Who were the Susan Collins voters the polls missed?

[Tekken_Guy]

Who were the Susan Collins voters that the polls failed to pick up?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think turnout being so high caused many traditionally non-voters to split their ballot and put her because they were familiar with her.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Were they many beyond Collins/Trump voters? Trump overperformed his polls in ME, undecided voters in the Senate race always leant her way (I wrote elsewhere that I expected her to do 5-6% better than Trump but I wouldn't have been surprised by 8%) and she just ended up with a better presidential baseline.

[SenatorCouzens]

The second district can be hard to poll. That being said, a lot of these polls are garbage in garbage out and I don't think it's a matter of them making some little, fixable mistake.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

How much impact did her nay on Barrett have?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The answer is look at 2012, Olympia Snowe retired and King became Senator. The D's didn't have to best Snowe, she was the same moderate as Collins

However, Hassan whom was a very popular Gov beat Ayotte.  Gideon doesn't have name recognition due to retail politics like Snowe, Collins or Hassan.

Also, along with NC, Gideon and Cunningham were hurt by Pelosi by not passing the 1.8T in hopes for a wider 2.2T UBI STIMULUS PACKAGE which what it was,  Pelosi wanted 2K grand for 3 mnths

1.5T is what the D's are gonna get if they tie the Senate in Jan, if it's an R Senate, it's 500B

The D's were trying to pass UBI BENEFITS thru the 2.2T and Rs knew it

[TML]

I believe this is one of many questions to be explored when polling for this year’s election is examined.

On a somewhat related note, it seems that Republican strength in this year’s elections in Montana was probably driven by a contingent of younger voters who voted Republican. In nearly every pre-election poll conducted which had cross-tabs in the polling reports, Democratic candidates were leading with younger voters (under 30), yet exit polls showed Republican candidates winning overwhelmingly with this group (especially voters in their late 20s). In hindsight, however, there was a warning sign of this shortly before Election Day, as a mock election conducted among school-aged children in the state (with about 4500 participants) had Republicans winning every statewide race by double digits (and the Senate race percentages/margin almost exactly matched the actual result).

[Pericles]

Were they many beyond Collins/Trump voters? Trump overperformed his polls in ME, undecided voters in the Senate race always leant her way (I wrote elsewhere that I expected her to do 5-6% better than Trump but I wouldn't have been surprised by 8%) and she just ended up with a better presidential baseline.

Biden is currently leading by 10% in Maine though, which is somewhat surprising given the close results in states in the Upper Midwest. With regards to actual vote shares, Collins' is 7.2% higher than Trump's.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Were they many beyond Collins/Trump voters? Trump overperformed his polls in ME, undecided voters in the Senate race always leant her way (I wrote elsewhere that I expected her to do 5-6% better than Trump but I wouldn't have been surprised by 8%) and she just ended up with a better presidential baseline.

Biden is currently leading by 10% in Maine though, which is somewhat surprising given the close results in states in the Upper Midwest.

It's still worse than polls suggested he'd do.

[Pericles]

Were they many beyond Collins/Trump voters? Trump overperformed his polls in ME, undecided voters in the Senate race always leant her way (I wrote elsewhere that I expected her to do 5-6% better than Trump but I wouldn't have been surprised by 8%) and she just ended up with a better presidential baseline.

Biden is currently leading by 10% in Maine though, which is somewhat surprising given the close results in states in the Upper Midwest.

It's still worse than polls suggested he'd do.

He was down by 13% and it wasn't polled much, so the error isn't that big.

[DaleCooper]

Unless I'm misremembering, The Maine Senate election was a dead heat more often than not. I'm guessing that Collins just had a lot more support from Biden voters than previously anticipated.

[VAR]

Slightly off-topic, but this race wasn't that different from the Iowa race. DSCC targeted the R incumbents in two monolithic white rural states and got BTFO. I've always said the Democrats' path of least resistance ran through AZ/CO/GA/NC - AL, and I was right.

I think the Democrats should've looked at the fundamentals before polling.

[Pericles]

Yeah the weird thing about Maine is that Collins massively overperformed while Trump didn't overperform much here at all. So maybe there really was a late swing, perhaps related to the ACB vote or Gideon not being an effective candidate who could close the deal.

