For all things about Nevada elections, Jon Ralston is the pre-eminent expert! For clarity and peace of mind, follow his daily Early Voting Blog in the Nevada Independent.
Indiana nominated a real crackpot for Lt. Gov at their convention over the choice of nominee Mike Braun which has been a real drag on the Indiana GOP ticket and caused a GOP party split.
The change is by the Cook Political Report. In its discussion, it states:
"While public polling in the Keystone State still shows Democratic Sen. Bob Casey with a slight lead, both Republican and Democratic internal polls show this is now a margin-of-error race, with Casey holding a slim, statistically insignificant lead of between one and two points."
I feel like 5% is his floor. Maybe that's just stupid optimism, but it reminds me a LOT of Fetterman-Oz. Right-wing pollsters coming in with McCormick even or +1, etc.
Seems telling that both Republican AND Democrat internal polls show this as a one-or-two point race just as was the case in Wisconsin two weeks ago when Tammy Baldwin's race was reclassified as a tossup. It's the latest tea leaf that internal polls of both campaigns are pointing to a much more MAGA electorate taking shape than public polls are indicating.
Ads appealing to prejudice have won many times, so I wouldn't jump to conclusions that Republicans being in character for what the party has become are being desperate, or that they will lose.
Depends on the content of the ad though; I've not seen the ad, so it's hard to judge just how far it goes(I am hoping to find the actual ad for myself)
I might add that everyone knows Baldwin is lesbian; so without seeing the actual ad, I'm not sure of its purpose other than that the Hovde campaign has decided to go scorched earth(like I said, I'm looking for the ad)
Are those margins from the internals they've released, or from what they're seeing privately and accidentally leaking? Both sides will always release whichever of their internals show the closest race.
The way I read it is that they are not public but it is not 100% clear. I understand that analysts like Cook Political Report get inside information we do not see. The quote I posted is pretty much all there was on polling. Here is a touch more, from the conclusion: "Though many of the fundamentals may still very slightly favor Casey, this race is now close enough that it belongs more in the Toss Up column than in Lean Democrat alongside Arizona and Nevada."
Here's insight on the polls as to why not to read too much into them showing Casey being behind:
AtlasIntel, which apparently was started by right-wing Jair Bolsonaro supporters and Trafalgar, are the ones howing GOP Senate Candidate Dave McCormick ahead. Per this thread, both pollsters aren't the most credible:
A new poll has for the first time given Republican challenger Dave McCormick the lead in the Pennsylvania Senate race.
McCormick is running against Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr., who is seeking a fourth term.
The new poll by Atlas Intel found that 48.3 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Republican, compared with 47.1 percent who back the Democrat.
The poll surveyed 2,048 likely voters in Pennsylvania between October 12 to 17, and has a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.
Respondents were surveyed amidst the final debate between the pair, which took place on October 15, and featured hostile sparring between the two candidates over their records and various policy areas.
The last poll by Atlas Intel in September found Casey ahead of McCormick 47 percent to 45.
A recent poll by the Trafalgar Group, a Republican pollster, also found McCormick narrowly ahead of Casey, 47.2 percent to 46.8 percent. The poll surveyed 1,084 likely voters in Pennsylvania between October 17 and 19. It has a margin of error of 2.9 percent.
It would fly in the face of polling, but a 3-4 point Harris win would comport with the state's trendline in the last 3 presidential elections. In 2012 GA voted 11.7 points to the right of the country, in 2016 it was 7.3 and in 2020 it was 4.3. If Kamala wins the popular vote by a similar number to Biden her winning Georgia by 3-4 would fit pretty well within that trendline.
I also suspect that polls have a tendency to miss when a state is trending one way or the other because they model the electorate on the last election. I don't think that Joe Biden let any Georgia in 2020 for the same reason. I also suspect that a similar dynamic is happening with the Arizona polls.
I'm not; Trump has not endeared himself to Republicans in that state with his actions and pushing Walker onto them to boot, when other actual Georgia Republican candidates were available
I’m 38, and have so far defied gravity and avoided the grays that all of my old high school friends now have. Hoping they don’t all come in at once on Election Night!
Having gone on Medicare this last year, I would love to have your melancholy.
My 30s were probably my best decade. I bought my house when I was 30, within 3 years income increased enough I wasn't paying over 50% for housing, negotiated 4 weeks vacation into my employment contract, and traveled internationally or 2 week backpack trips twice a year.
But I'm enjoying my 60s too, it's just life throws you some curves. Enjoy whatever situation you are in, you never know when it will end.
A 35 point youth gender gap wouldn't shock me, but those specific numbers would. The crosstabs of polls have, pretty consistently, shown narrow leads for Harris among young voters. Conversely young voter-specific polls typically show her with leads in the 30-2:1 range.
My guess is if we have a 35 point gender gap it'll be something like Kamala winning young women 70-25 and winning young men 52-42.
I don't mind seeing these polls after a couple of weeks of growing negativity out there. It leaves a little room for one of the polls being a good deal off (GA) and the ball falling on the wrong side of the net (NV) and still pulling off a victory. Though obviously I'd feel better with better margins in PA and MI.
Really at this point more polls are more or less useless. The race is within the margin of error in the 7 swing states, and either candidate could win them all, lose them all, or any of the 126 combinations in between.
Any movement in the aggregates is likely to do compositional effects from who is dropping polls on a given day.
Realistically, I think this election comes down to - do the relatively small number of undecided voters decide that they dont particularly feel like putting up with Donald Trump for another four years and do they feel strongly enough about not putting up with him to actually show up.
I think we tend to overfocus on so-called undecided voters...
First and foremost, this election is about GOTV. Let’s keep in mind how dismal turnout tends to be in American presidential elections. I seem to recall that in 2020 turnout was a mere 67%. Compared to other Western democracies, that is atrocious!
The Harris Campaign has invested heavily in ground game and GOTV operations, as have a legion of democracy-defending organizations, and it has mobilized a record-setting number of volunteers. If the Harris Campaign can raise the turnout of "our side" to European levels, say 75–85%, then regardless of what the polls say, this will be a Blue Wave election.
Right now I think the most telling statistic in the Early Vote is the gender gap. In swing state after swing state, women account for 9–10% more of the vote than men do.
QUESTION: I wonder what gender gaps the pollsters have built into their Likely Voter models.
PS. There is now a flood of bad-faith polls from Republican-leaning pollsters – a flood that seems coordinated and specifically designed to impact the polling averages and the media narrative. That said, you gotta admire how cost-effective this is!
I consider people who need GOTV to get them to vote to be undecided.
