2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[Devils30]

Cook and Sabato put TX-34 in tossup today. Why lol. The district is BIDEN+16 people. It's basically identical to New Jersey in terms of partisanship. Incumbency shmincumbency, Gonzalez is heavily favored.

South Texas polling is a mess and can work either way. In 2018 we were told Will Hurd was a lock with a 15 point lead and he won by like 900 votes.

[Devils30]

Very frustrating, but it doesn't appear Dems are really actively trying to go after Steel or Kim at this point.

Steel was a Clinton, Biden and no on recall district. Always a chance the Dems get lucky but Dobbs should be a focus in these Cali seats. Not sure why CA-27 is lean R with Roll Call, Garcia is as cooked as any GOP incumbent.

[Devils30]

CNN/SSRS has D+3 on the generic ballot, 50-47

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/cnn-poll-voter-preferences/index.html

They do however have R+5, 48-43, among "competitive districts", but the MoE on that sample is nearly 6%, so not a terrific barometer.

These small samples of competitive districts and polls of 13 swing states are usually useless.

[Devils30]

https://twitter.com/allymutnick/status/1580543260883582977
In addition to Porter, the other double-digit Biden seats the CLF is targeting with these buys are CA-49 (Levin), CT-05 (Hayes), CA-22 (Valadao), CA-13 (OPEN, Duarte R nominee), TX-34 (Flores/Gonzalez), and RI-02 (OPEN, Fung R nominee).

Republicans having a good October in SoCal? Dems cutting spending, GOP ramping it up. It would take a wave to flip Porter’s seat, but she’s not necessarily the best fit for Orange County.

The Dems in CA 27, 41 and 45 have decent fundraising. Remember the polls in the CA recall did underestimate Newsom quite a bit in this region. Obviously Dobbs is a wildcard here as well.

There is a well organized GOP effort to gaslight everyone into thinking a red wave is the only possible outcome of the 2022 election. Look at betting markets, for a month we've had little movement either way outside of Wisconsin and Georgia (better for both incumbents).

The NJ-7 investment suggests the GOP is a bit concerned, I would be too in a 50% college district. Both sides have plenty of money there and not sure if it will matter.

[Devils30]

https://twitter.com/allymutnick/status/1580616520870133760?t=QiO9qzjUc30pMpeszzU...

Hm yeah, outside GOP groups have spent $1.2M here thus far, and Dems have spent $0.

It seems they always figured they didn't have a chance here, though this is another district that may look bad in hindsight that they didn't try and invest in.

Probably a top 2024 target for Dems...not hard to see an increased Dem margin in Maricopa and a subpar midterm performance in rural Latino areas of SE AZ.

[Devils30]

https://twitter.com/allymutnick/status/1580616520870133760?t=QiO9qzjUc30pMpeszzU...

Hm yeah, outside GOP groups have spent $1.2M here thus far, and Dems have spent $0.

It seems they always figured they didn't have a chance here, though this is another district that may look bad in hindsight that they didn't try and invest in.

AZ-6 feels like a loss for the Dems because it is a Biden seat but in terms of odds, it is less favorable than an urban narrow Trump seat like FL-27.

If Peltola, Kaptur, Golden and Cartwright survive, the GOP would need to win 13 Biden seats to gain majority. (Biden won 226-209 in terms of CDs).

Obviously PA-1, CA-40 are unlikely flip, as is NY-1. AZ-6 probably flips red.

That said, it's the next tier where you never know what could happen. NM-2, CA-45, CO-8 are heavily minority seats

[Devils30]

This doesn't seem entirely surprising to me? The Dems already have a House Majority. The focus should always be to maintain all of those seats first and then use extra money to go into ones they think they can also get.

God knows the takes we'd be seeing if they were just blowing their money allover the place and not spending enough to save their own incumbents.

The article also only briefs touches on candidate fundraising, as if these candidates have no money to air ads themselves. Take Smith for example - she doesn't have DCCC/HMP support, but she raised nearly $2M last quarter. These types of things also factor into the decisions, clearly.

But hey, it's also what happens when the GOP has unlimited money from a million billionaire donors. There's only so much you can do to keep up with that.

https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/1580897493247631360

It's an interesting strategy, you can argue that the CA-27's partisan lean could be enough to flip the seat on its own. A lot depends if the Biden- downballot R voters have had it with the GOP after Dobbs.

I would ask Bloomberg for a big last minute donation as well, it could help a lot in SoCal.

