2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[kwabbit]

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.

[kwabbit]

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.

[kwabbit]

Indiana 1st is definitely flippable, it has been silently trending republican

Which is why it was so boneheaded for Republicans to not change it at all. They could have shifted it 5 pts to the right with minimal line changes. Simply taking a few of the counties to the South of Lake and ceding Michigan City would’ve changed the partisan composition meaningfully.

[kwabbit]

New CNN poll (Nov 1-4) has GCB at D+5

Democrats 49%
Republicans 44%

I'm sure it will get the same amount of coverage as the Suffolk poll though!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/politics/cnn-poll-biden-job-approval/index.html

CNN should get a new pollster. C-rated and it doesn't seem like there going to be more accurate in 2022 if they're showing D+5. Although CGB polling is imperfect by definition.

[kwabbit]

New CNN poll (Nov 1-4) has GCB at D+5

Democrats 49%
Republicans 44%

I'm sure it will get the same amount of coverage as the Suffolk poll though!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/politics/cnn-poll-biden-job-approval/index.html

With all due respect, if you still believe any poll that has dems leading on the GB after what just happened, I don't know what to tell you

I didn't say I believed it, did I? Please don't put words in my mouth. My point is that people will run with whatever one they believe the most. People love the Dems in Disarray narrative, so naturally the Suffolk poll got a lot of mileage. This one doesn't say that, so it won't.

My thoughts are it goes into the average. The average is basically tied right now, which seems reasonable.

The CGB is definitely not tied right now. Everything about this past Tuesday indicates an environment at least R+5, maybe more.

[kwabbit]

New CNN poll (Nov 1-4) has GCB at D+5

Democrats 49%
Republicans 44%

I'm sure it will get the same amount of coverage as the Suffolk poll though!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/politics/cnn-poll-biden-job-approval/index.html

With all due respect, if you still believe any poll that has dems leading on the GB after what just happened, I don't know what to tell you

I didn't say I believed it, did I? Please don't put words in my mouth. My point is that people will run with whatever one they believe the most. People love the Dems in Disarray narrative, so naturally the Suffolk poll got a lot of mileage. This one doesn't say that, so it won't.

My thoughts are it goes into the average. The average is basically tied right now, which seems reasonable.

The CGB is definitely not tied right now. Everything about this past Tuesday indicates an environment at least R+5, maybe more.

If we went by the results in 2009, they had an R+20 at this point.

Virginia Gov indicated R+16, NJ indicated R+11, if you go strictly by PVI. State races weren't as nationalized then. I imagine if Deeds brought in the entirety of the Democratic party, maybe he would've lost by 11 instead of 17.

The fact that the main races of Tuesday had congruent results, along with the multitude of downballot races across the nation that went hard for Republicans, would suggest at least R+5. The gubernatorial elections themselves imply R+8, so I am discounting the result to an extent.

[kwabbit]

This is a great ad, but isn't SC-01 only becoming more red in redistricting?

https://twitter.com/RyanThompsonSC/status/1457858764669849602

Yeah they’re going to make it more R. When I played around in DRA, it was quite difficult to make it very R if you keep Horry whole. Definitely a seat Dems will pick up this decade almost regardless of its new shape.

[kwabbit]

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.

Pascrell's seat is only D+13, is overloaded with white Hispanics, and he's not a particularly popular incumbent. Still waiting to see how Ciattarelli did there overall, but several large towns trended strongly R in both 2020 and 2021. It feels like the exact sort of place where you'd have even stronger swings than nationwide.

(His seat being competitive is a personal obsession of mine, which is why I used his name, but is a very realistic option for the last domino to fall in an absolute tidal wave. Of course, redistricting may take it off the table in even the craziest scenario.)

I don't think there's any way Pascrell goes down. Pallone's district is less strongly D, only +16 for Biden versus +26 in Pascrell's. Pascrell would be seat 300 or something for Rs I feel like. Pallone might be 260ish.

[kwabbit]

Asymmetric polarization will be the end of this country, I swear.

