2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[GeorgiaModerate]

FWIW, that’s an improvement for Dems from the last YouGov LV poll, although it’s probably statistical noise.

Not from last week's YouGov/Economist tracker, which was D+2 among LV (48/46).  Don't compare these to YouGov polls for CBS or Yahoo -- the sponsors have input into the design, and make different choices.

But yeah, it could just be sampling variation.  Biden's approval also dropped a few points from last week's Economist poll.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Zooming out to see the bigger picture-

538 GCB average

June 19: R+2.3
July 19: R+1.7
August 19: D+0.5
September 19: D+1.4
October 19: D+0.3

A lot of hay has been made of GOP momentum, but we're... essentially where we were two months ago, and in the same place we've been for three months now (Tied-D+1-ish)

I think a lot of people set their expectations too high or misunderstood what a neutral environment might look like. A lot of people were acting like we're in a 2012/2018 style environment, but the people who think we've reverted to a 2010/1994 style environment are also wrong.

It's a 2016/2020 style environment. That means Republicans win the House, probably not more than 20-25 seats. Democrats likely keep the Senate, but they could still lose it if a lot of races are close.

A 2016/2020 style environment would average out to like D+1 though, (which is where the average is pointing us), and that would mean a probably pretty close House result, wouldn't it? (I feel like Ds need to win by 2 to have a chance)

Somewhere between D+2 and D+3 is the likely break-even point.  If it gets in that vicinity, it depends on which districts each party overperforms in.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Barring a 9/11-level political earthquake, you just don't get a 20-point swing in a month in a particular demographic group.  While there certainly is movement toward the Republicans lately, a lot of the difference from their September poll has to be sampling variation.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Pew has GCB at D+1

They were D+2 in August and tied in March (I don't see any others).

[GeorgiaModerate]

Interesting… perhaps it’s not over after all.
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1583466803954880517?s=21&t=huexcZu...

I'd like to hear Pollster's thoughts on this.

[GeorgiaModerate]

If Dems actually cared about winning they'd let guns go. This is the single most effective strategy with the lowest political cost and realistically it costs fewer lives than other potential switches.

The upside/downside for just deciding to let the gun control issue sit, and actively promoting that in messaging, is *way* slanted to upside.

The other good option would be to present and campaign on, nation wide, a more conservative Bernie Sanders 2016 style immigration policy.

Anyone who says the best strategy for them is to cut spending should be banned from politics websites for being politically illiterate.

The trouble with shifting right on guns or immigration is that for the time being and for likely a very long time into the future, the Republican party will continue to assert, even with zero supportive evidence, that the Dems are for gun grabbing and open boarders. And their base will eat it up. And that includes folks that if they actually believed the Dems were more conservative on these issues they'd be open for voting Democrat. But the whole culture of the right has enforced an intense social isolation and cult level of insulation to any outside information gaining traction. There is no point in moderating generally on these issues to win them over. And plenty of downside to reducing their own base for the Democrats as they once again abandon their own to appeal to the unpersuadable.

Mary Pelota supports gun rights and she won a House seat in Trump +10 Alaska and has numerous GOP endorsements...

Alaska is probably not the best state to draw parallels with any other state.   I do agree that a more centrist/bipartisan approach would certainly be helpful in some states.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/24/midterm-elections-cook-sean-patrick-maloney

NY-17 moving to tossup in Cook. This could either be a sign of a wave or the NRCC version of Hillary visits Ohio 7 times and never goes to Wisconsin.

The NRCC is so sneaky. They even convinced the democrats to start triaging democrat won or Biden won seats in Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon, and California.

Biden didn't win WI-03 lol

I said democrat or Biden, as in Ron Kind. Also not the point. Democrats are playing defense trying to win 50% +1. That’s not the NRCC, it’s their own strategy. There’s no conspiracy

There was no way D's were holding WI-03 without Kind; it would have been tough even *with* him.  No need to throw money away on it.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/bresreports/status/1584609485372686338

[GeorgiaModerate]

Don't forget that one category of triage is patients who are in good enough shape that they don't need any immediate help.  Triage doesn't necessarily mean they're giving up on the race.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1585261022490787840

You saw my map, turnout is higher...in GOP areas. Unless you think that coalitions flipped overnight and now Detroit is the most Republican part of Michigan, I don't see any good evidence for these claims. And his logic is still using very flawed specials, but the specials overperformances were all still low turnout relative to the midterms in areas where Dems can be expected to do better among high propensity voters. I have heard zero arguments against this. The ONLY possible argument would be Peltola, but even then she had HUGE crossover support and still does.

I have a hard time squaring this information. On one hand, he’s not wrong in certain states like Michigan and Georgia that numbers look good for democrats based on modeled partisanship. On the other hand, the map above and other target smart graphics make it clear that rural turnout is up and white turnout is up in these same states (yes, even in Georgia, at the expense of Hispanics/Asians). I will note that those are two states without partisan registration, so it’s possible that their model is garbage and way too democrat-friendly. This can’t explain it entirely though.

The simple answer…their model is trash. A model is not a fact, raw turnout data is. Tom Bonier has long been a Democratic hack as well which also helps explain the bias.

