2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[Mr.Phips]

Risky move. His seat's not completely safe.

Redistricting will likely make it so.  He could even get a tendril into the Bronx if needed.

[Mr.Phips]

Is this a good thing?

Hard to say. I'm not much of a fan of Maloney because of his politics, and I'm a bit dismayed that the DCCC would choose an incumbent from a swingy seat given what happened to Bustos this year (redistricting could help Maloney but it won't be a strongly D district and would still be susceptible to Republican swings given the region's trends). Regardless, the DCCC spot is going to be a tough gig this cycle since Democratic losses are basically a given, so whoever runs it should keep minimizing Democratic losses in mind.

The district can be made basically safe by taking just a few precincts in the Bronx.

[Mr.Phips]

Good for the party at all levels, & exactly what Obama should've done during his 2 terms:

https://twitter.com/michaelscherer/status/1364337510063755265

This is how it should always be done. 

[Mr.Phips]

The NRCC is adding a ten more districts to their target list:

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1389520186147999744

CA-07, CA-16, CA-36, IL-03, MI-05, NY-04, NY-20, NY-25, NY-26, PA-06

(Obviously, all of these seats are pretty big stretches in their current forms, but it's likely in anticipation of these seats being changed significantly in redistricting.)

Lol they actually think Dems won’t draw safe seats for incumbents in IL and NY?  Tonko isn’t coming anywhere close to losing as long as he has Albany and Schenectady counties in his district.

[Mr.Phips]

The point is to scare these Democrats so they make more incumbent friendly demands before redistricting. Fairly obvious.  A lot of those upstate seats were relatively close in 2014 and its not like upstate has trended D since 2012. I guess NY04 is to scare Rice but in reality you can just precinct trade between NY01/NY02 so it would be extremely foolish for D's to be scared in Long Island. Meanwhile on upstate I would say on average the number of Dem seats would go up with a more aggressive map but 3 sinks is probably what's needed to placate incumbents.

You can get four pretty solidly blue seats Upstate. Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, and Syracuse/Ithaca.

You shore up the incumbents first. Makes more sense to give Delgado Ithaca . Better bet for Syracuse is to keep it swingy but double bunk Katko/Tenney.

Wouldn’t it also make sense to give Delgado Binghamton?  That way you are basically recreating Maurice Hinchey’s old district.

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/Fla_Pol/status/1389947292501876739?s=20

I'd be surprised if he was the nominee, but a credible candidate nonetheless.

I doubt FL-13 will still be winnable for Dems as redrawn.  That’s a good part of the reason why Crist is running for governor.

[Mr.Phips]

https://mobile.twitter.com/stella2020woof/status/1393236468827672581

Link to the poll and its crosstabs?

https://democracycorps.com/uncategorized/trumps-engaged-party-defining-the-battle-for-2022/

They did mention that they intentionally oversampled Republicans.

[Mr.Phips]

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/forecasting-the-2022-midterm-election-with-the-generic-ballot/

This model is flawed, same guy who said the Dems had to win the generic ballot by 11 to win House in 2018.

1) There is no chance if Dems are -5 on the GCB they are holding the Senate
2) If Dems are -10, they will not hold 3/4 of GA AZ NV NH.
3) Dems will not lose the House at +6 or so, most likely then they will get gains out of NY, IL, MD, NM, CA to offset their losses.

I'm skeptical at a huge divergence between the House and Senate when the median House district is R+2 relative to the popular vote and median Senate state would be around R+4 (GA, AZ). Even if the median House district moves to R+3 or so it's hard to see a Rs winning 25 House seats, Dems keeping Senate.

I agree that Dems are probably only keeping the Senate in a scenario where Republican House gains are around ten or fewer.

[Mr.Phips]

Democrats lost house seats in 2020.

They’re losing a ton in 2022. I will not take anyone who claims that Democrats can keep the house seriously or even give their judgement equal footing of validity as the judgement of someone like myself.

Dems don’t have nearly as many seats to lose as they did in 2010.  I don’t think Dems can keep the House, but more than a 35 seat loss is probably impossible given that Dems only hold 222 seats.

[Mr.Phips]

Remington polled the generic congressional ballot in seven competitive US House districts:

https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/AAN-September-Polling-Memo.pdf

CA-10 (Harder) - 49% Republican/42% Democrat
FL-07 (Murphy) - 48% R/45% D
IA-03 (Axne) - 51% R/42% D
MI-08 (Slotkin) - 52% R/43% D
MI-11 (Stevens) - 51% R/45% D
VA-02 (Luria) - 49% R/46% D
WA-08 (Schrier) - 49% R/45% D
Average - 50% Republican/44% Democrat

MI-08, MI-11, and WA-08 will probably look much different in redistricting.

