Why are NC and AZ Sen treated so differently?

[ProgressiveModerate]

The more I think about it, the more in common these 2 senate races have:

-Both are being held in medium sized states left trending states in the sunbelt that voted for Trump by 3.5-4% in 2016, but where Biden is currently polling slightly ahead of Trump
-Both have weak Republican incumbents; one who was literally appointed after losing a race, and one who in my view only won because 2014 was an R wave
-Both are initially seen as part of the Democrat's path of least resistance to taking back the Senate
-We started getting polls in both races that showed the Democratic challenger leading by pretty unbelievable margins, and while we first treat these polls as outliers, they become the norm (Kelly + 8 and Cunningham + 8 are both pretty expected)
-Polling typically shows both Kelly and Cunningham running a few points ahead of Joe in their respective states
-Both Republican canidates have made some screw ups along the way, and many would argue they tied themselves too close to Trump for the liking of their states
-There is a wide range of polling, from the Democrat being up mid double digits to a narrow victory, but Ds still lead in pretty much every reputable poll
-Both Democrats have raised tons of money for their respective races, much of the money coming from donations across the country as part of a strategic effort to flip the senate

So why does Atlas treat these races so differently despite having very simillar parallels in polling, incumbency, the states themselves, ect? Most of Atlas acts like AZ-Sen is more or less a guarenteed flip while NC-Sen is somewhere between Tossup and Lean D. I will admit I too believe Kelly is in a slightly better position than Cunningham, but not by much. Is this just me who feels this way?

[wbrocks67]

AZ is trending D a lot faster IMO. North Carolina has been kinda fickle.

[Kuumo]

As well as trending Democratic faster than North Carolina, Arizona is one of the Southwestern states where Democrats outperformed polling in 2018. Also, McSally has made a lot more gaffes than Tillis, and to the best of our knowledge, Mark Kelly hasn’t cheated on Gabby Giffords. The race in Arizona seems very predictable, while in North Carolina it seems plausible that there will be a late Tillis surge due to the greater uncertainty.

[Blair]

From my head...

-Kelly is a A+ recruit. Even before textgate Cal was a solid & steady B-.

-Arizona flipped in 2018 in what was a tighter race & that means people naturally see it as flippable.

- McSally is beyond awful & has ran a bad campaign; at least Tillis just seems like an anonymous republican senator.

- The perception of Arizona having a more 'independent' streak (god knows how true it is?) I can picture a lot more Trump-Kelly voters than I can Trump-Cunningham too

[Blair]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/11/republicans-democrats-arizona-blue-428535

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

NC polling does overestimate democrats a little.

[ProgressiveModerate]

NC polling does overestimate democrats a little.

Again, this hasn't consistently proven to be true.  polling underestimated Obama in NC in 2012, while polling underestimated Romney in 2012. The state by state polling errors shift from cycle to cycle, and unless you're NV, you shouldn't assume polling errors will be roughly the same as they been historically unless there's some thyme of reason to that.

[S019]

NC polling does overestimate democrats a little.

Again, this hasn't consistently proven to be true.  polling underestimated Obama in NC in 2012, while polling underestimated Romney in 2012. The state by state polling errors shift from cycle to cycle, and unless you're NV, you shouldn't assume polling errors will be roughly the same as they been historically unless there's some thyme of reason to that.

NV isn't the only example, polling in AZ, NM, and TX often underestimates Dems for the same reason, while Democrats are overestimated in the Midwest, with OH and IA being the worst offenders.

[ProgressiveModerate]

NC polling does overestimate democrats a little.

Again, this hasn't consistently proven to be true.  polling underestimated Obama in NC in 2012, while polling underestimated Romney in 2012. The state by state polling errors shift from cycle to cycle, and unless you're NV, you shouldn't assume polling errors will be roughly the same as they been historically unless there's some thyme of reason to that.

NV isn't the only example, polling in AZ, NM, and TX often underestimates Dems for the same reason, while Democrats are overestimated in the Midwest, with OH and IA being the worst offenders.

