Why were people writing Fetterman off so bluntly near the end?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This always confused me (although I guess the answer as is usually the cause is "lame memes causing hive mind") because people started doing this when the polls just tightened and still had Fetterman up. The truth is if you filter out all the right-wing and junk polls (which is a lot), polls near the end were actually pretty accurate!

Fetterman won by 5. Marist (the last reputable pollster to poll the race) had him up by 6. Monmouth, Suffolk and Fox News (actually a good and reputable pollster) had him up 2-4. NY Times and YouGov both had him up by 6 about two weeks before the election. So maybe yeah all those garbage polls and Republican hack firms kind of tainted the data and averages but people were actually acting like the legitimate polls showing things closer than the summer meant he was finished....which is really bad poll reading to put it mildly.

[Dani Rose]

Confirmation bias. Whether it was out of fear of a red wave or a genuine desire to see him lose, people worked themselves into a frenzy and convinced themselves that the only possible thing that could happen was Fetterman going down in flames, and they took every single mote given to them by right-wing grift polls as irrefutable evidence that their fears or beliefs were right, completely ignoring the much more reputable polling showing Fetterman winning pretty comfortably.

[wbrocks67]

People wanted to believe the trash GOP polls. There was also a lot of "Pennsylvania polls always underestimate the GOP" (even though they were right on in 2018) which made people believe that if Oz was up in any polls, then Fetterman was for sure losing.

People also wanted to believe so badly that the debate made him lose the race.

[YE]

I can’t speak for others but I was worried about Republicans doing better than their poll numbers again given it’s happened in this area of the country in every election since 2012 and it was an open race in a Trump/Biden state.

[Ferguson97]

People bought into the bogus polls released by right-wing outlets and massively overreacted to the debate performance.

[Spectator]

I can’t speak for others but I was worried about Republicans doing better than their poll numbers again given it’s happened in this area of the country in every election since 2012 and it was an open race in a Trump/Biden state.

Yeah, I think the long, well-documented history of polling misses in the Midwest and the “red wave” narrative being pushed the last two weeks caused me to go against my priors (originally having Dems as favorites in the Senate due to the extreme candidate quality differences)

[wbrocks67]

Again, it was also extremely telling that all of the GOP pollsters who found Oz up couldn't find him past 48 either.

[Not Me, Us]

I can’t speak for others but I was worried about Republicans doing better than their poll numbers again given it’s happened in this area of the country in every election since 2012 and it was an open race in a Trump/Biden state.

This is where I was. Part of my Fetterman losing prediction was probably expectation setting so I wouldn't be disappointed if he actually did lose, but historical underestimation of the GOP in recent years colored my opinion a lot.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I had PA-SEN as Likely D all the way until the end.

[SWE]

People got so married to the idea that a midterm should go badly for the incumbent and, coupled with Republicans outperforming expectations the past couple cycles, people got nervous (or overconfident, depending on their perspective) to the point where they forgot to pay attention to what was actually happening. There really wasn't a point from Oz and Fetterman winning their respective nominations that Fetterman didn't look like the favorite. At his peak, Oz was an underdog within striking distance. But it's not hard to come up with bigger upsets recently than Oz winning would have been, so it's not that weird some people listened to their guts over the evidence in front of them.

[Pres Mike]

To be fair, Democrats were panacking. You had Obama and Biden both do rallies for Fetterman

[Progressive Pessimist]

The debate performance coupled with the right wing pollster gas-lighting campaign.

I only sort of bought into it. I wasn't posting at that time but it still appeared that Fetterman had the enthusiasm and possible Shapiro coattails on his side, so I still expected him to win, albeit more narrowly than it should have been. Obviously, his win wasn't all that narrow after all, and the race really didn't diverge much from where it was for most of the summer and fall.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

To be fair, Democrats were panacking. You had Obama and Biden both do rallies for Fetterman

That's not "panicking". That's normal campaign stuff.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Due to fact the Rs wanted an R Senate and they knew Oz was a celebrity but he was a D celebrity not R celebrity Oprah is a D that's why she endorsed Fetterman she went to Coretta Scott King funeral

Oprah acted in The Color Purple and Women's of Brewster's place instead of single female moms in the 80s experience poverty black male Gen X thru Z are experiencing Poverty, due to Single blk moms lived in projects and blk men on drugs homelessness and Oprah sponsored Dr Phil and View and Dr Oz

That's why the View got Whoopi Goldberg and went 7 instead Meredith Vieira because Oprah started sponsored View with Barbara Walters

Whoopi Goldberg replaced Oprah on View in place Oprah Winfrey show that went to OWN they are both partisan D

[Xing]

2016 and 2020 PTSD.

[Morning in Atlas]

Confirmation bias and the narrative of a red wave.

