Reuters/Ipsos: Biden +8 in WI, Biden +4 in PA

[jamestroll]

A combination of lack of experience, single cycle fixation, Philly suburbs uber alles and failure to understand the underlying demographics regarding PA is on full display in this thread.


Trump is not going to win PA, unless something miraculous happens. However it is still very possible for Pennsylvania to vote considerably to the right of the nation. If 538 is right and Biden wins PA 53-47 while winning nationwide by 10, that makes PA R+4, compared to about R+2 last time, D+1 in 2012, D+4 in 2004.

There are two big factors that you people keep forgetting about the 2018 information.
First Casey and Wolf were both very popular incumbents, which is why they got elected by wider margins. In 2008 PA trended Republican in spite of Rendell getting 60% and Casey getting 59% just two years prior.

Second, the map was redrawn (just as note, I actually like the new map) and Republicans basically conceded what was their former territory in Delco, Perry is far too conservative for his district now and Democrats have basically 4 dense urban or inner suburban districts, two of which vote over 80% Democratic. Even with all of that, the GCB in PA was I think D+10, while the nation was D+9. It would be advantageous to compare the GCB in 2006 to that of 2004 and 2008, but keep in mind, Democrats are then and now much better at outperforming the ticket down ballot in PA.

I am so sick and tired of people on this forum down playing how competitive PA is because muh reasons and then getting shocked that someone like Pat Toomey got elected/reelected in the state. Underestimate it at your peril.

Oh yeah, I completely agree with you on PA dude. It's a Republican-leaning state. The "Philly suburbs" aren't as Democrat as people here think and never will vote like NOVA (Philly suburbs have loads of WWC voters....also Dem urban vote in Pittsburg and um Philly is decreasing). The rest of the state is very unfavorable for the Democrats. PA again in 2018 much of that was due to ugh Casey being a local legend (fathers name).

Another way to put it...Think of New York...now subtract NYC, subtract Suffolk/Nassau, AND finally subtract Westchester. Then make rural areas about 10% more conservative (at least). That's what PA is in a nutshell.

I think Biden wins the state simply due to the national margins. But it won't be by more than 3 or 4 percentage points.

It will DEF trend right.

Your points are correct on the Philly suburbs but still at the end if a Democrat wins PA it is because of the Philly suburbs largely.

i also think many people on this site have been too gun ho that all elections will follow an exact uniform swing PVI wise from presidential voting patterns. Which is clearly not going to happen.

I have never understood this presumptuous attitude. X state will never vote more R or D then y state. I think it is a form of status quo bias. People are use to the map being a certain way and cannot process the coming reality that is a Democratic sunbelt and the resulting implications of that elsewhere.

I am just highly skeptical of predicting to far into the future because I feel like people just start to say random things just to make themselves sound smart. But the current trends do suggest that a Democratic victory in PA is boosted by Philly suburbs but they are not near as Democratic as Nova's suburbs making PA more difficult for Democrats than VA.

And I also do not believe that every election from President to City Council will follow exact PVI when polarization will obviously subdue and to be honest polarization is just a buzzword. During the 90s and 2000s were just had many long term out party incumbents who kept being re-elected due to being incumbents.

Expecting all elections to follow an exact formula has been disproven many times including this year!

Parties have really become too ideologically defined to expect a GOP Mayor of New York City or a Democratic Governor of Wyoming in the present days but we shouldn't expect that incumbent Democrats with positive approval ratings are doomed in 2022 just because Biden is in office.

I think you may be taking it a little too far in the other direction there.

Taking PVI as a hard fast unchanging rule is misguided, but at the same time saying there are now rules at all is likewise.

Most of what happened in 2018 fit within what my expected scenario based on a number of factors, so the rules definitely applied there. And if you look at 2016 you see many things that followed on previous results including a multi-cycle trend of Republicans outperforming in good years in the rust belt and under performing in the SW, which you saw in both 2010 and 2014. Compare Ernst's huge win in 2014 to say Gardner's surprisingly narrow one.

I did not say anywhere in my post that there are no rules at all.

But I do remember many people saying that the House would flip back to the GOP and that suburbs would all become GOP again under Trump just because of Garcia's win..


I agree that polling has underestimated Democrats in the southwest and over estimated them in the Midwest the past few cycles but we wont know if polling has been corrected for that for this cycle until the results come in.

As far as 2018 there were not really any conditions of a wave at all. Democrats were able to win the house by winning Democratic trending suburban areas and McCaskill, Heitkamp and Donnelly were essentially remnants of the past and the lack of wave conditions plus their states partisanship made their re-election bids unrealistic. Oh and in McCaskill's case her unpopularity.

[jamestroll]

Taking PVI as a hard fast unchanging rule is misguided, but at the same time saying there are now rules at all is likewise.

You need to retract that because in no way did I say that.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Taking PVI as a hard fast unchanging rule is misguided, but at the same time saying there are now rules at all is likewise.

You need to retract that because in no way did I say that.

I never said you did either. Reread my post and please kindly get off your high horse.

I said you were taking it too far the other direction, not that you were going all the way to the other extreme.

[jamestroll]

Taking PVI as a hard fast unchanging rule is misguided, but at the same time saying there are now rules at all is likewise.

You need to retract that because in no way did I say that.

I never said you did either. Reread my post and please kindly get off your high horse.

I said you were taking it too far the other direction, not that you were going all the way to the other extreme.

Excuse me??

I am not going to the other extreme so I am asking you retract that immediately.

