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2018 - Elections and Trends


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2 minutes ago, Tuco said:

I temper my interest in polling percentages with the recognition that turnout is the variable no one can really predict.  I feel that Republicans turnout will be suppressed by 1) people turned off by Trump, 2) people turned off by Republicans not supporting Trump, 3) people turned off by the failure to deliver on promises - increasing deficits, ACA, etc..

But, it's a midterm. 

Really, you look at enthusiasm.  Republicans were BONED UP to turn out in 2010 and 2014.

Democrats are as boned up as Republicans were this year.

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36 minutes ago, Tuco said:

I temper my interest in polling percentages with the recognition that turnout is the variable no one can really predict.  I feel that Republicans turnout will be suppressed by 1) people turned off by Trump, 2) people turned off by Republicans not supporting Trump, 3) people turned off by the failure to deliver on promises - increasing deficits, ACA, etc..

But, it's a midterm. 

On This Week this past Sunday, Alex Castellanos--who is one of the few remaining actual Republican pundits who you can get to come on a serious news program and expect won't make an ass of himself--made an interesting point about Republican turnout.  He said the college-educated whites who you could always expect to turnout for Republicans because they viewed it as a civic obligation were gone.  What you had left was two categories of Republicans: (1) the MAGA-hat wearers, and (2) the Paul Ryan subset (i.e., but Gorsuch!). 

The former won't vote, because they never vote.  They voted in 2016 on the promise to drain the swamp.  But the self-proclaimed swamp-drainer isn't on the ballot; only the swamp creatures themselves are.  Why is the MAGA crew going to turn out for them?

The latter won't vote, either, because Congress hasn't delivered much for them.  Gorsuch was a function of having the presidency, and nobody's really enthusiastic about the tax cuts (apart from a handful of rich people).  So what motivates those people to go out and preserve a House majority?

I'm skeptical as to whether the But-Gorsuch people will really stay home.  But I thought the point on the MAGA-hat wearers was interesting.

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All interesting points about speculation of who will and won't show up at the polls, but we won't know for sure until election day.  During the primaries, I went to the vote in a moderate precinct.  Line was down the hallway for the Dem party, zero wait for Rep voting.  Dems must be voting in more numbers, right?  Nope.    For the Texas senator primaries, Reps still had 50% more people voting than the Dems.  1.5M to 1M.   I know primaries are not general elections but Beto has a long way to go in order to win.  I think Cruz has many supporters and voters that will not admit they are voting for him.  Similar to Trump.

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6 minutes ago, Message Board User said:

Also go look at what happened in Georgia as soon as Trump endorsed Kemp.  

The MAGAs will show up if Trump tells them to.

Was there much polling data on the expectations of the race before Trump endorsed Kemp?    Trump also endorsed a few other politicians that lost so you can't just say the results tell the story.

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2 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Was there much polling data on the expectations of the race before Trump endorsed Kemp?    Trump also endorsed a few other politicians that lost so you can't just say the results tell the story.

Yes.  He endorsed and Cagle's support plummeted.

Trump's endorsement is big in Republican primaries. It's pretty shit in actual elections (Roy Moore, Ed Gillespie, Rick Saccone)

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41 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

On This Week this past Sunday....

That falls in line with my hopes: the educated whites are turned off by Trump, the MAGA wearers are turned off by anti-Trumpers, and the Paul Ryaners are turned off by Congressional failures. And while my hopes are high, I don't know how anyone can really quantify it. It was obviously a miss in 2016 polling. 

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1 minute ago, Tuco said:

That falls in line with my hopes: the educated whites are turned off by Trump, the MAGA wearers are turned off by anti-Trumpers, and the Paul Ryaners are turned off by Congressional failures. And while my hopes are high, I don't know how anyone can really quantify it. It was obviously a miss in 2016 polling. 

Wait--was it?  I mean, if you ignore the MOE, I guess you're right.  But all of the results were within the MOE of the pollsters at the end.

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5 minutes ago, Tuco said:

That falls in line with my hopes: the educated whites are turned off by Trump, the MAGA wearers are turned off by anti-Trumpers, and the Paul Ryaners are turned off by Congressional failures. And while my hopes are high, I don't know how anyone can really quantify it. It was obviously a miss in 2016 polling. 

Educated whites will turn out because they hate Trump.

The MAGA wearers are probably going to not turn out because Congress hasn't been supporting Trump. No wall? FUCK EM

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33 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

  I think Cruz has many supporters and voters that will not admit they are voting for him.  Similar to Trump.

This is where I'm at after 2016.  I think the polls were so off because no one told the truth about who they were going to vote for.  I don't expect them to suddenly tell the truth now.  Some of them are emboldened and openly admit it, the majority are Gary Johnson voters.

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I was talking to a long-time Republican colleague today.  He’s not only unenthusiastic about the GOP in 2018, he’s actively working against them.  Donating to Dem candidates, encouraging other establishment types to vote Dem, etc.  That put a smile on my face.  Maybe we aren’t fucked after all?