Wasserman has also made a big deal about open seats- they do drain resources. That said, quite a few (RI-2, OR-5 and 6, NY-3,4, NC-1, IL-17, CA-13) went for Biden by a considerable margin that partisan lean might save them even if Ds underperform Biden by 4-5%.

[Devils30]

Washington Post-Ipsos poll of Latino voters finds D+27 on the GCB, 63-36.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/hispanic-voters-democrats/

Also says Dems have huge leads in Midwest, West, and Northeast, but only up by 9 in the South. Bolds well for Kelly and Masto, then.

That is not good news for RGV Dems though. Also that overall number I believe is basically the 2020 result with Hispanics

Cuellar is far better than generic D and TX-34 is too Dem to work for the GOP. Ironically they might have created a GOP pack in TX-15 instead of giving their side 2 winnable seats. TX-28's rural trends might ironically be offset by population gains and Dem trends in Bexar. GOP might regret that arm into the city of San Antonio.

[Devils30]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/us/politics/midterm-republican-ad-spending.html?auth=login-google

Very interesting article, the ad rate disparity is much worse for the GOP then I anticipated, very much worth a read

The Dem candidates even in these seats like CA-27, 45, NM-2 do have money. These seats are not a Mastriano situation where there is a 35:1 disparity.

[Devils30]

FOX News has D+3 on generic ballot

[Devils30]

July: R 230 - D 205 (R+25) --- R+4 on GCB
August: R 226 - D 209 (R+17) --- R+2
September: R 223 - D 212 (R+11) --- R+1
October: R 224 - D 211 (R+13) --- R+2

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-lead-house-control-opinion-poll-2022-10-16/

R+2 on GCB, 47-45. They mention that this is due to modeling that young voters (under 45) are still less likely to say they will vote.

They add that if young voters actually vote at the levels of 2018, that it would be D 219 - R 216 in the House.

They are modeling that <45 year olds will only make up 25% of the electorate.

In 2020, it was 40%, and in 2018, it was 35%. So 25% seems like a rather large plunge.

And they still have indies leaning D. There’s plenty of smoke that this is a real race for House.

[Devils30]

The CBS.YouGov poll is 73% age 45 and over (2018 exits were 65%) and 42% conservative (2018 was 36%).

[Devils30]

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/16/blue-state-democrats-midterms-oregon

The GOP gaslighting continues. Does anyone really think NY-17 is in play after NY-19 this summer? I guess if the R+8 pollster in NY-19 did a poll here they can show it a dead heat.

I don't know what will happen but there's a significant chance GOP will waste a lot of money in seats they lose by 9%. Kraushaar thinks Dobbs can't matter in a blue state with abortion rights protected, look at MN-1 as well on this.

Also, some of these college graduates who were 20-24 years old when Obama won in 2008 are now entering their mid to late 30s and becoming high propensity voters for Ds.

[Devils30]

I don't get why everyone is so upset, I like the fact that pollsters are publishing what they get rather than herding. If they get R+3 they should publish R+3, same with D+8.

It's hilarious how liberal outlets like NYT, WashPo have the GOP up while FOX News, Public opinion strategies (GOP leaning firm) has Ds narrowly up. It feels like a giant game of chicken.

There are just a wide range of outcomes, I would say R Senate/R House- 40%, D Senate/R House- 40% and D Senate/D House 20% are the best way to think about it.

Like a football game, the team that is favored by 7 points usually wins 70% of the time or so? Do we see 7 point underdogs win? Yes...quite often actually.

[Devils30]

Gas prices have begun falling in CA NV OR AZ and the Great Lakes. We'll see if it helps.

[Devils30]

The 90% interval probably ranges from D+5 to R+35 in the House and 53-47 (R+3 to D+3) Senate either way.

[Devils30]

I prefer averages so I will go with 538 and the median GCB. I think some forget that despite the latest R polling "surge", their GCB is the same as it was on 8/25- which was post NY-19.

I feel like this is around the median outcome right now:

https://www.270towin.com/2022-house-election/kqy3kn5

I know some GOP will think it's going to be a 40 seat gain but if its an even GCB or R+1, there are not as many districts with huge GOP opportunities. At R+1, some of the Biden +7 seats might stay stubbornly 51-49 Dem.

You can see how Dems would hold the House. CO-8, NC-13, NJ-7, CA-45, NY-22 have a lot of similarities and OR-5, PA-7,8 could always go either way. It is the inside straight that is similar to how Trump carried WI, PA, MI in 2016 when everyone expected him to lose.