I wouldnt use Early Vote for any kind of prediction. An enthusiastic woman's early vote counts the same as a guy who didn't decide to vote at all until after dinner on November 5.
I also understand what the GOP is doing regarding junk polls - it doesnt change much - the state level aggregates have been well within the margin of error the entire time since Harris took over.
Sure - maybe the polls are all wrong in our favor this time, and really we are sitting on a blue wave, but there is no reason to expect that to be the case over the opposite.
US participation rate is on voting age citizen population. The 67%, was surpassed only if you looking back in history when racial minority, women, 18-20 year old couldn’t vote. That is, we had highest participation EVER.
BTW, your “ European” level of election participation is grossly overstated. That is Australian level with compulsory voting, or maybe some smaller countries. The larger ones, Germany’s last national election had 76% using total registration as base, it would be 68.8 if VAP. French presidential election had 73.7% for registration, 66.5 for VAP; The one just in UK, 59.8 of registration, only 53 of VAP. None is substantially better than US.
Another note, if the turnout truly hits 75% of 258 million VAP, or even just the estimated 240 million citizens in them, say 180 million total turnout, you cannot assume it will help Democrats at all.
Field dates for these polls were 9-30 to 10-15 so they won't likely pick up any really late movement. I suspect there hasn't been much movement though.
All in all, at least 1,425,054 people have voted in Georgia. That is 19.8 percent of active registered voters. And it is already 28.5 percent of the number of Georgians who voted in 2020!
Very limited. ("Juggernaut" is your word; I have not seen anyone else claim this.) Georgia’s new election law does not make allowing Sunday in-person voting mandatory – which strikingly seems designed to depress the Black vote. As a result, extremely few counties kept their polls open yesterday.
I have not seen yesterday’s votes broken down by county. A more knowledgeable commenter here pointed out that they expected more serious "Souls to the Polls" next Sunday.
I’m hoping someone can provide detailed data on yesterday’s vote. Not sure whether we – from Georgia’s Election Data Hub – can extract single-day voting breakdowns by county, ethnicity, gender and age...
A total of 1,030,957 people cast Early In-Person Votes, making North Carolina the 6th state to surpass one million votes. So far, 92,088 Mail Ballots have been returned of 390,184 requested.
In-Person Early Votes: 938,869
All in all, about 13% of NC registered voters have voted.
Party split: 35.3% Democrats, 33.2% Republicans, 31.5% Independents
As of 9am, at least 14,617,397 people have voted. In-Person Early Votes: 4,706,598 • Mail Ballots Returned: 9,849,628. Early Votes have been cast in 39 states plus DC. Six states have passed one million votes:
Piggybacking those EV numbers from 2024 this AM to 2020 Pres votes cast:
GA: 28.5%: 1,425,109/4,999,960
NC: 18.7%: 1,030,957/5,524,894
MI: 18.4%: 1,018,161/5,547,186
------------
PA: 11.4%: 787,900/6,940,449
FL: 10.5%: 1,165,746/11,092,221
GA does not do mass mail voting. Only 285k+ mail ballots requested. 80k returned. Vast majority of that # is IP EV, with a slight GOP edge (as is normal/expected).
Same story in NC. Only 390k mail requests, 92k back. The rest is IP EV. Dems with a slight edge.
MI & PA & FL are virtually all mail so far. Dems with substantial (FL), large (MI), and huge (PA) leads. But expect IP EV and ED vote to be more lopsided towards the GOP in these states.
PA does not really do EP IV at all. It will see the biggest swings from EV (all mail) to ED. There are roughly 1 million unterurned mail ballots left. 500k D, 300k GOP, 150k+ Indy.
AZ is over 10% in vs 2020, WI & NV just under. Will bring those up to speed in a few days.
Interesting data points from Politico on Pennsylvania's VBM:
"A POLITICO analysis of the state’s mail ballot data found roughly 84 percent of voters in the state who have cast ballots so far voted in the state in 2020, and that share is relatively similar for both Republicans and Democrats ... About one-third of registered Republicans who have returned their ballots so far in Pennsylvania had voted at the polls in 2020, while for Democrats, that figure is just 6 percent. If that holds, it could mean that the mail vote in Pennsylvania will be slightly less blue than it was in 2020, while the Election Day vote would be slightly less red — solely because of some voters changing how they cast their ballots."
This confirms that the GOP's push for VBM has simply cannibalized Election Day votes. Neither party has managed to activate large numbers of new voters, which is a key goal of Republicans' GOTV efforts.
I'm not seeing any sign of a new-voter surge for Republicans in Georgia, either. If you look at https://georgiavotes.com/ , the new-voter electorate - about 15% of the total - has the stats:
54% white (vs. 59% overall)
25% Black (vs. 28% overall)
4.7% Hispanic (vs. 2.3% overall)
4.0% Asian (vs. 2.2% overall)
13% other (vs. 9% overall)
It's also a touch more male, and of course way, way younger (not just among 18-29 but also 30-39), than the overall vote. I suspect this new-voter electorate is slightly friendlier to Harris than the overall vote.
Honestly, it doesn't look like a big Democratic surge among new voters either. It looks like churn. People moving, people aging into the electorate. I'm not surprised by this - 2020 turnout was so high that I wouldn't expect piles of people who sat out to suddenly vote.
I'd expect the new voters to have a relatively higher share of men because the 18-21 group would be about 50-50 but the 65+ group would have many more women than men.
33% to 6% is a big cannibilazation rate difference.
Though, if the goal of VBM is to push ED voters to vote early to you can GOTV more infrequent voters sooner, then that is good for the GOP. Potentially.
But if the new voter rate is equal (16% each) then that is not happening. Or at least not yet.
QUESTION: What assumptions about gender gap have the serious pollsters built into their Likely Voter models? I have not seen this discussed much when pollster models are debated.
In swing state after swing state, women account for 9–10% more of the Early Vote than men do. That is dramatic and it is telling!
If the pollsters fail to account for a sufficiently-large gender gap, they are going to seriously miss the target. I wonder if this explains why pollsters got their predictions on the Abortion Referendums so woefully wrong; explains why they got the Midterm Elections wrong, predicting a Red Wave that never materialized; explains why they have consistently underestimated Democratic strength in Special Elections since the Dobbs decision; AND explains why Trump consistently underperformed in almost every single Republican primary this year.
Could it be that we’ll see a Pink Tsunami and thus a Blue Wave that the pollsters and pundits failed to predict?
