Democrats Could Even Keep the House This November

[ProgressiveModerate]

I doubt that the Democrats keep the House in November even if the GCB was D+5. The Republicans in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee heavily gerrymandered their states to the point that there are more than enough gerrymandered seats between those three states to ensure that the Republicans at least have a 5 seat majority. Also, Tom Kean Jr. and Allen Fung are guaranteed to win their House elections easily due to their flawed Democrat opponents. Best case for Democrats if I had to guess is R+5 or 10.

Even with Republican gerrymandering the median seat was 2 points to the right of the nation using 2020 Pres as a baseline; you get a similar result using 2016 as a baseline. A D + 5 environment would almost certainly flip the House barring something strange.

While NJ-07 seems like a pretty likely R flip, I would be hesitant to say RI-02 is anything close to a guaranteed R flip. For reference, RI-02 was Biden + 14 in 2020 which is a pretty solid buffer for Dems and if they're going to win the House, they almost certainly would've won this seat.

I don't think picking out individual examples of races where Republicans will likely outperform partisanship and then listing 3 gerrymanders is a very solid case as for why it's close to impossible for Ds to win the House. If I said Democrats will hold the House because they gerrymandered Illinois and Kaptur could hold her Trump district is that compelling at all? No.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Did Biden win the new NJ-07?

I think Joe Biden won it by 9 iirc. Tom Malinowski underperformed Joe Biden by almost 4, so in a more favorable year like 2022, Tom Kean Jr. is the heavy favorite. Not to mention that Tom Malinowski has a lot of ethical issues.  

He won the old NJ-07 by~ 10. The new NJ-07 is a Trump-Biden district that Biden won by about 4%. (In exchange Dems shored up NJ-05 and 11 to be safer)

https://davesredistricting.org/join/4f86c606-561f-4e65-9805-d9aad3772e3d

This map I compiled shows how all districts voted for 2020 pres.

This exposes Malinowski's problem. He only barely won in 2020 in a district that was much more politically favorable, and 2022 will likely be a worse year for Dems nationally than 2020.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The problem for them is the house majority is just too thin. Even a D+1 year would probably see them lose control. For Dems to win they will need to match or exceed 2020 levels which is unlikely.

They just have to win by about 2% nationally. It seems probable they'll do worse than that but it's certainly in the range of plausibility.

I honestly think their current majority size doesn't matter much though because of polarization and redistricting. Going into 2018, Rs having a pretty large majority was notable because many of those incumbents were able to have significant overperformances in 2016 and it was on the same maps. There were few members on either side who had solid overperformances in 2020.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The 2014 comparison isn't just bad, it's divorced from reality. Republicans won white, college-educated voters 57-41 in 2014. That isn't happening this year. In fact, they aren't winning them at all. And guess who is a lot more likely to turn up to vote this year than some Bubba who only voted in 2020 cuz he was mad that he had to wear a facemask to the grocery store.

I think candidate quality really matters. If LaLota wins tonight, Likely R bordering on Safe. If Bond wins, it's Lean R at best. Joe Kent, Yesli Vega,  JR Majewski... It's almost like the GOP did what it could to sabotage the wave that could have been.

Tbf at face value Vega seemed like a pretty solid GOP canidate: headed a County which is pretty blue at this point, is a woman of color, law enforcement background, ect. It's really been her herself who has been making things harder than they have to be.

[ProgressiveModerate]

HOT TAKE:

Since coalitions have shifted since 2014, I think there is a reason why polls were right in 2018 and wrong in 2016/2020.

Polls have trouble adjusting for education in those years, but they seem to use the same formula when calculating turnout for each time. So naturally they'd be more accurate in years when educated people make up more of the electorate, such as the midterms.

Right now, the polls indicative of a neutral environment are matching with the special election results- and then some.

Republicans will be disappointed when educated people like scientists and doctors don't see them as the tax-cutting check on President Obama like in 2014 but as the people who don't believe in science and undercut the medical truth on vaccines and healthcare.

This talking point needs to die. The polls have mostly underestimated Republicans from 2014 on. 2018 too. FL Gov, WI Gov, OH Gov, OH Senate, IN Senate, MO Senate, IA Gov, need I go on?

I would argue in 2018, the polls didn't underestimate Rs but underestimated partisanship. It just so happened that a lot of the Senate battlegrounds were in deep R states, but polls in all the perennial swing states did quite well (NV, AZ, WI, MI, PA, VA, MN). The only swing state where the polls really struggled was FL.

I think a lot of polls struggle to pick up on turnout dynamics and voters who ultimately vote even if they weren't very engaged, which is why polling tends to get worse the redder the state.

What's also notable though is if the polls in PA and AZ continue to have Dems leading by 10, it'd be nearly unheard of for the kind of error that would allow Oz and Masters to win. Not saying it won't happen but you can't really use history to say they'd win cause "muh polling error"

My general rule is assuming polls are underestimating partisanship in most cases and that Rs will overperform nationally by about 2-4 points.