NYT LIVE POLL THREAD:

[morgieb]

Know it's still early days, but Radinovich+9 has to be good news up there. Fortunately it's a wave year and we picked the right candidate for the seat.

[morgieb]

#analysis in this thread is godawful even by Atlas standards.

I'm pretty sure everyone is joking about the MN-03 stuff.

[morgieb]

FWIW there’s no paywall for these polls....I think.

[morgieb]

Hopefully Paulsen (which is kinda impossible) and Ojeda can have massive legs to keep up the trend of having basic ties in the polls.

[morgieb]

Realistically Ojeda was always kind of a reach. But it's still possible it could tighten in due course.

I'm more worried about MN-08 being so close, given Obama's margins there and the fact that the Dems still hold it. Though IL-12 and KY-06 are also basically tied, so most likely that proves nothing.

[morgieb]

While WV-03 might be a bridge too far (this is actually not an attack on people from West Virginia, unless you think saying that it's Republican-leaning is an insult, lol), it definitely looks like Democrats are set for a comeback in the Midwest.

This was the case well before these polls came out tbf. Just look at special election results in the area.

[morgieb]

The response rates in IA-01 look really impressive compared to the other seats.

And yeah being up by 13 with half the poll already done looks pretty ugly.

[morgieb]

Why is Finkenauer's name in bold? Same thing happened to Phillips and Crow in their polls. Is it down to the size of her lead?

[morgieb]

KS-03....holy crap.

[morgieb]

Also, I think the NJ-03 poll will be one of those "one in 20" margin-of-error misses. A 20 point lead for Kim is Zogby-level bad. Even Cohn seems worried about the validity of the poll.

He's obviously not up by 20. That said, I think this poll is evidence enough that Kim has the lead.

[morgieb]

Taylor's favourables seem really high to me given all his scandals.

The fact that Luria's only behind by 2 despite this though? Great news.

[morgieb]

If the poll is any indication, I hope the NRCC is happy that they flushed money down the toilet by spending in AZ-02, since it's looking like a Kirkpatrickslide (no surprise there.)

Yeah, this is why I argue that sometimes the NRCC is spending just to set a narrative. Comstock was down double digits months ago when Wexton had lower name recognition and the generic ballot was lower for the Democrats, yet we're supposed to believe it's now a toss up just because the NRCC is spending there? Yeah no. Unless Barb's oppo research or MS-13 ads somehow turned the tide, lol.

True, they do seem to have a weird fondness with Comstock that they don't have with other DOA incumbents like Rothfus. I guess she's like an ex-girlfriend to the NRCC. It's been over for a long time now, but they still just can't let her go. Plus, she probably knows about all the skeletons in their closet.

Yeah, if Comstock wasn't such a senior NRCC official in the past she already would've been cut off. That said, I think the only incumbents that have been cut off are Rothfus and IIRC Blum.

[morgieb]

For me Taylor's issue is less the scandal and more that he's been running like a complete idiot. And also it's swingy enough that even if few voters do care it still might change it.

[morgieb]

umm... who is actually buying repubs ahead 5 on VA-02 gcb and trump only -4

It's about an R+3 district, so that lines up with a 10 point national lead for Dems or Trump net disapproval.

If it's an R+3 district, leading by 5 means a 1 point lead nationally for Dems, which is wrong. And I think Trump's net disapproval is worse than -10 too.

O/c it's possible this is a seat where the Republicans haven't faded as much, but more likely is that the sample is a bit R-leaning.

Still not a great poll for Luria though.

[morgieb]

Worth noting is that in this poll Trump has approvals of -1 and Republicans lead the generic ballot by 8. Both are kinda hard to believe, so the poll isn't as bad for Luria as it seems.

Taylor's approvals look really good though, which isn't that great.

[morgieb]

It does feel like the Dems overshot their load slightly with Kauvanagh. The Dems main problem is that the Trump base is kind of a lower turnout sort of constituency, whereas the Republican base who might otherwise be lukewarm to Trump is a higher turnout constituency. If the former feel engaged (and it looks like they are), it'll probably be more of a moderate D sort of night....and given gerrymandering and a stacked Class I Democrat group, that could mean bad things.

[morgieb]

Cohn should really drop this entire project. It's clear a lot of these polls are trash.

They're not suddenly trash just because you dislike the results now.

Oh shove it. My problem with them is the fact Bredesen has a +2 favorable rating while Blackburn is at +14. That's obviously not the case.

Which is just one poll out of like 70.

That said, I agree Bredesen's and O'Rourke's approvals look too low.

[morgieb]

Icespear is right.

The issue is he's made at least 10x as posts raving about this as there were posts by non-trolls arguing that Bredesen had the election in the bag.

In fact I bet the majority of Atlas posters were like IceSpear in that they were openly skeptical of Breseden's chances even when he was leading.