Yeah, I mentioned something similar last week. There is reason to believe, and some evidence, that Harris will cause an outsized increase in women voters (as well as youth and minority). It’s difficult to predict though. So there is a very real possibility that pollsters are over correcting for their misses in 2016 and 2020 by weighting for “shy” Trump voters, while at the same time completely missing an increase in new voters for Harris. That’s why I think it’s far more likely this year that Harris outperforms the polls and Trump underperforms. Always possible it will be the opposite, but I really haven’t seen any convincing theories as to how Trump gains voting share. That only happens if Dems don’t show up, and there has been no indication that is the case.
I think there's a real possibility that you're right about pollsters overcorrecting their models to account for "shy Trump voters". That's certainly the best-case scenario for Harris to pin her hopes on, and it's not particularly far-fetched.
On the other hand, there's actually any number of compelling theories on how Trump gains vote share. The most likely is that young men of color come out decidedly redder than ever before or else decide not to vote at all. Poll modeling would miss a significant swing or a significant sit-out. The second most likely theory is that the most persistent shy Trump voters of the past--working-class whites--move even more aggressively into the Trump column. Working-class whites threw off poll modeling two Presidential cycles in a row (arguably three if you account for how many of the sat out in 2012). I wouldn't count on polls being unable to pick up on the magnitude of their swing once again.
Yeah, I’ve seen those arguments but I don’t find them compelling. Aren’t young men of color a pretty low frequency voting group to begin with? So the argument is that they’re all of a sudden going to be motivated enough to vote, but not motivated enough to actually think critically about the candidates and vote for a proud racist? Even if one buys in to that theory, there just are not enough of them to counteract the increase Harris will most likely see with women voters. Hell, I doubt there are enough of them to replace Haley voters who sit out the election.
WWC voters is at least within the realm of possibility, especially if the race does come down to MI, WI, and PA. And one thing I don’t recall being discussed is that “Scranton” Joe may have earned Biden enough votes in PA to make the difference and Harris can’t count on that. But every time it’s mentioned that Trump could gain these voters it seems to be with the assumption that it’s a zero sum game and that means Harris loses an equal amount. That’s not the case, you have to take into consideration her gaining voters from other sources (primarily the aforementioned newly motivated women and youth voters). There is actual evidence that Harris is attracting new voters while there is only theory that Trump is going to either motivate a bunch of new folks to come to the polls or get a bunch of Biden voters to switch over.
I think we'd need specifics on prior turnout rates by young men of color to be able to have any hope of breaking the stalemate on this argument.
There's precedent for the insurgence of Dobbs-minded young women voters so I'm certainly not discounting the premise, but on balance, counting on an impenetrable juggernaut from the smallest quadrant of voters--socially liberal and fiscally conservative--is usually a losing bet.
I don’t think we really do, but I found this which shows that in 2020 it was approximately 45% https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/2020-youth-voter-turnout-raceethnicity-and-gender . Women make up what, 50.5% of the population? I’ll assume that is evenly distributed across all age groups. The non-white population is ~25% and again, assuming equal distribution by age and gender we’re looking at 8% of the voting population to be young men of color. That may be generous, because I believe that population is also less likely to be eligible to vote due to high incarceration rates and voter suppression efforts. But at the same time the younger population is less white so it probably works out.
Now let’s say there were 100 voters in 2020. Biden won women by ~12. So of the 50 Biden won 31 to 19. Women voted at ~66% in 2020, so if they increase to 100% voter rate we’re looking at an additional 25 votes. Young men of color is tougher to calculate but Biden won the youth vote by ~20 and the youth vote of color most likely by more. So of those 8 votes out of 100 let’s give Biden 6 and Trump 2. If they increase to 100% were up to 18 votes total by young men of color.
So again, assuming equal increases, for every new vote by a young man of color, there will be 2.5 new votes by a woman. While we have evidence that there has been an increase in women registering to vote, especially young women of color, I haven’t seen that there has been a corresponding increase in men registering. So the actual differential will most likely be bigger.
The math just isn’t there for Trump to win from a surge in young men of color switching to him for some undefinable reason.
I’m also not sure what you’re referring to with socially liberal and fiscally conservative voters. That’s certainly not an accurate description of people who are making their decision on Dobbs. That impacted and made politics personal for a much larger group of people.
Harry Enten was flagging a poll that showed Trump “only” plus 27 with WWC voters rather than +31 like 2020 or +33 like 2016. Now, I’m dubious of this personally - I don’t see much evidence this cohort has moved our way in the last four years, at least by that much - but there is some polling evidence to suggest at least some weakness there that young men of color wouldn’t offset, either.
Young men are generally not the brightest bulbs no matter who they vote for (brain development and all that) so I doubt that has anything to do with it
I think I read somewhere that the group that was most likely to switch from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020 was noncollege white men. Of all the segments of the 2020 Biden coalition, I think defections would be most likely among people who voted Trump in 2016 and then switched over, especially the noncollege white men who could probably relate much more to Biden than to Harris. Basically I expect Harris to do a little worse among noncollege whites than Biden did even as she improves on his vote margins (if not necessarily on his shares of the vote) among nonwhites and college whites.
I really don’t see how Trump wins without winning back WWC voters in the blue wall states. Assuming Dem vote is not depressed (which seems to be the case) where else is he getting new voters?
Working class white voters are rapidly falling as a percentage of the electorate and they are a much smaller percentage of the electorate then they were in 2016. I also suspect that Trump's outright racism is not working as well on young working class white voters as it is with their parents and grandparents.
Yep. I think Trump's campaign actually screwed this up. They've been spending all their energy looking for voters who didn't turn out in 2020. But he got excellent 2020 turnout among his WWC base. They should have been spending time going after those 2020 voters - especially the ones who didn't vote in 2022.
To be fair it might get that close - 538 has PA, MI, WI, and NV within half a percent. The other three swing states are all within 2% - well within the margni where the ultimate outcome coming down to 0.1%
It basically says that if the gender gap stays the same as 2020, Harris will have a good year. And if female turnout is higher than in 2020, thus widening the gap – which, post-Dobbs, seems very likely – Harris can be expected to have a really good election.
Very interesting, love all the numbers so thanks for providing. Completely agree with it and I really struggle to think of a reason why the gap would decrease this year. I’m painting in broad brushes here but women have the motivation of Dobbs and to rectify 2016 and elect the first woman president. I’m not sure men have a similar motivation except general misogyny and racism. And obviously there are some women that will vote against Harris, and plenty of men who will vote for her, but it seems likely that the worst case scenario is the gender gap stays the same.
In most of the states we are looking at, the Republican men widely disproportionately vote on election day, so even a women+10 electorate in esrly voting wouldn't mean nearly as much as one may hope. Women always outvote men, but the esrly vote is much too large of a gap to breed maintained through election day.
