My election takeaways

[GALeftist]

So now that things have settled down and we have a pretty decent idea of where things stand, I'd like to do kind of a retrospective of my own analysis specifically, along with some insights I'm going to carry forward into 2023 and beyond.

1. I think my post on the case for a neutral 2022 aged very well in retrospect. I correctly identified many of the qualitative pieces of data which indicated a neutral environment ahead of time (specifically the special election results the Washington primaries) and gave what was at the time, I think, a risky warning that polling error does not go only one way. I think the bit about polling error will become part of the conventional wisdom until we have two similar errors close to one another again, at which point it will shift back to "polls always overestimate Ds/Rs," but I'll enjoy that brief bit of tranquility when we can analyze polls like humans instead of like Chicken Little. I think the biggest thing I learned from this was to trust my analysis instead of hedging like I did with many of my predictions this year. I had a secret prediction that I made solely based on polling as well as those factors I just mentioned; I never shared it, so I can't prove that this was authentic, but in that prediction I got every Senate race except NV (I predicted Warnock would win a runoff, too, so I got at least the runoff if not the eventual winner), every gubernatorial race except WI, and a 218-217 GOP House – not too shabby, I'd say.

2. One thing I missed to some degree was that the "flooding the zone" narrative was basically correct. I certainly voiced my concerns about how many partisan R polls were in the average, but ultimately I thought that it was likelier than not that D firms were also getting bad results and spiking them. In retrospect, the fact that we were getting so few nonpartisan polls (and even proper internals from both sides!) along with the gulf between nonpartisan and partisan pollsters absolutely should have set off clear alarm bells. I'd bet my bottom dollar that a bunch of polls showing a more neutral environment got spiked this cycle. This is something I will be keeping my eye on in the future, along with to what extent the polls are comporting with hard data like specials or the Washington primary.

3. I was probably excessively dismissive of the possibility of many different state-dependent swings, barring Florida, where I thought a localized red wave was probably likely. I suspect that this dynamic will decrease dramatically in a presidential year, but it should definitely be on people's radar. However, I'm not sure if there's a great way to predict this. People were predicting a red wave in Oregon, but it was more like a splash; conversely, most of the people I saw talking about the R surge in New York were huge R hacks, and I didn't really take it seriously until it happened. Polling doesn't seem to be great in this area, either; I'm fairly sure Kotek beat her polls. This is something I'd like to look into further.

4. I think Republicans are in deep denial about Dobbs; honestly, I don't think Trump helped, but he didn't even come close to the fundamental potency of the abortion issue. I mean, they can't win on this issue in a midterm environment in Kentucky. The D overperformances in specials began almost exactly when Dobbs happened; the candidates' Trumpiness didn't really change at any point. The public's trust in Republicans on the abortion issue went from a slight minority to rock bottom basically overnight. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on here. The Republican elites are pushing DeSantis so hard I think out of desperation more than out of logic; I am here to tell you that, in my estimation, they are rearranging deck chairs while dangerously close to an iceberg at best; at worst, they are risking a damaging primary for minimal gain. They need to find a way to either moderate on this issue or lower its salience or they will continue to blow winnable races with or without Trump.

5. Regarding Trumpy candidates, I think they probably did receive penalties to some degree, but it seems really inconsistent, and honestly I think it might be mostly a function of favorables. Like, Lake wasn't less Trumpy than Masters, really, so why the delta between the two? Oz wasn't particularly Trumpy, despite the endorsement; why did he flame out so spectacularly? The explanation that seems the most persuasive to me is that a lot of the people Trump likes are a lot more unlikable than Trump himself. This is why I'm skeptical that he will be a huge albatross in 2024 unless he runs third party or something.

6. What explains the huge red waves in Florida and the NYC metro area? I think it's pretty simple. In Florida, DeSantis neutralized the abortion issue by sticking it at 15 weeks and just letting it go; I doubt this will work on the national stage. In the NYC metro, it seems like crime was the biggest thing along with a lot of stupid factionalism within the NY Dems. IMO Florida is basically a lost cause but NY Dems should absolutely A. boot Jay Jacobs and B. emulate the PA Dems, both in terms of their remarkable unity and in terms of their handling of the crime issue which seems to have worked very well.

That about wraps it up! Pretty pleased with my performance; hopefully I can continue to improve going forward!