2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[GeorgiaModerate]

Yahoo/YouGov: D+5 (45/40) among RV, D+3 (48/45) among those who "definitely will vote".

https://news.yahoo.com/poll-democrats-lead-republicans-among-those-who-say-theyll-definitely-vote-in-midterms-221434935.html

If Dems were to win by three nationally, that's around where I think they would be slightly favored to hold the House. Not betting that will happen yet, but something to watch.

I've seen a couple of pundits say that D+2.5 is the break-even point.  Of course, that assumes the vote is distributed "correctly", i.e. proportionately to each district's partisan lean.  That is very unlikely to happen in the real world.

[GeorgiaModerate]

YouGov/Economist GCB at D+6, 44-38

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/jy7xuoa0xo/econtoplines.pdf

This is a decline of 2 points for Dems, surprisingly.

Two weeks ago they were at D+5 and the week before that it was D+6.  Last week's D+8 appears to have been an outlier.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I hate Ipsos polls tbh. Just ridiculously high number of undecideds most of the time

In 2020 NYT/Siena was so annoying cause till the end they’d give us polls with 10%+ “undecided” even though they were pretty well respected before.

Yeah, I hope NYT/Siena comes back this year, but if they're going to pull more 45-40 polls on us, then it's not even worth it.

On that note, Nate Cohn has been tweeting about NYT beefing up their election analytics team, with a link to this article:

The Times has become the pre-eminent destination on election nights for tens of millions of Americans who turn to us for the latest election results and for clear statistical analysis that demonstrates how the races are actually playing out. But we want to continue to innovate in this area. As we head into the midterms and look toward the 2024 presidential election, we must expand our ability to quickly understand, analyze and explain the election — particularly at this moment, when the credibility of election results reporting, data and analysis is more important than ever before.

The Elections Data Analytics team will be joined by Nate Cohn, our chief political analyst, and other members of The Upshot to initially focus on two of the biggest hallmarks of our elections coverage: our public opinion surveys and the statistical models that power the Needle. This work will also bolster The Times’s ability to call races when necessary.

https://www.nytco.com/press/announcing-the-election-data-analytics-team/

I guess this means the Needle will return.   One of the most amazing moments of Election Night 2020 was the Georgia needle swinging barely to Biden...and turning out to be correct.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Harvard-Harris GCB is at D+2, 51/49.  Their last poll in July was 50-50.  They never have undecideds; they must exclude them from their calculations.

https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/HHP_Sept2022_KeyFindings.pdf

Sep. 7-8, 1854 RV.

[GeorgiaModerate]

So I agree with prognosticators who say the GOP is a virtual lock for the house.

HOWEVER: With the generic ballot being around tied .. even Dems up a few points. How are others coming to that conclusion with the generic ballot favoring Dems?

“With polling showing Dems tied or even ahead in polls, how can you say Dems are ahead”

What I’m saying is how are people getting to the conclusion the house is a lock for the GOP when the generic ballot is between tied and D+2… that’s 2 points off from a Dem win.

No, because geographic sorting and gerrymandering (which is just artificial geographic sorting) cause Democratic votes to be located less efficiently than Republicans.  It's been estimated that under the current lines, a GCB of D+2.5 or so equates to a nearly tied House outcome, while a tied GCB would result in R control.  (This assumes that votes are distributed proportionally by district according to their partisan lean, which in practice won't happen perfectly, but it's still a good approximation.)

So with the current GCB value, the Republicans are still favored to take control of the House, but it's far from a lock; those who insist it's a lock are overconfident.  Six months ago it looked like a lock, but I don't think they've noticed that the environment has changed significantly.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1571484233381695498

[GeorgiaModerate]

2016, how do you not believe the top line but think the crosstabs are the complete ironclad truth?

See definition 4: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cherry_picker

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Economist/YouGov tracker has the GCB at D+5 (45/40) this week, up from D+4 (43/39).

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/xeu4apb94g/econTabReport.pdf

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1572573036771147777

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1572573036771147777

Just curious is there a different between italicized and unitaclized seats in the chart?

Italics indicate freshman members.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Marquette's new national poll also finds D+6, 47-41

https://twitter.com/stella2020woof/status/1572947273255768064

Also:

The survey finds the enthusiasm advantage Republicans held in the spring has largely vanished among registered voters, with 54% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats saying they are very enthusiastic to vote.

In their previous poll (July) 63% of R's were very enthusiastic, compared to 45% of D's.

https://law.marquette.edu/poll/

[GeorgiaModerate]

I’m excited for when the GCB is like D +2 and most people are truly expecting the house to hold. It’ll make for a great meltdown, even better than it would have been before when we were heading for R+7

We could still be on track for this

I mean, the house could very well hold. It was D+3 in 2020 and that was with a small margin of seats, so D+2 with a new map that is the tiniest bit better for Ds than the last one could produce a D house.