IA more so than OH, OH was pretty good up to 2016. Obama actually outperformed polls in much of the rust belt in 2008 and 2012.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

McSally was the weakest incumbent coming into 2020, she had lost before and Rs only had McSally and Ducey, Ducey is still a threat in a Biden midterm, but if Bidens approval are not 44, percent, along with Hassan then they will avoid pitfalls

[Ogre Mage]

I would consider McSally to be considerably weaker because she is a literal loser who has never won a U.S. Senate race.  She got beat by Sinema and then was appointed.  The gaffe filled campaign she has run shows that she is a lousy politician.

Tillis had the good fortune to run in a GOP wave year, but he is a duly elected U.S. Senator.  And he beat an incumbent rather than an open seat race.

As others have noted, Mark Kelly is an top-tier recruit while Cummingham is Tier 2 recruit who turned into damaged goods.

In short, the difference is candidate quality.  

[Vosem]

Three main reasons:
- Arizona polling has often underestimated Democrats recently, while North Carolina polling has often underestimated Republicans recently.
- Cunningham is a much weaker challenger than Kelly; Cunningham's favorability has recently taken a sharp dive after his scandal, while Kelly's favorability is probably the strongest of any Senate challenger this year. Also, while I think the difference between the Democratic candidates is more important, McSally suffers from a perception of her as a perennial candidate or sore loser, while Tillis doesn't have this problem.
- Democrats are also polling stronger in Arizona. The RCP average currently has Kelly leading McSally 50/42; 8 points with just 8% undecided. No poll has shown McSally leading since June. By contrast, the RCP average in North Carolina has Cunningham winning 48/42; 6 points with 10% undecided is (IMO) a meaningfully weaker lead, and the last poll to have Tillis winning was conducted last week (a bit of an outlier, but still).

These three cover it, I think.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

With respect to the polling, it's partly a matter of margins versus topline numbers. Kelly tends to outperform Biden's actual numbers more often and there's clear evidence of him getting crossover support; with Cunningham, that's been less obvious in the past. If we're two weeks out and we're still getting high undecided percentages but large margins in NCSEN (the undecided % tends to be smaller in AZSEN polls than NCSEN ones), I'll start buying into the idea that Cunningham might be winning over a similar proportion of Trump supporters.

[VAR]

Because partisanship almost always wins out in races where the incumbent is underperforming the partisan baseline due to his/her unpopularity.

Remember when Abby Finkenauer   was supposed to beat Blum by double digits because muh unpopular incumbent? Blum lost by just 5 points in what was a localized race in #populist    Iowa in a non-presidential year.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Because partisanship almost always wins out in races where the incumbent is underperforming the partisan baseline due to his/her unpopularity.

Remember when Abby Finkenauer   was supposed to beat Blum by double digits because muh unpopular incumbent? Blum lost by just 5 points in what was a localized race in #populist    Iowa in a non-presidential year.

I think that was more general CW, as opposed to Atlas CW tbf.  IIRC most folks on Atlas were pretty quick to realize - after initially assuming Blum was doomed - that Finkenhauer was probably going to win the election by a narrow margin (and even then, only b/c Blum was such a spectacularly weak incumbent).  I have IA-1 as Tilt D this year, but it’s much closer to Tilt R than Tilt D and I could easily see it going either way.  I feel much better about IA-3 (Lean D) and even IA-2 (solid Tilt-D). 

Incidentally, I think the jury is still out on whether Iowa is (A) slowly trending to the right with Hillary’s unpopularity briefly exaggerating the extent to which this was the case (IIRC, Monica Vernon also ran an abysmal campaign for IA-1 in 2016); (B) is unwinnable statewide except during a perfect storm* or (C) is still pretty competitive, but Republicans just start with a slight edge all things being equal.  I’m very curious to see how much - if at all - Democrats (especially in congressional races) bounce back or recover some lost ground in eastern Iowa.  I think that, as well as the extent to which we improve in the Des Moines metro should tell us a lot about the lay of the land (and what we’d need to win statewide at this point).

*What cost us the Governorship in 2018 was pretty clearly a very real hostility to folks from the Des Moines metro, Reynolds found a surprisingly effective line of attack there.