Is polarization that asymmetric? This gets repeated extremely often on this forum but as far as I can tell it’s just another excuse when Democrats aren’t winning. Democrats won the House vote by 8 in 2018, was that asymmetric polarization from the Republicans harming them? No, it was just the environment shifting. Trump’s approval rating at this point in his presidency was 37%. It’s not that Democrats are being weak by not being partisan enough, it’s that a year into a presidents term is when the base is naturally least involved. That problem affected Trump, but I would wager in January 2024 whoever the Democratic nominee is will have plenty of intra party support.

[kwabbit]

We’re basically at the point where even a series of Republican recruitment failures, flawed Republican campaigns, and very aggressive Democratic redistricting decisions/gerrymanders would result in a 54R-46D Senate as well as a healthy GOP majority in the House. This one increasingly looks like it’s set in stone.

I think Republicans could blow swingy moderate New Hampshire with Bolduc, but besides that I agree wholeheartedly.

[kwabbit]

We’re basically at the point where even a series of Republican recruitment failures, flawed Republican campaigns, and very aggressive Democratic redistricting decisions/gerrymanders would result in a 54R-46D Senate as well as a healthy GOP majority in the House. This one increasingly looks like it’s set in stone.

I think Republicans could blow swingy moderate New Hampshire with Bolduc, but besides that I agree wholeheartedly.

I disagree with NH being all that "swingy" and "moderate," but yes, the NH seat is the one where they’ll need to ride a big wave for an upset (and even then, it will be a narrow win), but even that’s looking far more likely now than it did a few months ago. It’s certainly hilarious that people actually considered NH the "most likely Senate flip" for most of the year (even with Sununu or Ayotte, it’s a state that’s fairly reliably blue at the federal level except in massive Republican wave environments). While it’s true that Hassan is a fairly "weak incumbent," these things really don’t matter that much in blue state federal races.

I tend to think that NH is less Dem than most. Trump came very close to winning it in 2016; it even voted two points to the right of the nation. It was a great fit for a big swing towards Biden, but it's not so educated that it should really trend D long term. NH is elastic at least from my perspective. That doesn't mean it'll swing 20 points for each point the nation swings, but waves can have a more pronounced effect on its results, although popular figures have powerful incumbency. Ayotte had a big victory in 2010 and the GOP did quite well in 2014, even with Shaheen at the top of the ticket.

[kwabbit]

We’re basically at the point where even a series of Republican recruitment failures, flawed Republican campaigns, and very aggressive Democratic redistricting decisions/gerrymanders would result in a 54R-46D Senate as well as a healthy GOP majority in the House. This one increasingly looks like it’s set in stone.

At this point it seems trifectas only last two years and the party in power is punished for winning the presidency. This is not sustainable going forward.

It’s been sustainable for decades. It wouldn’t be a major problem if the two-year window of governance witnessed good/impactful governance.

Its only recently we've had these massive swings and seen the party who wins the presidency punished for it. Democrats had the House from 1954 to 1994. It seems very unlikely either party will have a long term majority for a long time.

Anti incumbent party swings still happened, it’s just that the Democrats had the entire South guaranteed and the two parties fought over the rest. If the parties followed the liberal vs conservative mold they do now those house flips would’ve happened.

[kwabbit]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections

Case in point.

[kwabbit]

Asymmetric polarization will be the end of this country, I swear.

Is polarization that asymmetric? This gets repeated extremely often on this forum but as far as I can tell it’s just another excuse when Democrats aren’t winning. Democrats won the House vote by 8 in 2018, was that asymmetric polarization from the Republicans harming them? No, it was just the environment shifting. Trump’s approval rating at this point in his presidency was 37%. It’s not that Democrats are being weak by not being partisan enough, it’s that a year into a presidents term is when the base is naturally least involved. That problem affected Trump, but I would wager in January 2024 whoever the Democratic nominee is will have plenty of intra party support.