I think D+2 would probably fall just a bit short of holding the House, although it would depend on exactly how the votes are distributed; obviously they won't be perfectly distributed in proportion to each district's partisan lean.  That is, if there's a D+2 result overall but D's overperform in a number of close districts and underperform in not-close districts, they'd have a decent chance to hold control.  And vice versa -- if they underperform in close districts then the R's could gain 10 or more seats even at D+2.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I’m excited for when the GCB is like D +2 and most people are truly expecting the house to hold. It’ll make for a great meltdown, even better than it would have been before when we were heading for R+7

We could still be on track for this

I mean, the house could very well hold. It was D+3 in 2020 and that was with a small margin of seats, so D+2 with a new map that is the tiniest bit better for Ds than the last one could produce a D house.

Not the point. My point is that D +2 GCB almost certainly means a republican popular vote win because that left slant has happened every election of this generation except for one. Also:

1) How predictable it was that the GCB would always end up here

2) How Atlas is so receptive to “good news” and so skeptical of “bad news”

It's confusing to me why people continue to discount 2018, the literal last midterm, just to push whatever narrative they want

The closing phrase in your sentence explains exactly why.

[GeorgiaModerate]

"Premise" has D+12 on the GCB, 46-34 lol

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/20220922_US_Premise.pdf

Bumps 538 average up to D+2.0.

Funky poll, has GCB at D+12 but Biden only +2 in a 2024 rematch and his approval at 41/51 lol.

Never heard of them before, but I'd take it with a heaping grain of salt.  Looking at the details from the link at 538:

These results are based on responses from 1703 Americans collected between September 16th and September 19th via the Premise smartphone application. Premise randomly sampled its opt-in panel members, stratified on Age, Gender, Region and Education, based on the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS). The results are weighted by Age, Gender, Region and Education benchmarked against the 2019 ACS estimates.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/20220922_US_Premise.pdf

[GeorgiaModerate]

Good news: the 538 general ballot is now D+2.0, the highest since last November.

Bad news: the last time Democrat’s had this “big” of a lead, they lost VA and almost NJ

They added that absurd D+12 poll from Premise (whoever they are).  This has also pushed R's down to 69% for House control in the Deluxe model.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1573052839915622406
The only thing surprising here is that anyone might think Trump is ever out to help anyone but himself.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Cygnal (R) has GCB tied, 47-47

same as their last poll in August

https://www.cygn.al/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/September-Cygnal-National-Deck.pdf

Slide 13: "Trump image is now positive; fostered by double-digit positive swings among college-educated and upper-income voters".  They have Trump at 48.8% favorable, 48.7% unfavorable.  I'm just a wee bit inclined to doubt this.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1573028316981886977

[GeorgiaModerate]

I love how everyone just decides that the most recent poll that they’ve seen is the most accurate, even if it’s only a day or two after another poll

Like just look at the reaction to Wisconsin polling

Barnes+2 = Democrats may pull this off, it’s a tossup!

Johnson+1 = Titanium Ron Jon can’t be beaten… Democrats are fools for investing in this race.

ABC/WaPo is a very high quality national poll. Of course people are going to pay more attention to it than the daily slop from Rasmussen or Morning Consult.

They are a very high quality poll, but it's still not wise to put too much faith into any single poll.  Even the best pollsters will have occasional outliers (and ISTR that this poll has had some doozies in the past).

[GeorgiaModerate]

538 has now added the ABC/WaPo and CBS/YouGov polls, and unsurprisingly they've shifted the model slightly toward Republicans.  The Deluxe model now has 69% D Senate, 70% R House, while Classic has 78% D Senate and 71% R House.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I mean, what are the turnout rates for 18-29 year olds? 47% may be meh compared to other age groups, but that still feels massively large for that age group comparatively with usual youth turnout?

Comparing midterms, it was 36% in 2018 and only 20% in 2014, according to the Census Bureau.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The ABC/Wapo LV model is weird. It wasn't in any of the crosstabs and Wapo didn't even report it, ABC did. And the way they worded it was odd - it was something like "in one of the likely voter models", as if there was multiple

It's quite possible they modeled different turnout scenarios.  If so then it would be great if they published all of them!

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1575111930423185408

Note: the link in the first tweet is wrong (it's last week's survey).  This week's is not available online yet.

[GeorgiaModerate]

What even is generic ballot? Is it for Senate or House? I disapprove of Biden, but not strongly, and am voting Dem for Senate and GOP for House. Can imagine there aren’t many like me who aren’t a fan of Biden but then see some of these GOP candidates and are like 👀

It's generally for the House.  There are a few pollsters (or at least one) that asks the question separately for both House and Senate.

[GeorgiaModerate]

And here's a counterpoint view from 538: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/women-have-swung-toward-democrats-since-the-dobbs-decision/