In general, I caution against "unskewing" polls. This is simply a fool's errand and gets ones personal biases overshadowing objective analysis.
In the article ArcticStones linked above it is reported that the gender gap in 2020 was 11, so, if anything, there is room for the gap to increase if it’s currently at 10%.
Just remembered another issue which may not be reflected in the polls, especially if they’re modeling on 2020. COVID. Here’s a study showing a significant excess death rate for Republicans in OH and FL. I don’t think there’s any reason to think it would be any different in the expected swing states, and could make those two states closer than expected. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617
Well, yes. The MAGA crowd often accuse dead Democrats of voting. I don’t have the numbers, but I am pretty sure the turnout rate for Republicans who died of Covid is even lower!
However I noticed a pretty big flaw in his reasoning. He refers to the paper I cited above and correctly points out that they analyzed “excess deaths” to come to their conclusions, but then uses the actual number of COVID deaths to make the claim that the number per state is too small to matter. The races in 2022 weren’t as close, but I’ve seen some estimates that the true number of COVID deaths is 2x the reported number, and that puts you at WI / GA / AZ 2020 numbers.
He does raise some valid points about not all of those deaths being people who would have actually voted, but I think he’s a little too quick to dismiss it.
That is one suspect poll of MT-01 by GPS. Sample size of 400 likely voters and a +/-4.9% MOE. Live here and very doubtful Zinke (R) leads by 8 pts. The poll summary also galling states "Vice President Harris is toxic to the district." What neutral poller uses that language?!
Considering how long this took, I expected a bigger update but it's still fine. GOP continues chipping away at the Request Advantage (down 6,361 since 10/11) but the Return Rate Variance % has only decreased by 0.15% (7.99% to 7.84%) since Oct 11. Erie, Luzerne & Westmoreland FINALLY had a decent updates but each still has roughly 80% of ballots outstanding. The distribution of the outstanding ballots is fairly proportional across the Commonwealth so not one county is over-represented.
One week left to request ballots. I wouldn't recommend doing so but it's going to happen. 1.9 million requests & 1 million returns are likely to happen by Wednesday.
I'm thinking going into Election Day, the traditional firewall (Dem - GOP) to be between 465-475k. Based on how requests are going, 500k is a tall task. Using the new firewall formula [D+(O*.40)-R], 550k is possible.
We finally have official Harris and Trump fundraising totals. These numbers are for the camapgin specifically and are in addition to the party / JFCs numbers released earlier this month.
For all things about Nevada elections, Jon Ralston is the pre-eminent expert! For clarity and peace of mind, follow his daily Early Voting Blog in the Nevada Independent.
https://nitter.poast.org/RalstonReports/
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-2024
I’m skeptical about it.
Indiana nominated a real crackpot for Lt. Gov at their convention over the choice of nominee Mike Braun which has been a real drag on the Indiana GOP ticket and caused a GOP party split.
It reminds me way too much of OK-GOV from 2022.
Need to see evidence(like maybe the actual poll)
NE-Sen to lean R from Likely and NRSC is running in with a buy.
The change is by the Cook Political Report. In its discussion, it states:
"While public polling in the Keystone State still shows Democratic Sen. Bob Casey with a slight lead, both Republican and Democratic internal polls show this is now a margin-of-error race, with Casey holding a slim, statistically insignificant lead of between one and two points."
"Both parties’ private polling shows businessman David McCormick shoring up the GOP base and making gains in the western part of the state, particularly in and around Allegheny County/Pittsburgh, where he now lives. Republicans say the undecided Senate voters skew non-college and are more likely to be swayed on inflation, though they are lower-propensity voters" https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/senate/senate-overview/two-weeks-go-pennsylvania-senate-shifts-toss-nebraska-senate-moves
I have trouble believing that this race is one or two points. A lot of trouble. Casey's an institution.
It may just be tightening but I don't see how Casey won't win by a minimum of 5% points or more.
I feel like 5% is his floor. Maybe that's just stupid optimism, but it reminds me a LOT of Fetterman-Oz. Right-wing pollsters coming in with McCormick even or +1, etc.
That’s a fair observation. However, unlike Fetterman back in 2022, Casey really doesn’t have any liabilities.
Then again, Casey hasn’t ever run in a presidential election cycle with Trump as a presidential candidate.
Seems telling that both Republican AND Democrat internal polls show this as a one-or-two point race just as was the case in Wisconsin two weeks ago when Tammy Baldwin's race was reclassified as a tossup. It's the latest tea leaf that internal polls of both campaigns are pointing to a much more MAGA electorate taking shape than public polls are indicating.
That's a desperation ad; losing campaigns go nuclear
Ads appealing to prejudice have won many times, so I wouldn't jump to conclusions that Republicans being in character for what the party has become are being desperate, or that they will lose.
Depends on the content of the ad though; I've not seen the ad, so it's hard to judge just how far it goes(I am hoping to find the actual ad for myself)
I might add that everyone knows Baldwin is lesbian; so without seeing the actual ad, I'm not sure of its purpose other than that the Hovde campaign has decided to go scorched earth(like I said, I'm looking for the ad)
I'm beginning to think it's not a Hovde ad at all(I can't find it)
Do you have a connection for that ad?? I can't seem to find it; maybe it's from a Super PAC?
I'm sorry, isn't Hovde a millionaire from California? And Baldwin isn't allowed to date someone (a lesbian no less! Horrors) from some other state?
I'm not sure hovde actually aired any such ad(I can't seem to find it; maybe it's me)
Are those margins from the internals they've released, or from what they're seeing privately and accidentally leaking? Both sides will always release whichever of their internals show the closest race.
The way I read it is that they are not public but it is not 100% clear. I understand that analysts like Cook Political Report get inside information we do not see. The quote I posted is pretty much all there was on polling. Here is a touch more, from the conclusion: "Though many of the fundamentals may still very slightly favor Casey, this race is now close enough that it belongs more in the Toss Up column than in Lean Democrat alongside Arizona and Nevada."
Cook Political Report also predicted Clinton was going to win 2016 and that Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were Lean Blue states.
I respect what CPR does but it has a history of being a bit too inside the beltway.
https://www.270towin.com/maps/the-cook-political-report
Taylor is several notches below Walters in the quality of her punditry.
Here's insight on the polls as to why not to read too much into them showing Casey being behind:
AtlasIntel, which apparently was started by right-wing Jair Bolsonaro supporters and Trafalgar, are the ones howing GOP Senate Candidate Dave McCormick ahead. Per this thread, both pollsters aren't the most credible:
https://www.the-downballot.com/p/weekly-open-thread-f64/comments#comment-73309945
Here's what Newsweek has revealed:
https://www.the-downballot.com/p/weekly-open-thread-f64/comments#comment-73309945
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new poll has for the first time given Republican challenger Dave McCormick the lead in the Pennsylvania Senate race.