No, wait.  Russians are going to tweak the vote counts anyway.  Never mind.  

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Just now, Biff Tannen said:

This is where I'm at after 2016.  I think the polls were so off because no one told the truth about who they were going to vote for.  I don't expect them to suddenly tell the truth now.  Some of them are emboldened and openly admit it, the majority are Gary Johnson voters.

To the extent they were off, I think it was two things:

1) The likely voter screen screened out a lot of MAGA-hat wearers who are irregular voters.  Just from my personal observations, a ton of people who don't vote in most elections showed up to vote for Trump.  Polls typically screen out those people in the expectation that they're not going to vote, but in 2016 they did.

Basically, it's very much akin to Black turnout in 2008 and 2012.  Blacks historically turnout at very low numbers, and so they were screened out in the likely voter models.  In the event, they turned out in huge numbers for Obama, and Obama exceeded his polling expectations.

2) Everybody saying that Hillary was going to win had the perverse effect of diminishing her turnout.  It was kind of a self-defeating prophesy.  She was such a shitty candidate that even if you wanted her to win, if you could avoid actually dirtying your hands by voting for her and still see her elected, that's what a lot of people were going to do.

You saw the same thing in the Michigan primaries, in which she was polling ahead of Bernie by 10 points, only to see Bernie win the primary by a few thousand votes.  When you went back in later, you saw that a bunch of Michigan Democrats just didn't bother to vote in the primary because they figured it was a foregone conclusion, and they weren't going to go out of their way to vote for someone who didn't inspire any passion.  

 

 

I will point out that none of these things are at play in 2018.  Trump isn't on the ballot, so I think it's likely that those low-propensity voters will go back to not voting.  And Hillary isn't on the ballot; instead good Democratic candidates are.  So Democratic turnout isn't going to be hurt by the unique combination of dissatisfaction and apathy that characterized 2016.

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19 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Wait--was it?  I mean, if you ignore the MOE, I guess you're right.  But all of the results were within the MOE of the pollsters at the end.

I'm not trying to discount the importance of polling or be overly critical of the 2016 polling, but...

If you have five polls that have plus or minus 3%, and they all end up plus 2.5%, they are all in the MOE.  But it is still an indication that the baseline was off.  A quarter coming up heads is normal.  If it comes up heads five times in a row, you make sure it's not double-headed. How many swing states did Hillary outperform expectations? There was bias that missed.  I think that bias was relying on historical baselines on turnout, which didn't hold true for 2016.  I think it's even more unpredictable for 2018.  I don't blame the pollsters for that.  Like I said, I think it would be very difficult to quantify. 

 

Edit - wrote mine when before I saw your post.  I think we are on pretty much the same page. 

Edited by Tuco
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3 hours ago, Js1 said:

New Q-Poll: D+12

Lead with women by 25!

Lead with independents by 17

Lead with college educated whites by 13(!!!) - goodbye suburban Republican districts

Yeah well...GOP has a significant lead in indictments bro. #MAGA

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Democrats hold a 12-point lead over Republicans on a generic House ballot a little more than three months before the November midterm elections, according to a new poll.

Democratic candidates were favored over Republican candidates 51 percent to 39 percent in the Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/398807-poll-dems-lead-gop-by-12-points-in-generic-house-ballot?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

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3 hours ago, Tuco said:

I temper my interest in polling percentages with the recognition that turnout is the variable no one can really predict.  I feel that Republicans turnout will be suppressed by 1) people turned off by Trump, 2) people turned off by Republicans not supporting Trump, 3) people turned off by the failure to deliver on promises - increasing deficits, ACA, etc..

But, it's a midterm. 

4) no Hillary on the ballot.

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The Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate in Georgia won his run-off in the GOP primary tonight:
 


His opponent was also caught on tape saying that he would go against his principles and support bad policies if it would get him elected.
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Just now, Buzzrock said:

 


His opponent was also caught on tape saying that he would go against his principles and support bad policies if it would get him elected.

 

I thought he also ridiculed ads with guns and big trucks. Might as well have been in favor of castration.

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7 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Is there any reason to think TX26 is in play?  Because I'd be shocked if it were.

Denton county voted 64.9% for Romney and 57.1% for Trump. If that percentage holds it would vote 49% Republican in 2020. So with a Democratic wave the county as a whole could go for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.

TX26 would still lean Republican in 2018 in ordinary circumstances, but things aren't ordinary.

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28 minutes ago, RayDog said:

Denton county voted 64.9% for Romney and 57.1% for Trump. If that percentage holds it would vote 49% Republican in 2020. So with a Democratic wave the county as a whole could go for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.

TX26 would still lean Republican in 2018 in ordinary circumstances, but things aren't ordinary.

The dangers of two point linear extrapolation. Colt  McCoy goes 13-1!   Then we go 5-7.

