Very disrespectful of you. Please apologize for your petulance.

well, you seen to be recognizing white voters' influence more than black voters. They won us AL-sen. You are not respecting where they have gotten us, is my point, and them voting for us by slightly smaller margins is not changing where they have.

I mean, I'm just saying that white people are going to swing more because Trump race-related politics won't be as prevalent in 2018, and white people are already more GOP. I am not endorsing any strategy. I wish republicans did far more to try to get minority voters.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Democrats are up a whopping 9 points, 50-41, in the newest CBS news poll (A- rating from 538). This would easily give democrats the house, and likely give them around 35-40 house seats.

According to the pollster, only 36% of people view the Republican party favorably. Ouch.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByVu4fDHYJgVYUF5MzVDT1E3NTRPdFg3MmdYdXI4SXBzdTZR/view

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I see what you did there

I am not doing anything here. I am legitimately afraid. It would be a disaster if Republicans lose their majority in 2018. Mitch Mcconnell and Paul Ryan have been fantastic leaders that have gotten us so far in so little time.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

PPP always has Trump approvals at much higher than they are nationally, so I think they've learned.

Also lol at LL tryna look cool by using the b word. This baby can't even wipe his own butt yet and he thinks he's hot stuff.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I agree that PPP is garbage that gets a free pass on this site because of their left leaning bias, but the notion of ‘Roy Moore +27’ calling out anyone is kind of ridiculous.

PPP got 2010 and 2012 pretty well. I don't think they were off by much in 2014 either? It isn't a garbage pollster, lol.

And how are they left leaning when they've always found Trump's approvals at about 3-4% higher than the average of all of the other polls?