NYT LIVE POLL THREAD:

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

These last three days of polling have been pretty bad for Dems, especially compared to the terrific week before that.  I hope this isn't any sort of trend.

[henster]

I said before the petition scandal is nothing but inside baseball stuff and pols have gotten re-elected doing far worse. The only thing that really breaks through is sex scandals and even that seems to not bother Repub voters anymore.

[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.

[Bidenworth2020]

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

[henster]

I am not really impressed with Kaine's campaign, his ads have been really underwhelming and he's been treating Stewart with kid gloves. He needs to go nuclear on him because Spanberger and Luria will be depending on his coattails.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

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.

[IceSpear]

Has anyone said Taylor is DOA? That seems like a strawman argument. IMO he may win but he's less likely to because of the scandal and the seat is now a Tossup, the scandal isn't that big of a deal but could make the difference between Taylor +1 and Luria +1. That said, the Roy Moore example is a great way to undercut IceSpear's point. Sure, Republican voters didn't care overall(though many didn't turn out), but Roy Moore still lost in Alabama, which Trump won by over 30 points and has been a Safe R state. So clearly scandals had some impact, that kind of swing can't simply be explained away by "muh national environment". So while most voters don't change their minds, that doesn't mean scandals don't matter at all because if even a small portion of the electorate changes their minds that can make all the difference.

Sigh...I don't know why people bother to accuse me of "strawmanning" when these things are easily proven with a simple Google search. Here's a sampling from the thread about Taylor's scandal:

It's obvious Taylor's going down when he's agitated on Twitter all the time and does garbage like this.

Scott Taylor was only considered likely R due to his "moderate" image, and the fact he turns out the voters. Glad to see that he is weighing himself down, and that the Senate candidate Stewart will make this a D seat.

Welcome Representative Luria!

Lean D --> Likely D

Anyway, this is right on the border of Lean and Likely D as long as Taylor doesn’t drop out.  And even then, it probably flips.

Yeah,  Taylor's screwed.

Likely D

I really am tempted to move this to likely D

Forging dead people's signatures is not going to be overlooked in a swing district.

he’s gonna lose Re-election. 

And this was what I said:

Duncan Hunter is still leading by 8 points despite literally being indicted for personally spending campaign funds and pretending they were for wounded veterans. But I'm sure a few of Taylor's staffers forging petition signatures means he's doomed, lol.

Just face it guys, nobody cares about Republican scandals these days unless they're molesting children (and even that has far less impact than it should.) Maybe a few more years of polarization and that won't make a difference anymore either, and pundits and posters here will continue to whistle past the graveyard pretending the voters are logical, reasonable, and responsible.

Yeah, if Taylor loses, he was always going to lose. Not because of this. Maybe if he loses by 0.01% and a few Very Serious Pundits live in the district and swung the outcome by voting for Luria I'll change my mind.

Anyway, I might have been being hyperbolic (perhaps even excessively hyperbolic), but my underlying points are absolutely true. 1) People have far more tolerance for scandals these days, particularly Republican scandals 2) This forum overreacts to everything, particularly Republican scandals and/or "gaffes." This place is a left wing echo chamber and circlejerk that almost always buys into its own hype. It took Roy Moore being a serial sexual assaulter and literal pedophile just to barely take him down by the skin of our teeth.

Here's a more recent example: People spiking the football about Kevin Cramer's "Akin comments." North Dakota strongly backs Kavanaugh and a majority of North Dakota voters likely agree with Cramer's comments. The state voted for the pussygrabber by 36 points. Yet he's now doomed because a bunch of liberal Hillary Clinton voters on US Election Atlas Dot Org are offended by his comments? Or because of two Senate races from 6 years ago in different states which are somehow more relevant than the presidential result in the state in question from 2 years ago? Give me a damn break.

[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.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Luria probably has more room to grow than Taylor due to the name recognition difference, but it's pretty clear at this point that anyone who thought this would be a slam dunk pickup for the Dems just because of muh petition forgery scandal that only Dem hacks care about was sorely mistaken. Just like how people thought the Deplorables wouldn't re-elect Duncan Hunter, yet he's now up double digits. And Collins will likely win as well.

Republican voters do not care about scandals. God Emperor Trump has given them permission to dismiss any scandal, no matter how heinous and/or factual, as a "rigged witch hunt." If you want more proof of this, look at my sig.