Not only is the Target Smart Model Trash. The Generic Congressional Polls are also TRASH. Why would Sabato move CA-27 (Mike Garcia) into Lean R Column if D's were ahead by 5 Nationally. This makes literally no sense at all.

Because they made the ratings move before this new set of GCB polls came out?  Sabato would have needed a...crystal ball.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The polls suck this year. Literally anything can happen.

Maybe it's selective memory on my part, but I really don't recall another year with such extreme variance in the polls.

[GeorgiaModerate]

D+3, D+2, R+4, R+1

Lol so we’ve just got no clue what Election Day is gonna look like, that rocks

I don't see what the problem is with those.  A range of results like that is completely consistent with a GCB that is close to tied.  Expecting the polls to show results much closer to each other is unrealistic just due to margin of error, without even considering other possible error factors.  Now if they were showing R+10, D+10 then we'd have a problem.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/politics_polls/status/1585648868133412864

At this point RV is just not something that should even be considered in averages. We are within two weeks of the election, people know whether they’re gonna vote or not.

Except that likely voter models are more than just asking people whether they're gonna vote.  The pollster makes certain assumptions about turnout in their LV models, which may or may not turn out to be true.  Since this looks like a high-turnout election for both parties at this point, using an RV model is probably just as reasonable.

Also, IIRC there have been studies showing that voter intention actually isn't that predictive.  That is, following up with such voters after the election showed that a surprisingly low percentage (68% from memory, but that may be inaccurate) of the "definitely will vote" actually did vote, while a surprisingly high percentage of the "maybe" or "possibly" groups voted.

[GeorgiaModerate]

538's pre-election survey using Ipsos is D+1, 49-48.

[GeorgiaModerate]

D+1 from Tufts. Never heard of them, though.

The same professor's students put out a presidential poll in late October 2020 that had Biden+7.  That's the only other one I can find from them.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I don't think there's more variance than normal in generic ballot polls.  It's just we perceive more variance because the race is so close.  Check out the generic ballot polls from 2006...they range from D+4 to D+20 just in the last 3 days of the campaign:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2006_generic_congressional_vote-2174.html#polls

This is an excellent point.  There's a saying that polls can tell you whether a race is close, but they can't tell you who's ahead in a close race.  Polls generate a probablistic range of support levels, and that simply doesn't map perfectly to a binary result like the outcome of an election.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1585978474338037762

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1586720670901223424

If there were actually a 218-217 result (either way), how long do you think it would take for that to be called, given slow counting in CA, NY, AK, possibly others?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Are we getting another Selzer before Election Day?

Probably.  There's usually one the weekend before Election Day.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1587445938951360514

[GeorgiaModerate]

Of note that CNN and Marist are both closer among RV - CNN is R+1 and Marist is tied.

Politico/Morning Consult at D+5 again this week, 47-42

Morning Consult is an outlier at this point, although you probably believe that this is the actual state of the race.

It would be nice if you stopped telling other people what they believe.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Of note that CNN and Marist are both closer among RV - CNN is R+1 and Marist is tied.

Politico/Morning Consult at D+5 again this week, 47-42

Morning Consult is an outlier at this point, although you probably believe that this is the actual state of the race.

It would be nice if you stopped telling other people what they believe.

Stating a fact that it is a outlier isn't telling other people what to believe.

It’s a fact that it’s an outlier. But Calthrina then had to add the second part of the sentence, which is what I have an issue with.

[GeorgiaModerate]

We have a general consensus among RV, with outliers in two directions:

Polticio/MC: D+5

NewsNation: R+1
CNN: R+1
YouGov: tied
Marist: tied

Quinnipiac: R+4

A lot of the other variation lies within LV models

The Split Ticket guys have a "nonpartisan" poll aggregator that has it around R+0.4 I think right now. I've said for a while now I think the overall average is close to a tie, and that seems to be about right right now.

Yes, they currently have it as 46.8-46.4 R.  You can read their methodology (which IMO is pretty good) at the aggregate link https://split-ticket.org/2022-nonpartisan-generic-ballot-aggregate/.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Barrett is now tied with Slotkin per Mitchell Poll

Democrats are facing a WIPE-OUT in the House.

Biden made a collossal misjudgment yesterday Night with his Speech. All what he did is probably "Supercharge" E-Day Turnout among Trump Voters even more.

But I was told that nobody on the right watched the speech...

[GeorgiaModerate]

Barrett is now tied with Slotkin per Mitchell Poll

Democrats are facing a WIPE-OUT in the House.

Biden made a collossal misjudgment yesterday Night with his Speech. All what he did is probably "Supercharge" E-Day Turnout among Trump Voters even more.

But I was told that nobody on the right watched the speech...

Regardless if the right watched the Speech LIVE or not. It was all over the News on FOX, OANN, NEWSMAX, etc.

Democrats like you still don't get it that there is a hidden Trump Vote who can come out at will.

On the contrary, after 2016 and 2020 I'm quite sure that hidden Trump voters do exist.  However, what I haven't seen is the "Trump Vote" come out of hiding when Trump isn't on the ballot (2018, 2021 GA runoffs, special elections this year).