[Bernie Derangement Syndrome Haver]

Yeah the weird thing about Maine is that Collins massively overperformed while Trump didn't overperform much here at all. So maybe there really was a late swing, perhaps related to the ACB vote or Gideon not being an effective candidate who could close the deal.

Gideon was a great candidate. I blame Lisa Savage for deflating the excitement around Gideon. Even in an RCV race, third party candidates can be spoilers. Lisa Savage wouldn't have gotten Gideon to 50% but if she wasn't on the ballot at all circumstances may have been different. I feel pretty confident saying that about 60% of Gideon's loss is Savage's fault alone.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I think turnout being so high caused many traditionally non-voters to split their ballot and put her because they were familiar with her.

But your models told us that AZ, CO, ME and NC were safe D and GA was safe R, not

[Unbeatable Titan Susan Collins]

Yeah the weird thing about Maine is that Collins massively overperformed while Trump didn't overperform much here at all. So maybe there really was a late swing, perhaps related to the ACB vote or Gideon not being an effective candidate who could close the deal.

Gideon was a great candidate. I blame Lisa Savage for deflating the excitement around Gideon. Even in an RCV race, third party candidates can be spoilers. Lisa Savage wouldn't have gotten Gideon to 50% but if she wasn't on the ballot at all circumstances may have been different. I feel pretty confident saying that about 60% of Gideon's loss is Savage's fault alone.

I don't really follow Collins got over 50% of the vote. If you give all of Savages; vote to Gideon she still loses. I don't see how Savage being on the ballot made anyone vote for Collins or made some stay home rather than vote for either Savage or Gideon.

[KaiserDave]

Yeah the weird thing about Maine is that Collins massively overperformed while Trump didn't overperform much here at all. So maybe there really was a late swing, perhaps related to the ACB vote or Gideon not being an effective candidate who could close the deal.

Gideon was a great candidate. I blame Lisa Savage for deflating the excitement around Gideon. Even in an RCV race, third party candidates can be spoilers. Lisa Savage wouldn't have gotten Gideon to 50% but if she wasn't on the ballot at all circumstances may have been different. I feel pretty confident saying that about 60% of Gideon's loss is Savage's fault alone.

I don't really follow Collins got over 50% of the vote. If you give all of Savages; vote to Gideon she still loses. I don't see how Savage being on the ballot made anyone vote for Collins or made some stay home rather than vote for either Savage or Gideon.

I agree this seems like baseless and wild speculation

Now, if Collins was pulled below 50% and still won because Savage voters were lazy or negligent about rankings, you'd have a point. But that didn't happen.

[Calthrina950]

Yeah the weird thing about Maine is that Collins massively overperformed while Trump didn't overperform much here at all. So maybe there really was a late swing, perhaps related to the ACB vote or Gideon not being an effective candidate who could close the deal.

Gideon was a great candidate. I blame Lisa Savage for deflating the excitement around Gideon. Even in an RCV race, third party candidates can be spoilers. Lisa Savage wouldn't have gotten Gideon to 50% but if she wasn't on the ballot at all circumstances may have been different. I feel pretty confident saying that about 60% of Gideon's loss is Savage's fault alone.

Why are you blaming Lisa Savage for Sara Gideon's defeat? Gideon's defeat rests upon her shoulders, and those of the Democratic Party-not on Savage's. And Savage herself made it clear that she wanted her voters to rank Gideon as their second choice. Moreover, most people, going into the election, did not believe Collins would garner a majority. Even if you gave Gideon all of Savage's votes, she still would have lost to Collins by 3-4%.

[MT Treasurer]

It’s also silly to assume that more than 65-70% or so of Savage's voters would have ranked Gideon as their second choice.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

It’s also silly to assume that more than 65-70% or so of Savage's voters would have ranked Gideon as their second choice.

That might not be true, but it isn't silly to assume it could be. Green voters might normally break for Democrats at a lower rate but the introduction of RCV and the resultant increased media coverage of third party candidates almost certainly boosted Savage's final vote share. One welcome byproduct of Collins' victory is that we don't have the 'She would have won without RCV' takes which would probably have been incorrect (i.e. without RCV the third party vote would have been a lot lower to begin with).