McCormick is running against Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr., who is seeking a fourth term.
The new poll by Atlas Intel found that 48.3 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Republican, compared with 47.1 percent who back the Democrat.
The poll surveyed 2,048 likely voters in Pennsylvania between October 12 to 17, and has a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.
Respondents were surveyed amidst the final debate between the pair, which took place on October 15, and featured hostile sparring between the two candidates over their records and various policy areas.
The last poll by Atlas Intel in September found Casey ahead of McCormick 47 percent to 45.
A recent poll by the Trafalgar Group, a Republican pollster, also found McCormick narrowly ahead of Casey, 47.2 percent to 46.8 percent. The poll surveyed 1,084 likely voters in Pennsylvania between October 17 and 19. It has a margin of error of 2.9 percent.
Trafalgar is sham(I'm not convinced that they actually took any polls this cycle)
Barca is running in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional district which was Paul Ryan’s former seat
Washington Post polls
PA:
Harris 49
Trump 47
WI:
Harris 50
Trump 47
MI:
Harris 49
Trump 47
NV:
Harris 48
Trump 48
AZ:
Trump 49
Harris 46
NC:
Trump 50
Harris 47
GA:
Harris 51
Trump 47
I'm surprised by the Georgia result. Everything else seems reasonable.
It would fly in the face of polling, but a 3-4 point Harris win would comport with the state's trendline in the last 3 presidential elections. In 2012 GA voted 11.7 points to the right of the country, in 2016 it was 7.3 and in 2020 it was 4.3. If Kamala wins the popular vote by a similar number to Biden her winning Georgia by 3-4 would fit pretty well within that trendline.
I also suspect that polls have a tendency to miss when a state is trending one way or the other because they model the electorate on the last election. I don't think that Joe Biden let any Georgia in 2020 for the same reason. I also suspect that a similar dynamic is happening with the Arizona polls.
I'm not; Trump has not endeared himself to Republicans in that state with his actions and pushing Walker onto them to boot, when other actual Georgia Republican candidates were available
Interesting tidbit from the write up:
"women under age 30 favoring Harris by 20 points while men under 30 favor Trump by 15 points."
Yes, but your vote will be a good counterweight to one of those young idiots. ;)
Hey, I hit 40 recently, so I am feeling ancient too.
You’re not even half a century. Mere youngster!
My first "vote" was caucusing for Paul Wellstone in 2002, at age 17.
The grays are coming in quick. Lol
I’m 38, and have so far defied gravity and avoided the grays that all of my old high school friends now have. Hoping they don’t all come in at once on Election Night!
Having gone on Medicare this last year, I would love to have your melancholy.
My 30s were probably my best decade. I bought my house when I was 30, within 3 years income increased enough I wasn't paying over 50% for housing, negotiated 4 weeks vacation into my employment contract, and traveled internationally or 2 week backpack trips twice a year.
But I'm enjoying my 60s too, it's just life throws you some curves. Enjoy whatever situation you are in, you never know when it will end.
An amusing side note: In Norway, it’s mandated that people over 60 get an extra week of vacation. It is often commonly referred to as "senile week".
Lol
Still too young to run for President. IIRC the Levitical priesthood wasn’t considered full fledged until 30.
And if I remember correctly, men traditionally weren't supposed to study Kabbalah until they turned 40.
But in the meantime, we can study Martin Buber, starting with "I and Thou".
I still think going on Rogan could be a net positive. Maybe take that from 15 points down to 14.
Can't hurt
Was there any new announcement about that?
A 35 point youth gender gap wouldn't shock me, but those specific numbers would. The crosstabs of polls have, pretty consistently, shown narrow leads for Harris among young voters. Conversely young voter-specific polls typically show her with leads in the 30-2:1 range.
My guess is if we have a 35 point gender gap it'll be something like Kamala winning young women 70-25 and winning young men 52-42.
Other polls suggest young men are about as GOP as Millennials (so +8-9 roughly) its that women are something like +35 or so
I don't mind seeing these polls after a couple of weeks of growing negativity out there. It leaves a little room for one of the polls being a good deal off (GA) and the ball falling on the wrong side of the net (NV) and still pulling off a victory. Though obviously I'd feel better with better margins in PA and MI.
I hate that WaPo has adopted the Monmouth "technically not a head to head poll" method. Ugh.
538 lists the results. They don’t list Monmouth.
Really at this point more polls are more or less useless. The race is within the margin of error in the 7 swing states, and either candidate could win them all, lose them all, or any of the 126 combinations in between.
Any movement in the aggregates is likely to do compositional effects from who is dropping polls on a given day.
Realistically, I think this election comes down to - do the relatively small number of undecided voters decide that they dont particularly feel like putting up with Donald Trump for another four years and do they feel strongly enough about not putting up with him to actually show up.
I think we tend to overfocus on so-called undecided voters...
First and foremost, this election is about GOTV. Let’s keep in mind how dismal turnout tends to be in American presidential elections. I seem to recall that in 2020 turnout was a mere 67%. Compared to other Western democracies, that is atrocious!
The Harris Campaign has invested heavily in ground game and GOTV operations, as have a legion of democracy-defending organizations, and it has mobilized a record-setting number of volunteers. If the Harris Campaign can raise the turnout of "our side" to European levels, say 75–85%, then regardless of what the polls say, this will be a Blue Wave election.
Right now I think the most telling statistic in the Early Vote is the gender gap. In swing state after swing state, women account for 9–10% more of the vote than men do.
QUESTION: I wonder what gender gaps the pollsters have built into their Likely Voter models.
PS. There is now a flood of bad-faith polls from Republican-leaning pollsters – a flood that seems coordinated and specifically designed to impact the polling averages and the media narrative. That said, you gotta admire how cost-effective this is!
I consider people who need GOTV to get them to vote to be undecided.
I wouldnt use Early Vote for any kind of prediction. An enthusiastic woman's early vote counts the same as a guy who didn't decide to vote at all until after dinner on November 5.
I also understand what the GOP is doing regarding junk polls - it doesnt change much - the state level aggregates have been well within the margin of error the entire time since Harris took over.
Sure - maybe the polls are all wrong in our favor this time, and really we are sitting on a blue wave, but there is no reason to expect that to be the case over the opposite.
US participation rate is on voting age citizen population. The 67%, was surpassed only if you looking back in history when racial minority, women, 18-20 year old couldn’t vote. That is, we had highest participation EVER.