[wbrocks67]

I see people are saying the Philly suburbs aren't as blue as people think, and yet Biden is on track to get close to Wolf's +30 margin there. People who don't know PA are replying and it shows.

[Lief 🗽]

New Poll: Wisconsin President by Ipsos on 2020-10-19

Summary: D: 51%, R: 43%, U: 3%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details

[Lief 🗽]

New Poll: Pennsylvania President by Ipsos on 2020-10-19

Summary: D: 49%, R: 45%, U: 4%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Taking PVI as a hard fast unchanging rule is misguided, but at the same time saying there are now rules at all is likewise.

You need to retract that because in no way did I say that.

I never said you did either. Reread my post and please kindly get off your high horse.

I said you were taking it too far the other direction, not that you were going all the way to the other extreme.

Excuse me??

I am not going to the other extreme so I am asking you retract that immediately.

Reread the bolded.

I am not going to retract anything because:
1) What I said was an accurate reflection of my thoughts your post communicated respectfully and in line with the rules of this forum, "you taking it too far the other direction" on PVI consideration. The later sentence was not referring to you but a general statement of the extremes to give people some perspective.
2) I am under no obligation to censor our retract my legitimate analysis and what I would consider to be accurate take on the problems with your statement about cyclical politics and PVI concerns.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I see people are saying the Philly suburbs aren't as blue as people think, and yet Biden is on track to get close to Wolf's +30 margin there. People who don't know PA are replying and it shows.

Excuse me, I was born in PA, and lived there for a number of years. I have been following PA politics very closely for 16 years, long enough to have seen the last rodeo of people saying PA was solid Democratic because of the Philly burbs only for Toomey to win twice and Trump to become the first Republican in 28 years to win the state without carrying a single one of the four Philly suburb counties.

I didn't vote for Trump or Biden in this election, and personally would be happy to see Trump gone. But if there is someone that is ignoring the history of this state to make predictions about it's results relative to the national average, it is certainly not I.

[TheLaRocca]

I see people are saying the Philly suburbs aren't as blue as people think, and yet Biden is on track to get close to Wolf's +30 margin there. People who don't know PA are replying and it shows.

Excuse me, I was born in PA, and lived there for a number of years. I have been following PA politics very closely for 16 years, long enough to have seen the last rodeo of people saying PA was solid Democratic because of the Philly burbs only for Toomey to win twice and Trump to become the first Republican in 28 years to win the state without carrying a single one of the four Philly suburb counties.

I didn't vote for Trump or Biden in this election, and personally would be happy to see Trump gone. But if there is someone that is ignoring the history of this state to make predictions about it's results relative to the national average, it is certainly not I.

So you agree with my analysis of the state voting 3 or 4% to the right of the nation?

I'm thinking 50-47 Biden. What about NC also?

I voted for Trump last time but not this time also.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I see people are saying the Philly suburbs aren't as blue as people think, and yet Biden is on track to get close to Wolf's +30 margin there. People who don't know PA are replying and it shows.

Excuse me, I was born in PA, and lived there for a number of years. I have been following PA politics very closely for 16 years, long enough to have seen the last rodeo of people saying PA was solid Democratic because of the Philly burbs only for Toomey to win twice and Trump to become the first Republican in 28 years to win the state without carrying a single one of the four Philly suburb counties.

I didn't vote for Trump or Biden in this election, and personally would be happy to see Trump gone. But if there is someone that is ignoring the history of this state to make predictions about it's results relative to the national average, it is certainly not I.

So you agree with my analysis of the state voting 3 or 4% to the right of the nation?

I'm thinking 50-47 Biden. What about NC also?

I voted for Trump last time but not this time also.

I think it can but there are a lot of moving parts. We got anecdotal reports of Democratic internals and also lower quality pollsters saying it is much closer than the national margin. It will be interesting to see if the higher quality polls next week reflect this movement or whether we are polling different universe's and we end up finding out on election day.

I think it depends the exact margin of the national average, because if Trump just completely implodes then it could even trend Democratic.

There is a scenario where 3 to 4 is possible simply because Trump has conceded WI and MI and is losing ground in places like TX, GA compared to last time, and when you have that many big states moving so substantially and PA were to remain in a narrow range by way of it being contested still heavily and its demographics, then it certainly is possible.

[Badger]

Native Pennsylvanian here, Pittsburgh area to be specific. Still follow politics out there very closely. It doesn't take a political genius to spot that the Democrats weakness is but they have so little support outside greater Philly. They have a reasonably sized vote sink in Allegheny County, and a couple counties like Lackawanna and Dauphin where they technically one but by thin enough margins that it did very little for Clinton's net vote total. So yeah, greater Philly and Allegheny county is about it. The entire rest of the state runs the gamut from tilt D in a handful counties to Ruby Atlas red. It's not just Western Pennsylvania either.

[Horus]

Native Pennsylvanian here, Pittsburgh area to be specific. Still follow politics out there very closely. It doesn't take a political genius to spot that the Democrats weakness is but they have so little support outside greater Philly. They have a reasonably sized vote sink in Allegheny County, and a couple counties like Lackawanna and Dauphin where they technically one but by thin enough margins that it did very little for Clinton's net vote total. So yeah, greater Philly and Allegheny county is about it. The entire rest of the state runs the gamut from tilt D in a handful counties to Ruby Atlas red. It's not just Western Pennsylvania either.

This is why Obama's first stop is Philly. Juicing turnout there is vital.