[Mr.Phips]

2018 Gov nominee and Dutchess County executive Marc Molinaro is running against Delgado in NY-19.

https://twitter.com/timesunion/status/1439274036664602628?s=21

Dems definitely need to redraw this seat to make it more Dem.

[Mr.Phips]

NRCC poll of 85 "battleground" congressional districts-

GCB:
Republicans 43%
Democrats 40%

Biden approval: 45/51 (down from 51/45 in July)

http://www.nrcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/NRCC-October-Battleground-Memo-FINAL.pdf

What are these 85 districts?  There are literally probably only 45 Dems in anything close to battleground districts.

[Mr.Phips]

Current environment probably means a 2010/2014 House popular vote (maybe a little better due to more polarization) of around 52%-46%.

[Mr.Phips]

This was inevitable, from the moment everyone realized COVID actually wasn't going to fade away after vaccines were rolled out, and society would still have major residual problems from the pandemic.

Practically every midterm is a wave against the party in power, and because Democrats have the structural disadvantages they have, it's worse for them even if they manage to get only a modestly unfavorable midterm.

On top of that, Biden's approval ratings actually went down faster than Obama's did during the same period. I don't know why everyone thought just because he had a very modest honeymoon period that somehow that was a signal that it would endure long past Biden's first year.

Dems need to realize that just winning the Presidency is destroying the party.  Each successive midterm wave during a Dem Presidency has brought the party to lower point in state legislative and house seats than the last.  1994 brought Dems lower than at any point since 1946, then 2010 brought Dems lower than 1994 and 2014 brought Dems lower than 2010.   What use is the presidency if you can’t win anything else?

[Mr.Phips]

Biden’s not been a bad president but it seems like he might receive a shellacking even greater than 2010 at this rate. I kind of feel bad for him.

You think Dems would actually lose 63 House seats when they only hold 222?

[Mr.Phips]

Dems need to realize that just winning the Presidency is destroying the party.  Each successive midterm wave during a Dem Presidency has brought the party to lower point in state legislative and house seats than the last.  1994 brought Dems lower than at any point since 1946, then 2010 brought Dems lower than 1994 and 2014 brought Dems lower than 2010.   What use is the presidency if you can’t win anything else?

True, but as I posted elsewhere, Dems don't really have a whole lot of prospects anywhere else as it is. It's not 12 years ago where Democrats had a majority in the Indiana House and controlled state legislatures in the deep south. Most of the country now votes the same way up and down the ballot. Don't get me wrong, there are places Democrats could take control or improve in 2022 (MI, AZ, MN, NH, a few others) if Trump was still president, but it's not a very big list. We came real close to SD-GOV in 2018, but that is practically the best Democrats can now hope for in many conservative states they used to win more often via split ticket voting. Almost winning is still losing.

Not that I don't agree that Democrats need to do better at the state level, but it's not clear what they can do right now.

But it’s the fact that Dems could still drop from their already weak position in state legislatures that should concern them.

[Mr.Phips]

Biden’s not been a bad president but it seems like he might receive a shellacking even greater than 2010 at this rate. I kind of feel bad for him.

You think Dems would actually lose 63 House seats when they only hold 222?

Of course not, but I could Republicans getting to 250 seats which would be higher than either 2010 or 2014. There was so much incredibly low hanging fruit in 2010 that’s not the case in our polarized environment now. I could see Golden losing by 15 pts but besides that there aren’t too many massive Dem over performers that could fall prey to a wave environment.

I’m guessing right now it would be around what 2014 was (247 seats).

[Mr.Phips]

Biden’s not been a bad president but it seems like he might receive a shellacking even greater than 2010 at this rate. I kind of feel bad for him.

You think Dems would actually lose 63 House seats when they only hold 222?

I mean the obvious similarity would be dems at 193 house seats. R+29.

Yeah I think that’s a pretty likely result.

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/RealignmentP/status/1457419368120430603?s=20

This is sort of speculation is a little silly considering redistricting isn't finished yet.

Yeah redistricting probably will raise the floor somewhat for Dems while also lowering their ceiling.  For instance, Dems are likely to lose FL-07, NC-01, GA-06, VA-07, FL-13, OH-13, and TX-15 in redistricting.  Well, if the swing is this bad, they would have lost those seats anyway.

