PA-SEN: NYT/Siena Casey +5

[Spectator]

The margin sounds reasonable.

Question is by how much does Casey have to win to make sure Biden gets over the top as well? 5 pts. seems to be enough imho. I don't believe there will be that much ticket splitting outside states like MT and OH. Many voters polled who support downballot Dems are left-leaning and will almost certainly come home in November. Even with some reservatations over Biden. A vote is a vote, and they count equally. No matter how fired up MAGA is.

Reverse coattails isn't a thing. If that was the case, Obama would have won Missouri in 2012 given the Dem landslides in the governor and Senate races.

Well, that was a different state and a totally different time in politics. In 2020, most downballot Dems even finished slightly behind Biden.

I can't think of a single state where reverse coattails helped a Presidential candidate flip a state unexpectedly. North Carolina 2008 might be the only such example, and even then, Obama was polling in a tie with McCain.

[wbrocks67]

Honestly, Casey being only +2 compared to most other polls we've gotten makes me continue to think that the Siena state polling is underrating Dems chances quite a lot (right now)

What final result do you expect here? I'd say Casey wins 51-46%. So, similar to 2022.

Yeah, right now my gut says 5-7%, something like 51-46 or 52-45

[Sir Mohamed]

The margin sounds reasonable.

Question is by how much does Casey have to win to make sure Biden gets over the top as well? 5 pts. seems to be enough imho. I don't believe there will be that much ticket splitting outside states like MT and OH. Many voters polled who support downballot Dems are left-leaning and will almost certainly come home in November. Even with some reservatations over Biden. A vote is a vote, and they count equally. No matter how fired up MAGA is.

Reverse coattails isn't a thing. If that was the case, Obama would have won Missouri in 2012 given the Dem landslides in the governor and Senate races.

Well, that was a different state and a totally different time in politics. In 2020, most downballot Dems even finished slightly behind Biden.

I can't think of a single state where reverse coattails helped a Presidential candidate flip a state unexpectedly. North Carolina 2008 might be the only such example, and even then, Obama was polling in a tie with McCain.

I'm not sure whether "reverse coattails" really helped, it should be noted though Trump underperformed GOP senators in 2016 though, in swing states like FL, NC and WI.

I'm not necessarily convinced Casey and Baldwin will single handedly pull Biden over the finishline, I'm just skeptical there's a ton of ticket splitters in these states (there will be in red states with strong household names like Tester and Brown). Especially with Trump/Dem. On the contrary, Biden/GOP downballot seems to make more sense: Suburban conservative leaning voters who are appalled by Trump, but want to "put a check on Biden". I guess even you could be in this category.

[Spectator]

The margin sounds reasonable.

Question is by how much does Casey have to win to make sure Biden gets over the top as well? 5 pts. seems to be enough imho. I don't believe there will be that much ticket splitting outside states like MT and OH. Many voters polled who support downballot Dems are left-leaning and will almost certainly come home in November. Even with some reservatations over Biden. A vote is a vote, and they count equally. No matter how fired up MAGA is.

Reverse coattails isn't a thing. If that was the case, Obama would have won Missouri in 2012 given the Dem landslides in the governor and Senate races.

Well, that was a different state and a totally different time in politics. In 2020, most downballot Dems even finished slightly behind Biden.

I can't think of a single state where reverse coattails helped a Presidential candidate flip a state unexpectedly. North Carolina 2008 might be the only such example, and even then, Obama was polling in a tie with McCain.

I'm not sure whether "reverse coattails" really helped, it should be noted though Trump underperformed GOP senators in 2016 though, in swing states like FL, NC and WI.

I'm not necessarily convinced Casey and Baldwin will single handedly pull Biden over the finishline, I'm just skeptical there's a ton of ticket splitters in these states (there will be in red states with strong household names like Tester and Brown). Especially with Trump/Dem. On the contrary, Biden/GOP downballot seems to make more sense: Suburban conservative leaning voters who are appalled by Trump, but want to "put a check on Biden". I guess even you could be in this category.

Most the "suburban conservative leaning voters appalled by Trump" are now Democrats, and have been voting that way downballot since 2018-2020. 2022 showed they're no longer really voting GOP for Senate and Governor too when most those GOP nominees are Trump acolytes. Look at all the 2024 GOP Senate candidates: with the exception of Mike Rogers, all are Trump stooges. No real reason people would vote Biden and GOP for Senate in those races.

As for my personal vote, I'm leaning towards sitting out this year. There's no downballot races of consequence in Georgia, and I'm indifferent as to who wins the presidency.

[DaleCooper]

I continue to be shocked by the number of people who think Bob Casey is actually vulnerable.  Worry about the Michigan Senate seat; Casey will be fine.  He’s recently come out with excellent TV ads focusing on his votes to expand semiconductor production in the US and take jobs back from China, has been barnstorming the rural counties to stanch the bleeding there, and he’s a Scranton candidate who has three other statewide PA candidates (from Pittsburgh, the Capitol area, and Philadelphia, pretty much a perfect geographic spread for the Dem coalition here) stumping for him as well.

He may not win by a huge margin, but he’ll win.

Yeah, I agree that Michigan is the most vulnerable seat after the WV/MT/OH trio. I could’ve been convinced it was Nevada, but for whatever odd reason, Rosen seems to be polling extremely well compared to Biden there. That one is the most puzzling to me.

I think Trump needs to win Michigan by quite a few points to pull Rogers ahead though and I don’t see that.

Idk. Michigan is the state where the Dem Senate nominee seems to be running the least amount ahead of Biden in polling. The others are all generally pretty substantial.

It must be because it's an open seat. I think it's true that outside of a horrible candidate like Rick Santorum, or hopelessly polarized states like Alabama, incumbency is still a huge advantage. Brown and Tester will test this, but if they win or barely lose then clearly incumbency still means the world in these kind of elections.

Funny enough, Doug Jones' doomed 2020 campaign is still a good example of the power of incumbency. Even in extremely polarized Alabama, he still outran Biden by 5%. That would be enough for basically all incumbent Democrats aside from Tester and Brown to hold on. And Tester and Brown have shown hints that they might be able to overperform Biden by the double digits needed. It just remains to be seen if that will hold up.

As for the open seats, I think you're correct that that is why Slotkin is only narrowly outperforming Biden. I think most polls only have her doing about 2-3 points better than Biden, which still would probably be enough to survive, but obviously well within the margin of error, and Rogers could be the beneficiary of a polling miss. As for the other open-seat race in Arizona, I think Gallego dramatically outperforming Biden by the 10+ points that most polls seem to show kind of makes sense... He is a hispanic Marine, which is basically the dream profile that most Democratic strategists would create in a simulated incubator. And he's running against Kari Lake who somehow makes Trump look more moderate and reasonable by comparison. I think that divergence makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I think Gallego is basically a perfect candidate as it stands right now, but also Lake is so well-known and embarrassing that a lot of voters are eager to vote against her. It doesn't help that Sinema appealed to a lot of Republicans, so I guarantee at least some Republican voters consider Lake a step down from the current Senator, which is kind of funny.