The next year?  You guessed it. Negative 3 and 13. :(

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1 minute ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

The dangers of two point linear extrapolation. Colt  McCoy goes 13-1!   Then we go 5-7.

The next year?  You guessed it. Negative 3 and 13. :(

Except the demographic shifts are not stopping, and any short term changes are not likely to be good for the Republicans. They were 13-1 and now they aren't.

Nationwide there was a 4.3% shift in votes to Republicans from 2012 to 2016 so if the Democrats had a better candidate the Republican vote percentage might have dropped 12.1% instead of 7.8% in Denton county.

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I think Abrams has a decent chance of beating Kemp. The last poll only had Kemp at a 2 point advantage, but it is likely that Abrams base is being undercounted.


She may win Atlanta but I think there’s no way she wins the state. But hey we all know how accurate the polls have been lately.
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1 hour ago, bolverk said:

Hey @Js1 and @Ghost of LL, you guys seem way more tuned into this than me. What are your thoughts on my district, TX-21 with Kopser running to take retiring Lamar Smith's seat?

I Just read the bios and it looks like a republican swamp creature versus an ex-army guy who wants to serve his country in a new way. The district is so gerrymandered it is impossible to project without precinct level data. It would take a huge DEmocratic turnout in the Travis and Bexar parts of the district, and suppressed voting in the rural parts for it to go Democratic.

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12 hours ago, bolverk said:

Hey @Js1 and @Ghost of LL, you guys seem way more tuned into this than me. What are your thoughts on my district, TX-21 with Kopser running to take retiring Lamar Smith's seat?

It's an interesting district from the standpoint that it has a real mix of urban/suburban/rural.  It goes up between Mopac and the Interregional into the heart of Austin, and includes Old West Austin and densely-populated areas south of the river.  That's area that is heavily Democratic and heavily energized.  You could easily see the vote from those precincts swamping other parts of the district.

Balancing out the Austin Democrat vote is the long wing of that district that extends west to Kerrville.  These places--Kerrville and Fredericksburg--are naught but retirement communities now.  They are heavily white and even more heavily Republican than they were before.  They'll vote in large numbers.  Of course, the problem is that the numbers are low--there's only 23,000 people in Kerrville; 15,000 in Boerne; 11,000 in Fredericksburg.  But every one of those 50,000 fuckers will vote.

On the south end, the includes much of North San Antonio, including Alamo Heights and Olmos Park, Castle Hills, part of Monte Vista,* and all the way out to Stone Oak and the Medical Center.  This is Joe Strauss Country--college-educated white people with good incomes.  This is where the district swings.  In the past, this has been reliably Republican.  But if the Republicans can't count on college-educated whites anymore, I don't know how this goes.  I'll also note, however, that Castle Hills and other neighborhoods in the area are older, which probably makes them more resistant to that political shift.

The Republicans got who they wanted out of the primaries.  Chip Roy is a fairly establishment type Republican with enough crazy bona fides to satisfy the Trumpkin base.  He speaks fluent lunatic, so people in the western portions of that district will be supportive.  At the same time, he might be able to hold down the North San Antonio defections to a bare minimum.

Cook PVI has it as an R+10.  That sounds roughly right.  Even in this environment, I think that means that the Republican should win.  Not comfortably, but he should win.  This one really does hinge on turnout.

If I had to pick a bellwether precinct, give me Precinct 3001 in Bexar County (i.e., Stone Oak).  That should be reliable Republican territory with good turnout.  But damned if I didn't see a fair number of Beto signs last time I was in the area.  If it doesn't go strongly for Roy (i.e. >60%) with a decent turnout, Roy could be in trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

*Fun personal fact--my first house as a baby lawyer was a block outside the current boundaries of TX21 in Monte Vista.  My current house is a block outside the boundaries of TX21 in west Austin.  Such is the gerrymander.

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Let’s get right to the good stuff: In a new poll conducted by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, just 33 percent of those surveyed think the Democratic Party is “in the mainstream.” More than half (56 percent) consider them out of step.

Just two years ago in 2016, those numbers were far different: 48 percent mainstream, 42 percent out. That means the “mainstream” number has plunged 12.5 percent, a huge drop in just two years.

 

 

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/24/democrats-start-scare-mainstream-americans/

Edited by EuroHorn
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Let’s get right to the good stuff: In a new poll conducted by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, just 33 percent of those surveyed think the Democratic Party is “in the mainstream.” More than half (56 percent) consider them out of step.

Just two years ago in 2016, those numbers were far different: 48 percent mainstream, 42 percent out. That means the “mainstream” number has plunged 12.5 percent, a huge drop in just two years.

 

 

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/24/democrats-start-scare-mainstream-americans/

 

 

You know you’ve got a solid news source when the author doesn’t even include a link to the poll that he bases his entire article on.

 

Edit: found it

 

http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/i/today/z_creative/18570NBCWSJJulyPoll7-22-18Release.pdf

 

Republicans are viewed as even more “out of touch” in that same poll. But otherwise, cool article champ.

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