BTW, your “ European” level of election participation is grossly overstated. That is Australian level with compulsory voting, or maybe some smaller countries. The larger ones, Germany’s last national election had 76% using total registration as base, it would be 68.8 if VAP. French presidential election had 73.7% for registration, 66.5 for VAP; The one just in UK, 59.8 of registration, only 53 of VAP. None is substantially better than US.
Another note, if the turnout truly hits 75% of 258 million VAP, or even just the estimated 240 million citizens in them, say 180 million total turnout, you cannot assume it will help Democrats at all.
I primarily look at the Scandinavian voter turnout.
That is a very special universe though. Very different from the large and diverse elective democracies.
I didn’t mention Canada, which routinely has level of turnout comparable to California.
Fair enough, as a Scandinavian I suppose I have higher expectations.
Prior to this year French legislative elections are often under 50% or just a bit over. This year's turnout was exceptionally high at 66.7%.
Field dates for these polls were 9-30 to 10-15 so they won't likely pick up any really late movement. I suspect there hasn't been much movement though.
GEORGIA EARLY VOTE
All in all, at least 1,425,054 people have voted in Georgia. That is 19.8 percent of active registered voters. And it is already 28.5 percent of the number of Georgians who voted in 2020!
Mail Ballots (Absentee):
– 80,060 accepted (of 80,670 returned)
– 295,719 requested
In-Person Votes
– Tuesday: 313,386
– Wednesday: 279,134
– Thursday: 259,128
– Friday: 287,565
– Saturday: 163,733
– Sunday: 42,486
Total In-Person: 1,345,432
Wasn't Sunday supposed to be a "souls to the polls" juggernaut?
Very limited. ("Juggernaut" is your word; I have not seen anyone else claim this.) Georgia’s new election law does not make allowing Sunday in-person voting mandatory – which strikingly seems designed to depress the Black vote. As a result, extremely few counties kept their polls open yesterday.
I have not seen yesterday’s votes broken down by county. A more knowledgeable commenter here pointed out that they expected more serious "Souls to the Polls" next Sunday.
Yesterday was apparently a *much* more black group of voters than other days, however
I’m hoping someone can provide detailed data on yesterday’s vote. Not sure whether we – from Georgia’s Election Data Hub – can extract single-day voting breakdowns by county, ethnicity, gender and age...
Update 12:30pm: Another 100,901 Georgians have voted in person today.
Update 1:30pm: 120,219 Georgians have voted in person today.
Update 2:30pm: 157,077 Georgians have voted in person today.
Update 4:30pm: 209,734 Georgians have voted in person today.
Update 5:30pm: 230,702 Georgians have voted in person today.
Update 6:30pm: 240,169 Georgians have voted in person today.
FLORIDA EARLY VOTE
NB. Early in-person voting begins today in most Florida counties.
Mail Ballot Count when polls opened:
@FlaDems +65,532 over @FloridaGOP
- Democrat: 485,665 (42.53%)
- Republican: 420,133 (36.79%)
- Other: 236,103 20.68%)
TOTAL: 1,141,901
https://nitter.poast.org/meyer0656/status/1848300194615439599#m
NORTH CAROLINA EARLY VOTE
A total of 1,030,957 people cast Early In-Person Votes, making North Carolina the 6th state to surpass one million votes. So far, 92,088 Mail Ballots have been returned of 390,184 requested.
In-Person Early Votes: 938,869
All in all, about 13% of NC registered voters have voted.
Party split: 35.3% Democrats, 33.2% Republicans, 31.5% Independents
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/2024-general-election-early-vote-north-carolina/
EARLY VOTE – NATIONALLY
As of 9am, at least 14,617,397 people have voted. In-Person Early Votes: 4,706,598 • Mail Ballots Returned: 9,849,628. Early Votes have been cast in 39 states plus DC. Six states have passed one million votes:
CA 1,987,203
GA 1,425,109•
FL 1,165,746•*
NC 1,030,957•*
VA 1,018,364
MI 1,018,161
Piggybacking those EV numbers from 2024 this AM to 2020 Pres votes cast:
GA: 28.5%: 1,425,109/4,999,960
NC: 18.7%: 1,030,957/5,524,894
MI: 18.4%: 1,018,161/5,547,186
------------
PA: 11.4%: 787,900/6,940,449
FL: 10.5%: 1,165,746/11,092,221
GA does not do mass mail voting. Only 285k+ mail ballots requested. 80k returned. Vast majority of that # is IP EV, with a slight GOP edge (as is normal/expected).
Same story in NC. Only 390k mail requests, 92k back. The rest is IP EV. Dems with a slight edge.
MI & PA & FL are virtually all mail so far. Dems with substantial (FL), large (MI), and huge (PA) leads. But expect IP EV and ED vote to be more lopsided towards the GOP in these states.
PA does not really do EP IV at all. It will see the biggest swings from EV (all mail) to ED. There are roughly 1 million unterurned mail ballots left. 500k D, 300k GOP, 150k+ Indy.
AZ is over 10% in vs 2020, WI & NV just under. Will bring those up to speed in a few days.
Where do you get the data that GA EV has an GOP edge?
I think he is kind of wording it wrong; I think he may mean that the mail portion has slightly GOP edge
Otherwise, he's incorrect
The mail portion should be very blue. More from D leaning county, D leaning demographics. Some 20% plus not in 2020 pool.
Yes, the already returned mail votes might have a red lean, simply because the smaller counties got the ballot slightly earlier.
I think that's what he means; the ones returned so far; I could be completely wrong but it is the only thing makes sense
Interesting data points from Politico on Pennsylvania's VBM:
"A POLITICO analysis of the state’s mail ballot data found roughly 84 percent of voters in the state who have cast ballots so far voted in the state in 2020, and that share is relatively similar for both Republicans and Democrats ... About one-third of registered Republicans who have returned their ballots so far in Pennsylvania had voted at the polls in 2020, while for Democrats, that figure is just 6 percent. If that holds, it could mean that the mail vote in Pennsylvania will be slightly less blue than it was in 2020, while the Election Day vote would be slightly less red — solely because of some voters changing how they cast their ballots."
This confirms that the GOP's push for VBM has simply cannibalized Election Day votes. Neither party has managed to activate large numbers of new voters, which is a key goal of Republicans' GOTV efforts.
