WA SEN (Trafalgar): Murray +3

[politicallefty]

Did they forget to poll King County?

[S019]

Polls like this are why I don't trust Trafalgar polling at all.

[MT Treasurer]

Embarrassing poll, and to my delight shows that they haven't suddenly dropped their pro-R bias. Wisconsin could be on the menu after all.

Except that you completely ignored the fact that their WI poll shows Barnes ahead by 2. If you think a polling firm is completely untrustworthy, you discount all of their polls, you don’t get to pick and choose or "unskew" their numbers, especially when other polls from the same company contradict your narrative.

[Minnesota Mike]

As has been said above in the recent primary Dems outpolled Republicans 57-43 in the two party vote. I figure the general election will have about 3.5 million voters (would be the same percentage increase in total vote as between the 2018 primary and general), that would mean Smiley would have to win the "new"/3rd party primary vote by around 10% assuming primary voters vote for the same party in the general. Not happening.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Trafalgar is good for the Midwest/Rust Belt and not really the rest of the nation

[Progressive Pessimist]

Murray+13 might be more like it. Is there any race they've ever polled that isn't in the single digits? Serious question.

I'm still willing to take Trafalgar polls at face value...but not in the West. Between this and their Colorado polls, I am growing more convinced that theory is true.

[Continential]

So Murray is going to overperform in the rural areas but lise Seattle.

Makes sense!

Well bgwah is voting Smiley

[Burke Bro]

Murray+13 might be more like it. Is there any race they've ever polled that isn't in the single digits? Serious question.

I'm still willing to take Trafalgar polls at face value...but not in the West. Between this and their Colorado polls, I am growing more convinced that theory is true.

Imagine if both this trafalgar poll and the one in Wisconsin are off by 10 points, but in opposite directions. People would lose their minds, even though a Murray +13 and Johnson +8 result are perfectly consistent with their states’ partisanship relative to each other. 

[Alben Barkley]

Interesting that people are pointing out that Trafalgar always seems to show close races. That way they can either say they got it right or at least were “close.”

I’m growing more convinced by the day their polls are not even real polls.

[wbrocks67]

Trafalgar needs to either get it together or stop fudging polls.

They want us to think that Rs are +6 nationally on the GCB but that Smiley is up by 3, Barnes is up by 2, Fetterman up by 4, and Kemp up by 6 all at the same time? Come on now.

This just at least confirms that they seriously don't understand how to poll the entire Western area of the US (CA, WA, AZ, NV, CO, etc.)

[Cyrusman]

Has Trafalgar ever published a poll (of anywhere) that didn't show a close race?

Yea, they had Dewine up big when they polled Ohio in mid August but the things is they usually don’t poll many non competitive races. Not sure why the wasted their time here. All their other recent polls seem very believable.

[wbrocks67]

Has Trafalgar ever published a poll (of anywhere) that didn't show a close race?

Yea, they had Dewine up big when they polled Ohio in mid August but the things is they usually don’t poll many non competitive races. Not sure why the wasted their time here. All their other recent polls seem very believable.

I think there's something to this though - they *rarely* find not competitive results. I noticed this when they did CO, and found it like 5-6 pts. The DeWine one was actually the first one that I saw where they actually gave someone a substantive lead. Somehow they usually find it closer than it likely is.

Much like in CA, where they found the recall only losing by 8 last year.

[Cyrusman]

Has Trafalgar ever published a poll (of anywhere) that didn't show a close race?

Yea, they had Dewine up big when they polled Ohio in mid August but the things is they usually don’t poll many non competitive races. Not sure why the wasted their time here. All their other recent polls seem very believable.

I think there's something to this though - they *rarely* find not competitive results. I noticed this when they did CO, and found it like 5-6 pts. The DeWine one was actually the first one that I saw where they actually gave someone a substantive lead. Somehow they usually find it closer than it likely is.

Much like in CA, where they found the recall only losing by 8 last year.

I honestly don’t think the CO poll was that out of the question. Barring something crazy, O’Dea won’t win, but he’s probably the best GOP candidate they recruited this year, and Colorado isn’t Washington. Gardener “only” lost by 9 in 2020, so I could see O’dea losing by 5-7 points this year. The California recall one though was way off. The CA one, yeah that was way off.

[Yoda]

Yeh, no. And this calls into question all of their other polls b/c this is so far off.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Yeh, no. And this calls into question all of their other polls b/c this is so far off.

This isn't directed solely at you, because I think a lot of our users here feel the same way. 

I think Trafalgar is somewhat questionable as well, but your statement is misguided, and it would be misguided applied to any other pollster.  Outliers WILL happen; it's inherent in the nature of sampling.  Even if a pollster had absolutely perfect sampling techniques and absolutely perfect weighting to the general population, 1 in 20 of their polls would be off outside the margin of error.  This is inescapable.

You simply cannot discount a pollster because they published one outlier, or even a few of them.  People who want to follow polls should remember this.  On the contrary, I think it's a good sign when a pollster publishes an occasional outlier because it implies that they're not herding and they're willing to publish whatever results they get, even knowing that some of them will be off.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We are looking so closely at polls especially in 303 states and we're about to early vote on Oct 1st the blue wall is solidified due to Early voting most of the Same day vote are Provisional ballots, absentee and rural voting, it just won't be tabulated until November, that's why I am not concerned about OR Ron Wyden they never commission a poll with the Gov race will give Betsy Johnson or Tina Kotek the victory, guess how Maria CANTWELL and Jeff Merkley won by absentee ballots and Merkley Provisional ballots

Its always close in OR and WA races and Military ballots aren't all R because Females are now in the military not just men that vote D, it's an assumption that 90/10 Military ballots go to Rs not anymore

Actually we won 319 blue wall that's why NC is so close because we won the NC Governor race we can win NC and OH or FL Sen races they rank Demings and Ryan at a higher rate than Crist and Nan W

It's an illusion that it's the 303 FREIWAL we won NC Gov

[Pollster]

Please understand that they only released the rosy-for-Democrats polls to:

a) Prime people to take the rosy-for-Republicans polls more seriously.
b) Release polls of the same states a month later showing a “huge shift towards Republicans” going into the final stretch.
c) Give Republican candidates in these races and the organizations supporting them something to put in fundraising emails and texts.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Yeh, no. And this calls into question all of their other polls b/c this is so far off.

To be fair, as much as I want to dismiss Trafalgar, some of their polls have lined up almost perfectly with other polls. As far as I am concerned, that's how I am taking them now.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yeh, no. And this calls into question all of their other polls b/c this is so far off.

To be fair, as much as I want to dismiss Trafalgar, some of their polls have lined up almost perfectly with other polls. As far as I am concerned, that's how I am taking them now.

It's a 303 map anyways and we lost H seats in a Neutral Environment in 2020 don't be surprised if it's 52/48D S and a 234/201RH

That has always been the projection

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

Murray is highly unlikely to lose, but this race being too close to call for a few hours on election night would be a key indicator of the fabled GOP Wave.

[Minnesota Mike]

Murray is highly unlikely to lose, but this race being too close to call for a few hours on election night would be a key indicator of the fabled GOP Wave.

We will know far before polls close on the west coast if there was any sort of wave.

[wbrocks67]

Given that we just had a real life poll of this state with an election and it was D+15 by vote, this is just...