I think a lot of the confirmation bias on the D side was from soft Fetterman supporters. Sure, these people would have voted for Big John or even donated, but they definitely preferred someone more moderate. Whether it be Conor Lamb fitting the conventional wisdom of electability or Fetterman's ties to the Bernie movement, they had "concerns" from Day 1. I can't even clutch about "Lamb bros," because they weren't even enthusiastic about him. They just saw him as the vehicle to stop Fetterman.

That's why I was so vocal in the PA-Sen thread. A Fetterman loss confirmed their narratives about electability. It fed into their notion of progressives - specifically those aligned with the Bernie movement - being too far left and divisive to hold public office. When he had his stroke, they saw it as an opportunity to replace Fetterman with one of their own. It all came off as concern trolling - one of the people hand-wringing about how "Fetterman was going to blow this" outright voted for Oz!

Of course, it ignored that Pennsylvania had just elected a 78-year-old man known for being an awkward public speaker as President, and a TV celebrity over the most qualified nominee in history. And the plethora of candidates from over the years that rode their opponents' carpetbagging to a victory.

[Ljube]

Because of his poor debate performance.

[Antonio the Sixth]

A combination of the debate performance (which happened so close to the end that it might not have been fully priced in by the polls) and the history of Republican overperformance in Pennsylvania (although it is worth noting that this overperformance is far less consistent and strong than in places like Ohio and Wisconsin).

Clearly people overrated these factors, and it was always dumb to assume Fetterman was toast (in general people on Atlas are way too overconfident about their predictions one way or another, that's the biggest recurring problem). But expecting him to lose narrowly wasn't totally crazy either.

[jamestroll]

I was quite surprised how far users here went to mock speech impediments.

But I guess no point in a holding a grudge about it.

[Morning in Atlas]

Because of his poor debate performance.

I remember how much sh*t I got for saying the debate was a wash. We all knew Fetterman wasn't going to perform, but Oz just came off as a desperate dick. That and him endorsing people like Doug Mastriano having a seat at the table was just self-immolating.

People went into the debate with two preconceived negatives. Fetterman was a mealy-mouthed candidate clearly still recovering from his stroke. Oz was a self-serving, smarmy douchebag who would say anything and everything to get elected. Oz distanced himself from his campaign mocking Fetterman's stroke while mocking Fetterman's stroke on the debate stage. He told a group of Republicans he would ban abortion in any circumstance, he told everyone he would let "local political leaders" decide, he told others that he didn't support a ban in case of rape and incest, and he was unabashedly pro-choice outside of politics.

And nearly everything that came out of his mouth was a carefully-rehearsed, hyper-polished talking point with "My opponent, John Fetterman" rolled into it. For all the talk about Fetterman reinforcing his negatives, people overlooked Oz reinforcing his own.

[Person Man]

Because of his poor debate performance.

Objectively, it sucked and the gut reaction was that it was a turning point but if you looked at the wider picture, Oz made Fetterman’s life easier.

[SWE]

The debate probably helped Fetterman. If you're a normal person who's brain isn't poisoned beyond repair, you're not going to be mad that a guy who just had a stroke isn't giving the performance of his lifetime, it's going to make him come off as sympathetic. Oz, on the other hand, thoroughly embarrassed himself without the excuse of just being checked out of a hospital. A doctor mocking someone for having a health problem is a real bad look, plus he gifted Fetterman a free attack ad with that "an abortion is a decision between her, her doctor, and local political leaders" line, which helped remind voters that this was a weird nerd who appealed to nobody anywhere.

That being said, I doubt it had much of an impact whatsoever, because nobody watches Senate debates. The fact that Republicans hung their hat on it as the thing that would save them was honestly the biggest red flag Oz was toast - it's the kind of desperate clutching at straws argument you only come up with when you have nothing

[MT Treasurer]

I don’t think anyone was actually writing Fetterman off, so you’re mostly just making up things here. There’s a difference between predicting a Republican will win a Toss-up race (which even I rated it in my final prediction) and outright rating a race Safe or even Likely R.

I pointed out repeatedly that Oz was far less likely to benefit from a late R surge among undecideds or to consolidate the undecided vote than a generic R due to his striking unfavorability numbers and his remarkable (and atypical) baggage as a candidate. While I thought a red wave environment would be enough for him to eke out a win, I certainly wouldn’t have predicted an Oz win if I had known that we were headed for the biggest D midterm overperformance since 1934.

Your gotchas are getting a little tiresome, honestly.

[wbrocks67]

To be fair too, it was mostly either blue avatars or some others who were constantly dooming or frustrating (C...) who were writing Fetterman off or talking about the "Oz surge!!"

[Tekken_Guy]

The polling trends and assumptions about the national environment favored Oz, and coverage of the debate seemed to help him as well.