PA: Insider Advantage: Tie

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

What happened last time do users remember that Trump was leading in PA and all the Provisions ballots came in there is enough of the blk vote coming in from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to overtake Oz, Oz is obviously, being helped by the female votes he is owed by Oprah Winfrey's but the Rs have a racial gap problem I know someone that has a son in Pittsburgh there is no way Oz closes the racial gap, users need to trust D voting it's a 303 map just like Barnes is gonna win but it's gonna be close not like the Gov race where Evers is gonna win

Barnes is polling about the same as Baldwin v Tommy Thompson, when the polls closed Obama won WI 53/46 like Evers is leading Michels now and Baldwin was down 48/49 like Barnes is down now too close to call and Baldwin beat Thompson

[wbrocks67]

The poll is actually Fetterman +1, not a tie, it's 46.3 - 45.5.

Man, the doomer-ism in here is one thing, but y'all are going off about a crosstab that has 36 (Hispanic) and 49 (black) people in it!

Statewide polling is going to have rough samples with minorities, but I think we can all agree an 85 person sample for minorities is just terrible. Thus, the sample with 36 hispanics gets a wonky result (Oz +60... which obviously is not happening)

Same thing with "Oz having strength with 14% of Blacks" .... it's a tab of 49 people. That's like, what, 6 people? lol

What I find interesting that people are ignoring here is the White vote... it's literally tied, again. If the white vote is anywhere close to tied, it's great news for Fetterman. And the n= is at least strong here, 465.

(not to mention IA is an R-leaning pollster)

Of course as a proportion the White vote share has a small margin of error. However, in absolute terms it doesn’t. A 5% sampling error on the White vote causes as much of a shift in the top line as a 25% sampling error in the minority vote. You can’t hold the White % fixed and correct the minority cross tabs.

Trump won the White vote in PA by 15 points, so if you’re gonna play the cross tab game that should raise some eyebrows. I know the ‘other’ category has obviously inaccurate/weird results, and that a tie in the White vote seems more plausible because the state as a whole is tied, but you have to realize that a 15pt swing wouldn’t happen either.

Most of this can be attributed to the fact that IA is a mediocre pollster. It doesn’t seem like they weight by education, which is why they likely have the Democrats doing so well among Whites. They counter that by finding an extremely unrepresentative minority sample (which is a common theme among R pollsters, such as Trafalgar).

You're proving my point why this poll at large shouldn't be taken that seriously.

I would just happen to say though that finding Oz and Fetterman close among Whites has borne out in numerous other polls though, more often than not. A n=450 sample is always going to be a bit more reliable than a n=36 sample. So it's not 'playing the crosstab game.' One sample is clearly more reliable to look at than the other, just in sheer quantity.

[Sir Mohamed]

This is not necessarily a bad poll for Fetterman.

Not a good one either. What's so probablematic, imho, is the tendline. He needs to halt or ideally reverse the dynamics. Sure, the margins well above 4-5 pts. were never going to happen, but if the polling average is tied or close to tied in the morning hours of November 8, I'd be very concerned.

If Fetterman goes down, Dems probably lose control over the senate since CCM is probably not holding on (and Warnock can't be taken for granted either). After that, unlikely Dems regain a senate majority again before 2030.

[kwabbit]

The poll is actually Fetterman +1, not a tie, it's 46.3 - 45.5.

Man, the doomer-ism in here is one thing, but y'all are going off about a crosstab that has 36 (Hispanic) and 49 (black) people in it!

Statewide polling is going to have rough samples with minorities, but I think we can all agree an 85 person sample for minorities is just terrible. Thus, the sample with 36 hispanics gets a wonky result (Oz +60... which obviously is not happening)

Same thing with "Oz having strength with 14% of Blacks" .... it's a tab of 49 people. That's like, what, 6 people? lol

What I find interesting that people are ignoring here is the White vote... it's literally tied, again. If the white vote is anywhere close to tied, it's great news for Fetterman. And the n= is at least strong here, 465.

(not to mention IA is an R-leaning pollster)

Of course as a proportion the White vote share has a small margin of error. However, in absolute terms it doesn’t. A 5% sampling error on the White vote causes as much of a shift in the top line as a 25% sampling error in the minority vote. You can’t hold the White % fixed and correct the minority cross tabs.

Trump won the White vote in PA by 15 points, so if you’re gonna play the cross tab game that should raise some eyebrows. I know the ‘other’ category has obviously inaccurate/weird results, and that a tie in the White vote seems more plausible because the state as a whole is tied, but you have to realize that a 15pt swing wouldn’t happen either.

Most of this can be attributed to the fact that IA is a mediocre pollster. It doesn’t seem like they weight by education, which is why they likely have the Democrats doing so well among Whites. They counter that by finding an extremely unrepresentative minority sample (which is a common theme among R pollsters, such as Trafalgar).

You're proving my point why this poll at large shouldn't be taken that seriously.

I would just happen to say though that finding Oz and Fetterman close among Whites has borne out in numerous other polls though, more often than not. A n=450 sample is always going to be a bit more reliable than a n=36 sample. So it's not 'playing the crosstab game.' One sample is clearly more reliable to look at than the other, just in sheer quantity.

My point was a small error in the White cross tab causes as much of an error as the entire messed up Hispanic cross tab. If the Hispanic cross tab was 60-30 Fetterman and the White vote was 49-45 Oz the poll would be the same. This poll isn’t great, but the trendline is still in Oz’s direction. It was conducted with the same methodology both times.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is not necessarily a bad poll for Fetterman.

Not a good one either. What's so probablematic, imho, is the tendline. He needs to halt or ideally reverse the dynamics. Sure, the margins well above 4-5 pts. were never going to happen, but if the polling average is tied or close to tied in the morning hours of November 8, I'd be very concerned.

If Fetterman goes down, Dems probably lose control over the senate since CCM is probably not holding on (and Warnock can't be taken for granted either). After that, unlikely Dems regain a senate majority again before 2030.

This poll is too much of a black box to be unambiguously be called good or bad for Fetterman, except in the sense of how it shows he's still clearly leading and looks set and remain that way presently, given the nature of the firm that did the poll.