The main reason to think that this was (and still could be) a pickup is that it is an R+3 district, and Tim Kaine should win it and can hopefully help carry Luria over the top. The scandal helps to some unknown degree, but this was an obvious target district before the scandal for the reason that it is not overwhelmingly Republican in general.

That is what makes it very different from CA-50 (Duncan Hunter) and NY-27 (Chris Collins), which would not be at all on the radar if not for the scandals.

As we have seen from episodes such as the Clinton emails and OH-01, the actual substance of the VA-02 scandal doesn't matter that much. But what does matter is the ability to scaremonger over it. It matters whether you have a concerted media campaign repeating a simple and misleading/exaggerated message ad nauseum, and/or a superpac dumping millions of dollars into misleading ads exaggerating the scandal and fearmongering.

After some quick googling, I don't see any Dem groups/Superpacs running any sort of ads like that in VA-02. The only thing I see is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqygSzH3MHA

So what is needed is for a Dem superpac/DCCC/etc to run dump a million or two into some actually good gutter-politics ads to lower Taylor's favorables, which apparently they haven't bothered doing yet because they are too busy still lighting additional cash on fire trying to win VA-10 by 30 points rather than 25.

Compare to these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYCvFZDeTMw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GHInt6P884

[IceSpear]

These last three days of polling have been pretty bad for Dems, especially compared to the terrific week before that.  I hope this isn't any sort of trend.

I'd wait a little longer before jumping to any conclusions, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Dems overplayed their hand on the Kavanaugh situation. As always, people here assume the entire country agrees with them about Kavanaugh when that absolutely is not the case. White men and the Republican base (but I repeat myself) are outraged at the way he is being treated by the Democratic Party. Not that it really matters since nobody will remember or care in a month either way. There's gonna be a lot of shiny objects over the next 38 days.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Here's what Dems should do in VA-02 (taking a page from Pericles' wonderful signature).

Run an ad that says:

1) Career Politician and Influence Peddler Scott Taylor conspired with lobbyists (show Taylor talking to people in suits)

2) Caught with Cocaine (flash pictures of Taylor's face and cocaine)

3) Mexican drug cartels (show some scary pictures of brown Mexican people)

4) Now there's a special prosecutor looking into Taylor's criminal actions (Show a selective cut-out quote from a local newspaper referring to criminal actions/special prosecutors that entirely ignores the actual context and content of the scandal)

5) Taylor could go to jail (show pictures of Scott Taylor in an orange jumpsuit and behind bars, with police/guards looking at him)


No doubt a skilled ad maker can do this better and clean things up, but something along these sorts of general lines.


Basically, this is the playbook the Republicans are using in OH-01, so there is no reason Dems should not use the same playbook in VA-02.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

These last three days of polling have been pretty bad for Dems, especially compared to the terrific week before that.  I hope this isn't any sort of trend.

I'd wait a little longer before jumping to any conclusions, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Dems overplayed their hand on the Kavanaugh situation. As always, people here assume the entire country agrees with them about Kavanaugh when that absolutely is not the case. White men and the Republican base (but I repeat myself) are outraged at the way he is being treated by the Democratic Party. Not that it really matters since nobody will remember or care in a month either way. There's gonna be a lot of shiny objects over the next 38 days.

Polls show a plurality agree with Ford, besides, that's a very small plurality, which means a lot of people don't care either way. I doubt it changes anything.

[Xing]

I don't think too many of these results are surprising. I thought VA-02 was a Toss-Up at best for the Democrats, and I had IA-03 as a Toss-Up as well (Axne could still take the lead.) OH-01 is the worst one so far this week, other than NE-02, I suppose. We still have over a month left, though, and while I don't think Kavanaugh is going to move the needle, I'd sooner bet on more undecideds going Democratic if they're unhappy with the current situation.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

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.

You're right; I misread this and though it was D+5 in the CGB.
The district is 20% black and the poll is 14% black.  So there might be somewhat of a gap in the sample there.

[Ye We Can]

Has anyone said Taylor is DOA? That seems like a strawman argument. IMO he may win but he's less likely to because of the scandal and the seat is now a Tossup, the scandal isn't that big of a deal but could make the difference between Taylor +1 and Luria +1. That said, the Roy Moore example is a great way to undercut IceSpear's point. Sure, Republican voters didn't care overall(though many didn't turn out), but Roy Moore still lost in Alabama, which Trump won by over 30 points and has been a Safe R state. So clearly scandals had some impact, that kind of swing can't simply be explained away by "muh national environment". So while most voters don't change their minds, that doesn't mean scandals don't matter at all because if even a small portion of the electorate changes their minds that can make all the difference.