It would be quite scary for Dems if they actually fall below their post 1928 low of 188 seats (reached in 1946 and 2014).

[Mr.Phips]

Disaster poll. The only saving grace for Democrats at this point may be gerrymandering CA and NY as much as possible. This poll would be something like a 60-70 seat gain for Republicans regardless. This is the "Pascrell in danger" scenario.

This would likely be more like R+50.  Something like that would pretty much relegate the Democratic Party to the minor party Republicans were from 1932-1938.

[Mr.Phips]

I'm highly skeptical, but a wave of that size probably would actually make seats like VA-10 and MN-03 competitive again.

VA-10 likely gets redrawn to be even more Dem than now, but I guess it’s possible you could see a 2010 VA-11 like close result in MN-03.

[Mr.Phips]

Disaster poll. The only saving grace for Democrats at this point may be gerrymandering CA and NY as much as possible. This poll would be something like a 60-70 seat gain for Republicans regardless. This is the "Pascrell in danger" scenario.

This would likely be more like R+50.  Something like that would pretty much relegate the Democratic Party to the minor party Republicans were from 1932-1938.

Democrats would have to lose at least a 100 seats for that and even then they wouldn’t be as bad as a position as the GOP were from 1932-1938.

Well you have to remember that in 1932-1938 Dems about 20-30 very conservative members from the south.  So really, you should add 20-30 to the Republican number to get the true level of conservative strength in congress then.

[Mr.Phips]

Disaster poll. The only saving grace for Democrats at this point may be gerrymandering CA and NY as much as possible. This poll would be something like a 60-70 seat gain for Republicans regardless. This is the "Pascrell in danger" scenario.

This would likely be more like R+50.  Something like that would pretty much relegate the Democratic Party to the minor party Republicans were from 1932-1938.

Democrats would have to lose at least a 100 seats for that and even then they wouldn’t be as bad as a position as the GOP were from 1932-1938.

Well you have to remember that in 1932-1938 Dems about 20-30 very conservative members from the south.  So really, you should add 20-30 to the Republican number to get the true level of conservative strength in congress then.

Even then republicans still would have to get to 280-290 seats to get to that level . I’d say 1958-1966 is a better comparison if you make that adjustment than 1932-1938.

For the two year periods after 1958 and 1964, I’d agree.  1961-1965 had the more normal Dem level of around 260 seats (which would equal around 230-240 Republican seats today).  I’d throw in 1975-1981 as a period when Republicans were pretty close to irrelevant as well (Dems held between 277 and 292 seats).   Basically if Dems fall below 2014 levels (188 seats) in 2022, they are pretty much as bad off as Republicans were at their 1959-1960, 1965-1966, and 1975-1980 periods of complete irrelevance downballot.

[Mr.Phips]

Disaster poll. The only saving grace for Democrats at this point may be gerrymandering CA and NY as much as possible. This poll would be something like a 60-70 seat gain for Republicans regardless. This is the "Pascrell in danger" scenario.

This would likely be more like R+50.  Something like that would pretty much relegate the Democratic Party to the minor party Republicans were from 1932-1938.

Democrats would have to lose at least a 100 seats for that and even then they wouldn’t be as bad as a position as the GOP were from 1932-1938.

Well you have to remember that in 1932-1938 Dems about 20-30 very conservative members from the south.  So really, you should add 20-30 to the Republican number to get the true level of conservative strength in congress then.

Even then republicans still would have to get to 280-290 seats to get to that level . I’d say 1958-1966 is a better comparison if you make that adjustment than 1932-1938.

There aren't enough competitive or semi-competitive seats today for either party get below 170-175 seats. The GOP in 2014 at 247 seats was pretty much maxed out.

If HRC was elected in 2016 and 2018 ended up an R wave, I don't think the GOP would have made more than 10-15 seats net gain.

I tend to agree.  It will be interesting to see if Dems fall below their 2014 floor of 188 seats in 2022.  That’s an important psychological barrier.

[Mr.Phips]

Holy sh*t it's 1894! This pollster has had problems in the past, but when they are wrong, they almost always err on the side of overestimating Dems. 

R+10 would be the biggest Republican win in the House popular vote since 1928, which was R+14.8.  Both 1994 and 2010 were R+6.8 and 1946, the post-New Deal R record, was R+8.5.

If it’s 1894 then who is William Jennings Bryan in 2024?