Yes simply for the fact that Trump with 37% approval resulted in 40 house seats but gaining 3 senate seat but Biden at 37% will result in 50+ House seats and losing 4-5 senate seats

Trump's approval was -11 in November 2018. If Biden's approval is at -11 in November 2022, we might see a gain of 30-45 seats. But that's not asymmetric polarization as much as Republican natural geographic bias/gerrymandering in the House. Even if Biden is at -11, I would be surprised if Republicans can reach a +8 national vote like 2018 House Dems achieved.

I don't see that much evidence Dem-leaning voters are more likely to vote for the GOP than vice versa. If anything, it seems like this idea comes from the psychological bias to believe that one's position is more popular than it is. Dem avatars are leading themselves to believe that the country is perpetually ripe for a Democratic landslide, just that it lays dormant because of Democratic incompetence. The reality is that the country is more evenly divided, perhaps with a narrow Democratic edge, and our elections reflect that.

[kwabbit]

How does YouGov/the Economist actually have a D +9 generic ballot? That is such a glaring error that one would think they would make efforts to change their methodology to achieve more realistic results. Their approval numbers for Biden are reasonable, so why is the GCB so extreme. How are they sampling so many Biden disapprove/congressional Dem supporting people?

[kwabbit]

How does YouGov/the Economist actually have a D +9 generic ballot? That is such a glaring error that one would think they would make efforts to change their methodology to achieve more realistic results. Their approval numbers for Biden are reasonable, so why is the GCB so extreme. How are they sampling so many Biden disapprove/congressional Dem supporting people?

Is it worse than the Rasmussen R+10 from a while back? I don't think so. Just because it does not line up with your priors it does not make it wrong. That having been said D+9 is probably an outlier IMO but like all polls it should be thrown in the average.

The R+10 result is definitely hard to believe as well, but ABC/WaPo and CNBC also had R+10, and they are both quite good posters. A reasonable prior should be something like R+4, given the results of high-quality firms, Biden's approvals, and actual election results. The current average is shaped in large part by mediocre online firms given that few live-caller pollsters have been in field lately. There is a very wide gulf between online and live-caller at the moment in terms of CGB.

I'm not saying to not throw it in the average. The poll was conducted honestly and any poll that was conducted honestly has some value. My question is why is The Economist satisfied with their polling? They are not running a functionally partisan operation like Rasmussen/Trafalgar, so one would think they wouldn't want to put out results over 10 points from any reasonable assessment of the truth. Given that they also use this data as an essential part of their data journalism operation, they should be seeking something that is more truthful.

[kwabbit]

Lol, the CNN has a 6pt shift to the GOP after the Roe decision was leaked. They had R+1 from April 28- May 1 and R +7 from May 3-5.

Senate Lean R —> Lean D

[kwabbit]

Lol, the CNN has a 6pt shift to the GOP after the Roe decision was leaked. They had R+1 from April 28- May 1 and R +7 from May 3-5.

Senate Lean R —> Lean D

The average American voter has a room temperature IQ, so this shouldn't surprise anyone.

The Economy is good but the reason why voters are still mad because the Gas prices we gotta wait till see in the Fall to see if the Gas prices but there aren't anymore 33% as I see it 45 is close to 50%

LOL, the Economy is bad, even the Stock Market tanked!

I know this is impossible for you, but quit cherry picking data.

Real wages have fallen, which is the best metric of economic welfare. There have been nominal wage gains and good employment numbers, but the average American has gotten poorer in real terms.

[kwabbit]

I am becoming increasingly convinced there will be a recession this year. I think that will severely damage democrats and maybe make this 2006 2.0.

Then Red Avs won’t be able to post about job numbers. It is pick your poison. Either inflation is going to remain high or the only economic ‘achievement’ of the Biden presidency will be gone as unemployment rises. With the cautiousness of the Fed, we’ll probably get some of both.

I don’t think it’ll change the circumstance of the election too much though. Americans already view the economy as bad. Becoming a different kind of bad won’t change the economic outlook. We’re already in a situation where economic conditions affect the assessment of the economy for about half of partisans. 2019 for example was a great economy and all Republicans and half of Democrats thought so. 2022 is a bad economy and all Republicans and half of Democrats think so. It would take a lot of GenMacArthur to think the economy is bad. If 9% inflation doesn’t deter his type, rising unemployment won’t either especially if he can tout lowering inflation.