Sigh...I don't know why people bother to accuse me of "strawmanning" when these things are easily proven with a simple Google search. Here's a sampling from the thread about Taylor's scandal:

It's obvious Taylor's going down when he's agitated on Twitter all the time and does garbage like this.

Scott Taylor was only considered likely R due to his "moderate" image, and the fact he turns out the voters. Glad to see that he is weighing himself down, and that the Senate candidate Stewart will make this a D seat.

Welcome Representative Luria!

Lean D --> Likely D

Anyway, this is right on the border of Lean and Likely D as long as Taylor doesn’t drop out.  And even then, it probably flips.

Yeah,  Taylor's screwed.

Likely D

I really am tempted to move this to likely D

Forging dead people's signatures is not going to be overlooked in a swing district.

he’s gonna lose Re-election. 

And this was what I said:

Duncan Hunter is still leading by 8 points despite literally being indicted for personally spending campaign funds and pretending they were for wounded veterans. But I'm sure a few of Taylor's staffers forging petition signatures means he's doomed, lol.

Just face it guys, nobody cares about Republican scandals these days unless they're molesting children (and even that has far less impact than it should.) Maybe a few more years of polarization and that won't make a difference anymore either, and pundits and posters here will continue to whistle past the graveyard pretending the voters are logical, reasonable, and responsible.

Yeah, if Taylor loses, he was always going to lose. Not because of this. Maybe if he loses by 0.01% and a few Very Serious Pundits live in the district and swung the outcome by voting for Luria I'll change my mind.

Anyway, I might have been being hyperbolic (perhaps even excessively hyperbolic), but my underlying points are absolutely true. 1) People have far more tolerance for scandals these days, particularly Republican scandals 2) This forum overreacts to everything, particularly Republican scandals and/or "gaffes." This place is a left wing echo chamber and circlejerk that almost always buys into its own hype. It took Roy Moore being a serial sexual assaulter and literal pedophile just to barely take him down by the skin of our teeth.

Here's a more recent example: People spiking the football about Kevin Cramer's "Akin comments." North Dakota strongly backs Kavanaugh and a majority of North Dakota voters likely agree with Cramer's comments. The state voted for the pussygrabber by 36 points. Yet he's now doomed because a bunch of liberal Hillary Clinton voters on US Election Atlas Dot Org are offended by his comments? Or because of two Senate races from 6 years ago in different states which are somehow more relevant than the presidential result in the state in question from 2 years ago? Give me a damn break.

Oh boy I remember that thread.


Thanks IceSpear!

[politicallefty]

The polling in OH-01 and VA-02 really went south tonight. I wonder if Friday night could be drag on Democratic numbers, in much the same way Sunday morning would generally be a drag on Republican numbers. Just a possible theory.

[henster]

It's telling CLF has spent nothing in VA-02 but a ton in VA-07.

[Blair]

I feel like everyone is taking wayyyy to much stock in this polling

[wbrocks67]

The polling in OH-01 and VA-02 really went south tonight. I wonder if Friday night could be drag on Democratic numbers, in much the same way Sunday morning would generally be a drag on Republican numbers. Just a possible theory.

I feel like a Friday/Saturday night in general is just a terrible time for polling

[Landslide Lyndon]

I feel like everyone is taking wayyyy to much stock in this polling

Yeah, it's an interesting experiment but otherwise they are just taking advantage of the fact that House polls are few and far between to monopolize the interest of political junkies.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

LOL this project is a joke. Dems are winning 40-50 house seats. And Im not a hack, the hacks are people who support a racist xenophobic disgusting pig president and his rapist supreme court pick.

[Yellowhammer]

They’re getting MN-2 today!

[Xing]

I'd expect Craig to be ahead by a few points in MN-02, but we'll see.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Pureval is performing 21 points better among those “almost certain to vote” than the general electorate (down 10 among all respondents but up 11 in this specific category). Has there been an enthusiasm gap that large in any of the other districts at this point?

[Virginiá]

I feel like everyone is taking wayyyy to much stock in this polling

Maybe, but for some of these seats (most even?), it's all we'll ever see.