I'm not seeing any sign of a new-voter surge for Republicans in Georgia, either. If you look at https://georgiavotes.com/ , the new-voter electorate - about 15% of the total - has the stats:
54% white (vs. 59% overall)
25% Black (vs. 28% overall)
4.7% Hispanic (vs. 2.3% overall)
4.0% Asian (vs. 2.2% overall)
13% other (vs. 9% overall)
It's also a touch more male, and of course way, way younger (not just among 18-29 but also 30-39), than the overall vote. I suspect this new-voter electorate is slightly friendlier to Harris than the overall vote.
Honestly, it doesn't look like a big Democratic surge among new voters either. It looks like churn. People moving, people aging into the electorate. I'm not surprised by this - 2020 turnout was so high that I wouldn't expect piles of people who sat out to suddenly vote.
I'd expect the new voters to have a relatively higher share of men because the 18-21 group would be about 50-50 but the 65+ group would have many more women than men.
33% to 6% is a big cannibilazation rate difference.
Though, if the goal of VBM is to push ED voters to vote early to you can GOTV more infrequent voters sooner, then that is good for the GOP. Potentially.
But if the new voter rate is equal (16% each) then that is not happening. Or at least not yet.
New Mexico
Final Albuquerque Journal poll, 10/10-10/18
Harris 50 Trump 41
https://www.abqjournal.com/election/journal-poll-kamala-harris-maintains-advantage-over-donald-trump-in-new-mexico/article_b8ca94e0-8da6-11ef-8a26-67722784e9ab.html
Previous Albuquerque Journal poll: Harris 49 Trump 39 (9/6-9/13)
Senate race numbers or are they still forthcoming?
It's 11am and still no PA mail update. It must be a gargantuan update.
I’m looking forward to the Pennsylvania update and your knowledgeable take on it.
Thanks & fixed.
McDonald just updated his Pennsylvania top numbers.
Total Early Votes now 919,465. That’s an increase of over 131,000.
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/2024-general-election-early-vote-pennsylvania/
Digging into Pressler's numbers right now.
Great! Please post in a new thread so you analysis will be more visible. :)
QUESTION: What assumptions about gender gap have the serious pollsters built into their Likely Voter models? I have not seen this discussed much when pollster models are debated.
In swing state after swing state, women account for 9–10% more of the Early Vote than men do. That is dramatic and it is telling!
If the pollsters fail to account for a sufficiently-large gender gap, they are going to seriously miss the target. I wonder if this explains why pollsters got their predictions on the Abortion Referendums so woefully wrong; explains why they got the Midterm Elections wrong, predicting a Red Wave that never materialized; explains why they have consistently underestimated Democratic strength in Special Elections since the Dobbs decision; AND explains why Trump consistently underperformed in almost every single Republican primary this year.
Could it be that we’ll see a Pink Tsunami and thus a Blue Wave that the pollsters and pundits failed to predict?
Thoughts, anyone?
I completely agree that this could be an issue. If you do the math, I don't think it's more than a point or so, but it could be a critical point.
Yeah, I mentioned something similar last week. There is reason to believe, and some evidence, that Harris will cause an outsized increase in women voters (as well as youth and minority). It’s difficult to predict though. So there is a very real possibility that pollsters are over correcting for their misses in 2016 and 2020 by weighting for “shy” Trump voters, while at the same time completely missing an increase in new voters for Harris. That’s why I think it’s far more likely this year that Harris outperforms the polls and Trump underperforms. Always possible it will be the opposite, but I really haven’t seen any convincing theories as to how Trump gains voting share. That only happens if Dems don’t show up, and there has been no indication that is the case.
I think there's a real possibility that you're right about pollsters overcorrecting their models to account for "shy Trump voters". That's certainly the best-case scenario for Harris to pin her hopes on, and it's not particularly far-fetched.
On the other hand, there's actually any number of compelling theories on how Trump gains vote share. The most likely is that young men of color come out decidedly redder than ever before or else decide not to vote at all. Poll modeling would miss a significant swing or a significant sit-out. The second most likely theory is that the most persistent shy Trump voters of the past--working-class whites--move even more aggressively into the Trump column. Working-class whites threw off poll modeling two Presidential cycles in a row (arguably three if you account for how many of the sat out in 2012). I wouldn't count on polls being unable to pick up on the magnitude of their swing once again.
Yeah, I’ve seen those arguments but I don’t find them compelling. Aren’t young men of color a pretty low frequency voting group to begin with? So the argument is that they’re all of a sudden going to be motivated enough to vote, but not motivated enough to actually think critically about the candidates and vote for a proud racist? Even if one buys in to that theory, there just are not enough of them to counteract the increase Harris will most likely see with women voters. Hell, I doubt there are enough of them to replace Haley voters who sit out the election.
WWC voters is at least within the realm of possibility, especially if the race does come down to MI, WI, and PA. And one thing I don’t recall being discussed is that “Scranton” Joe may have earned Biden enough votes in PA to make the difference and Harris can’t count on that. But every time it’s mentioned that Trump could gain these voters it seems to be with the assumption that it’s a zero sum game and that means Harris loses an equal amount. That’s not the case, you have to take into consideration her gaining voters from other sources (primarily the aforementioned newly motivated women and youth voters). There is actual evidence that Harris is attracting new voters while there is only theory that Trump is going to either motivate a bunch of new folks to come to the polls or get a bunch of Biden voters to switch over.
I think we'd need specifics on prior turnout rates by young men of color to be able to have any hope of breaking the stalemate on this argument.
There's precedent for the insurgence of Dobbs-minded young women voters so I'm certainly not discounting the premise, but on balance, counting on an impenetrable juggernaut from the smallest quadrant of voters--socially liberal and fiscally conservative--is usually a losing bet.
I don’t think we really do, but I found this which shows that in 2020 it was approximately 45% https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/2020-youth-voter-turnout-raceethnicity-and-gender . Women make up what, 50.5% of the population? I’ll assume that is evenly distributed across all age groups. The non-white population is ~25% and again, assuming equal distribution by age and gender we’re looking at 8% of the voting population to be young men of color. That may be generous, because I believe that population is also less likely to be eligible to vote due to high incarceration rates and voter suppression efforts. But at the same time the younger population is less white so it probably works out.
Now let’s say there were 100 voters in 2020. Biden won women by ~12. So of the 50 Biden won 31 to 19. Women voted at ~66% in 2020, so if they increase to 100% voter rate we’re looking at an additional 25 votes. Young men of color is tougher to calculate but Biden won the youth vote by ~20 and the youth vote of color most likely by more. So of those 8 votes out of 100 let’s give Biden 6 and Trump 2. If they increase to 100% were up to 18 votes total by young men of color.
So again, assuming equal increases, for every new vote by a young man of color, there will be 2.5 new votes by a woman. While we have evidence that there has been an increase in women registering to vote, especially young women of color, I haven’t seen that there has been a corresponding increase in men registering. So the actual differential will most likely be bigger.