[kwabbit]

Wonky result from YouGov/Economist - their GCB remains at R+5 for a second week, but Ds have a 2pt advantage on both the questions of "what is your preferred senate/house outcome this year" ....

Also genuine question - is this thing weighted between age groups? Their sample contains only 150 people who are <44 years old but 620+ people who are >44 lol

(also makes crosstabs essentially useless for many categories including <44, blacks, hispanics, etc.)

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/uhxw71f4tf/econTabReport.pdf

Yes it is weighted. It is a professionally done poll.

The GCB is moving a few points to the Dems at the moment, possibly as a result of Dobbs. Given that polls are random sampling, a zero week to week change in some polls is to be expected, along with the movement to the Dems in some of the other polls.

[kwabbit]

Data For Progress of all places has R+3 48-45. Taken July 13-25.

https://twitter.com/IAPolls2022/status/1553100942182055936

Is this actually a D-commissioned poll?

Low key think this might be a poll released to try to keep people invested / not getting complacent lol, not sure why a D polling firm would release it otherwise.

Data for Progress has been getting relatively GOP favorable numbers all cycle. They try to be innovative and honest about their methodology, so I just think that’s what they’re getting at the moment. They are a partisan pollster, but not really a partisan hack pollster.

[kwabbit]

Three millions of dollars being poured into Ohio in a race that Vance was never in any serious risk of losing is stunning.

Apparently the SLF has a different evaluation of the race than you do.

Internal polling is most of the time less accurate than public polling. Mitch McConnell does not have much more useful intel on this race than we do.

In the case of Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, and other former swing states that have trended quickly, he might be tethered to a time when Ohio was close to the national environment, not the current reality when it's significantly to the right of it. As it stands, Vance will probably win from partisans coming home in the last few months. But McConnell might think that wouldn't be a factor if he doesn't hold Ohio as a strong lean-R state at worst.

[kwabbit]

Three millions of dollars being poured into Ohio in a race that Vance was never in any serious risk of losing is stunning.

Apparently the SLF has a different evaluation of the race than you do.

Internal polling is most of the time less accurate than public polling. Mitch McConnell does not have much more useful intel on this race than we do.

In the case of Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, and other former swing states that have trended quickly, he might be tethered to a time when Ohio was close to the national environment, not the current reality when it's significantly to the right of it. As it stands, Vance will probably win from partisans coming home in the last few months. But McConnell might think that wouldn't be a factor if he doesn't hold Ohio as a strong lean-R state at worst.

There are also competitive House races in Ohio, so getting more R messaging out would help in the Republican goal of taking at least one chamber, even if they don't need it for holding the Senate race.

That's true. Is there any way to see if the funding is more specifically targeted to Cincy, Toledo, Akron?

[kwabbit]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but has NYT/Siena indicated whether they’re going to conduct state or district level polling this cycle? I feel like it was implied back in July when they released their first poll, but since then it’s been complete silence. It’s not like there’s plenty of time either; there’s now only 5 weeks until Election Day.

It would be pathetic to dodge the cycle completely. If Nate Cohn wants to accuse the polls of overestimating Dems, then he should put something out there himself. He’s not just a data analyst, but a major pollster himself, so I think he has that duty.

[kwabbit]

Idk if this is the right thread to make this observation, but does anyone else feel like we really hit a brick wall with the state polling in the last week or so? Like there's been next to nothing coming out, even from the garbage pollsters.

Pollsters are cowards. They don’t want criticism if they get it wrong again so they’re just skipping the race entirely. We’ve gotten a Trump vs. Steven Segal poll in the last two weeks, but not a PA Sen poll.

One would think NYT/Siena would do at least a set of state polls because they hype themselves up a bit, but it seems like they’re just doing a few GCB polls. Quinnipiac is at like 25% volume, Monmouth at like 50%, ABC and NBC skipping entirely. At least Fox is still trying.