And you can see with these, AZ-1, CA-40,41 how the Dems could have a solid chance to flip the House back in 2024.

[Devils30]

This is pretty illuminating. As we know, it's all about turnout.

If youth turnout is similar to 2018 (and 2020), Dems can hold the house.

However, current models from CBS/YouGov and NYT/Siena assume that their turnout will be much lower than the last few cycles.

https://twitter.com/kabir_here/status/1582028711888490496

This is a district by district battle. Ds holding Alaska, OH-9, PA-8 and ME-2 would be huge. There are very few Biden +4 seats, notice how there is a large cluster of Biden +1-2 and Biden +5-7. If Ds can hold those Trump/Dem. seats it vastly increases the odds of pulling it out with a D+0.5 generic ballot and some good luck with suburban voters (see NC-13, NJ-7)

[Devils30]

Biden is at 39/58 in the NYT sample. If he's 43-46% it changes things and this difference does seem to be the difference in the R+3 and D+3 polls.

[Devils30]

I am honestly done caring about polls, we have an election in 3 weeks and we'll find out the truth then!

[Devils30]

I don't know, I'm starting to get that uneasy feeling about those two consecutive generic ballot polls suggesting that things might be turning around in Republicans' favor again. And I say that as someone who has been keeping my expectations relatively low for these elections. It almost hurts more to be given hope and have it snatched away and not matter than the worst case scenario be a constant like how it looked before late July or so.

I think I may just have to hold out for the Senate races or others where the candidates nominated and local factors may matter more and avert any sort of sentiment in the national environment. I mean, in 2018 the GOP netted two Senate seats with a national popular vote for the Democrats that was way higher than what the Republicans will realistically achieve this year. The same could happen for Democrats keeping the Senate, no? I'm not unreasonable in still having that to cling to, right? Or am I deluding myself and already at the bargaining stage of grief?

I mean, the RV in the NYT/Siena polls is 46-46, which is basically right around where the GCB has been for months now (around D+1)

Even the RV in the ABC/Wapo poll that had +5 LV was R+1 in the RV. The results have been pretty much around the same (a few points around D+1, the current average) in some form for a bit now. There's a few whacky LV screens, but I don't really see how there's truly been a ton of change. (not to mention the 538 average would be a smidge higher if not for Traf and Ras's R+6/7 polls)

Also Fox had D+3 on Sunday, but that seems to have been ignored in the hullabaloo.

https://www.cbsnews.com/elections/2020/united-states/house/exit-poll/

There is actually an election Dems won despite losing WWC by 33 and basically tying with white college. No one really remembers the Dems only won the 2020 House vote by 3%.

[Devils30]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/17/democratic-candidates-house-fundraising-00062110

Dems don’t seem to have a fundraising problem in terms of competing.

[Devils30]

One thing different from last year is the Dems have not completely cratered with independents and even led in Fox News, CBS Battleground (but not Siena).

The warning signs with independents were there in VA:

https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2021/10/Fox_October-24-27_Virginia_Topline_October-28-Release.pdf

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ne6DjNT-3vLGgPHEd-dvFjDF3ouU7Xdyo_p4bpyPSv8/edit#gid=0

This year you don't really see these splits and in some cases (especially GA, AZ) you see Dems winning indies outright.

RCP also made the "certain to vote" crowd their number for the Harris and Fox News poll. Their mission is to gaslight and create the narrative this thing is over.

[Devils30]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/19/campaign-election-forecast-gop-00062447

This article basically is just confirming that the Dems triaged WI-3 and acts like they triaged FL-7 and 13 when neither was competitive in the first place. I do think AZ-1 would be a mistake for Dems to give up on...very high % of college grads (not unlike NJ-7).

This is a good district by district demographic breakdown:

The high college grad % in AZ-1, NJ-7, NE-2 and decent college grad +black vote in NC-13 is interesting.

https://echeloninsights.com/turnout-2022/

[Devils30]

It's extremely odd that AZ-02 is competitive but Dems don't seem to want to bother in AZ-01 and AZ-06, both tiny Biden districts. I know they need to focus on their incumbents, but it also seems hard to imagine that the GOP is running away with it in 01 and 06 too.

If Dems lose House by 3-6 seats and its bc AZ-1, CA-45, NE-2, NM-2 don't flip, there are going to be real questions. The Dem establishment just has a bad attitude in general, there is no killer mentality.