2020 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[Antonio the Sixth]

Definitely good news, yeah, and combing through the crosstabs for weird results is always a ridiculous and pointless exercise. The main point of caution is that this is a RV poll with a fairly small sample size. Throwing it into the 538 average brought Dems' lead up by 0.2 points, which seems reasonable.

Hopefully there are more polls like this to come.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Huh, why did Republicans gain 0.1 in the 538 GCB tracker without any new poll being added?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'd much rather have a couple high-quality pollsters showing D+10 than a pollster with a dubious track record and methodology showing D+17, but you've gotta take what you can.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, the slew of new polls that I predicted for today hasn't really materialized so far. Maybe they're waiting for tomorrow so it could count as a final week poll?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The 538 tracker definitely feels like it's been getting swingier. The USC Dornsife poll seems to have moved it all the way from 8.1 back to 8.5 like it was back when multiple high-quality polls had dems up by double digits. Admittedly that poll was a massive outlier, but that's kind of the point: the tracker is supposed to be reticent to follow outliers.

I seem to remember them mentioning that the tracker would become more sensitive as we approach election day, but I'm not sure if it's a great idea, honestly, especially if we keep getting so few high-quality polls.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The 538 GCB tracker, updated to today:


Lots of weird zig-zagging this week, with a dearth of high-quality polls and an unfortunate sensitivity to massive outliers like the USC poll or questionable trackers like Harris and Ipsos. Overall it ends up a wash, but I'm a lot less confident in today's 8.5 than I was in the 8.6 from a week ago.

Here's hoping some good poll comes out soon to give us a new baseline.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Here's hoping some good poll comes out soon to give us a new baseline.

Over the next few days we SHOULD get a flood of 10+ GCB polls from all the quality GCB pollsters, all getting in their last poll before the election.

I really hope you're right.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The 538 GCB tracker, updated to today:


Lots of weird zig-zagging this week, with a dearth of high-quality polls and an unfortunate sensitivity to massive outliers like the USC poll or questionable trackers like Harris and Ipsos. Overall it ends up a wash, but I'm a lot less confident in today's 8.5 than I was in the 8.6 from a week ago.

Here's hoping some good poll comes out soon to give us a new baseline.

Didn't they change their model to make it less swingy like midway through that graph? Just curious what it would look like without those changes.

Yeah, they changed it on September and recalculated every past estimate in the process. You can still view the old pre-Sept. 6 data on their GCB page (there's a button for it at the bottom of the chart). Basically, it's a lot messier.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Morning Consult/Politico, Oct. 25-30, 2543 RV

D: 46 (+1)
R: 38 (-1)

FINALLY a quality GCB poll.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Morning Consult/Politico, Oct. 25-30, 2543 RV

D: 46 (+1)
R: 38 (-1)

FINALLY a quality GCB poll.

I’m not sure I’d put MC on the “quality” level.

Well, at least it's not ridiculously swingy like Ipsos.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Both Democrats and Republicans at their highest point ever on the 538 tracker. Only 7.3% undecideds left.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I agree it's a real shame. Hopefully we will get something, anything from the top tier of pollsters before Tuesday.

[Antonio the Sixth]

* Tosses a crumb to Antonio *

HarrisX, Oct. 28-Nov. 2, 5000 RV including 3167 LV

RV: D 44, R 37

LV: D 50, R 42 (last week: 49/42)

I mean, it's Harris, but yeah, that's something.

It didn't move the needle at all in the 538 tracker.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Utah pollster Dan Jones has passed away.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900040085/utah-leaders-former-students-mourn-passing-of-political-icon-dan-jones.html

RIP

[Antonio the Sixth]

That WaPo poll was D+13 in October. That is worrying.

[Antonio the Sixth]

NBC/WSJ Final poll is D+7

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/democrats-hold-7-point-edge-final-national-nbc-wsj-poll-n931001

Yeah, this is not good at all. I had hoped (not expected) that Dems maintain the higher leads they had previously been getting in the quality polls.

Dems are still favorites to take the House, but the chances are notably lower than they were a few days ago. The only argument that all is well is "maybe the undecideds will break Dem," "maybe the district polls will be more accurate," or "hopefully this is just the quality pollsters herding towards the cheap pollsters" etc. Indeed, maybe so. But also maybe not. This is not very persuasive or confidence inspiring.

I'm feeling significantly more like 2016 than I was yesterday, where Dems seem to have a lead and be likely to win, but where it is too close for comfort. That doesn't mean the outcome will be like 2016, but it also doesn't mean that it won't be like 2016.

In sum, not good. Not good at all.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nate is right that there hasn't been significant movement in the GCB tracker from the past two weeks or so. However, one thing that seems to be happening is that, back then, the quality pollsters tended to show the best results for Democrats, while now their lead is higher in lower-quality ones. It might not mean anything (even a "quality" pollster can screw up, as 2016 showed us), but it's a tidbit worth keeping in mind.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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76-24% Democrat. They also estimate that 62.6% (+/– 2%) of registered Latino voters will cast their vote.

Source

63% in a midterm would be unprecedented. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The 538 GCB tracker ends up at 8.7.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So Wasserman already has the House PV margin at about 6 points, and that's with tons of votes from California left to count. How high do you think it could get?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Except Wasserman has the NPV already at D+6 right now. What accounts for the difference with NYT?

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1064570610506973184

It had a pretty clear D bias in the Senate (with the notable exceptions of NV and TX).

[Antonio the Sixth]

The national PV margin has reached 8.6. One more point and it will be on par with 538's GCB tracker.

I'm actually surprised, given that there is a history of the out-party underperforming GCB polls in wave years.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Harry Enten reports that the least accurate 2018 GCB pollster was, to no one's surprise, Rasmussen:

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Wasn't the adjusted D lead something like D+7 only ?

There were a lot of races which had no Republicans running and therefore were uncontested.

Uncontested races shouldn't exist. They just distort the results.

Still, Rasmussen was the worst though.

If the GCB polls included voters in those districts with uncontested or one-party races (I have no idea if this is the case), then no adjustment is necessary or appropriate.

Well, even if those voters were included in the poll, they were given the option to vote Republican, which they wouldn't in the actual election. I'd like to see serious efforts to model this effect, though, so we can't say for sure if it was worth 1 point, or 1.5 or 0.5.

[Antonio the Sixth]

GCB polls are pretty worthless in Presidential years anyway. Generally, the House vote in a Presidential year looks like the Presidential vote biased toward the majority party by a couple points.