The math just isn’t there for Trump to win from a surge in young men of color switching to him for some undefinable reason.
I’m also not sure what you’re referring to with socially liberal and fiscally conservative voters. That’s certainly not an accurate description of people who are making their decision on Dobbs. That impacted and made politics personal for a much larger group of people.
Harry Enten was flagging a poll that showed Trump “only” plus 27 with WWC voters rather than +31 like 2020 or +33 like 2016. Now, I’m dubious of this personally - I don’t see much evidence this cohort has moved our way in the last four years, at least by that much - but there is some polling evidence to suggest at least some weakness there that young men of color wouldn’t offset, either.
Could be that some young men are realizing why they’re not getting any dates?
Young men are generally not the brightest bulbs no matter who they vote for (brain development and all that) so I doubt that has anything to do with it
I think I read somewhere that the group that was most likely to switch from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020 was noncollege white men. Of all the segments of the 2020 Biden coalition, I think defections would be most likely among people who voted Trump in 2016 and then switched over, especially the noncollege white men who could probably relate much more to Biden than to Harris. Basically I expect Harris to do a little worse among noncollege whites than Biden did even as she improves on his vote margins (if not necessarily on his shares of the vote) among nonwhites and college whites.
I thought the biggest switchers were noncollege white women. But I could be wrong.
I really don’t see how Trump wins without winning back WWC voters in the blue wall states. Assuming Dem vote is not depressed (which seems to be the case) where else is he getting new voters?
Working class white voters are rapidly falling as a percentage of the electorate and they are a much smaller percentage of the electorate then they were in 2016. I also suspect that Trump's outright racism is not working as well on young working class white voters as it is with their parents and grandparents.
Are there figures on exactly how much of the electorate they are now vs 2020? I believe White College had stayed exactly the same from 2016 to now
Working class whites. There are way more of them than minorities, and way more of them in total number as low intensity voters.
Especially some comments ahead in the thread wanted compulsory voting. If turn out hits 75%, I see Trump landslide. :)
Yep. I think Trump's campaign actually screwed this up. They've been spending all their energy looking for voters who didn't turn out in 2020. But he got excellent 2020 turnout among his WWC base. They should have been spending time going after those 2020 voters - especially the ones who didn't vote in 2022.
Haley voters are a quarter of the already small portion who was willing to turn out in the non-affair called Republican primary.
I doubt they decide any battlegrounds unless they get as close as Georgia in 2020.
To be fair it might get that close - 538 has PA, MI, WI, and NV within half a percent. The other three swing states are all within 2% - well within the margni where the ultimate outcome coming down to 0.1%
In tandem with a strong GOTV effort it will make a difference in all four of those states, and maybe even NC.
Someone sent me this. It’s a very good analysis from the Brookings Institution on the importance of the gender gap in this year’s election:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-gender-gaps-could-tip-the-presidential-race-in-2024/
It basically says that if the gender gap stays the same as 2020, Harris will have a good year. And if female turnout is higher than in 2020, thus widening the gap – which, post-Dobbs, seems very likely – Harris can be expected to have a really good election.
Very interesting, love all the numbers so thanks for providing. Completely agree with it and I really struggle to think of a reason why the gap would decrease this year. I’m painting in broad brushes here but women have the motivation of Dobbs and to rectify 2016 and elect the first woman president. I’m not sure men have a similar motivation except general misogyny and racism. And obviously there are some women that will vote against Harris, and plenty of men who will vote for her, but it seems likely that the worst case scenario is the gender gap stays the same.
Bill Scher for Washington Monthly said that polling right now has the gender gap similar to 2020 and 2012, for whet is worth
In most of the states we are looking at, the Republican men widely disproportionately vote on election day, so even a women+10 electorate in esrly voting wouldn't mean nearly as much as one may hope. Women always outvote men, but the esrly vote is much too large of a gap to breed maintained through election day.
In general, I caution against "unskewing" polls. This is simply a fool's errand and gets ones personal biases overshadowing objective analysis.
In the article ArcticStones linked above it is reported that the gender gap in 2020 was 11, so, if anything, there is room for the gap to increase if it’s currently at 10%.
Just remembered another issue which may not be reflected in the polls, especially if they’re modeling on 2020. COVID. Here’s a study showing a significant excess death rate for Republicans in OH and FL. I don’t think there’s any reason to think it would be any different in the expected swing states, and could make those two states closer than expected. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617
Was there evidence of that being an impact in 2022?
Well, yes. The MAGA crowd often accuse dead Democrats of voting. I don’t have the numbers, but I am pretty sure the turnout rate for Republicans who died of Covid is even lower!
/s
This article implies not https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/coronavirus-midterm-elections-republicans/
However I noticed a pretty big flaw in his reasoning. He refers to the paper I cited above and correctly points out that they analyzed “excess deaths” to come to their conclusions, but then uses the actual number of COVID deaths to make the claim that the number per state is too small to matter. The races in 2022 weren’t as close, but I’ve seen some estimates that the true number of COVID deaths is 2x the reported number, and that puts you at WI / GA / AZ 2020 numbers.
He does raise some valid points about not all of those deaths being people who would have actually voted, but I think he’s a little too quick to dismiss it.
Is there data to suggest COVID deaths were undercounted by half!? Jesus! I had not heard anything that severe
Yeah, https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid and https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02796-3/fulltext?memberid&parentid=0&postid=145984&website=main%3Fpostid%3D145984%3Fmemberid%3Fmemberid%3Fmemberid%3Fmemberid%3Fmemberid. Both estimate 2-4x deaths than actually reported world wide. Looks like a bit less in the US though, where the estimate is between a 10-33% increase in actual deaths.
I am almost certain that worst-case scenario is Trump +1, best-case Harris +5.
Most likely remains Harris +3.
That's almost exactly where I am. At least, 95% confidendence intervals.
That is one suspect poll of MT-01 by GPS. Sample size of 400 likely voters and a +/-4.9% MOE. Live here and very doubtful Zinke (R) leads by 8 pts. The poll summary also galling states "Vice President Harris is toxic to the district." What neutral poller uses that language?!
Monday's PA Mail-In Ballot Update is in.
31,344 new requests, R+1,216. Overall request advantage now down to D+521,474
129,916 ballot returns, D+31,344. Overall ballot advantage now D+325,649. Under 65k short of the (once) popular firewall, 125k below my firewall
Total Requests:
D - 1,070,259 (58.05%)
R - 548,785 (29.77%)
O - 224,643 (12.18%)
Total - 1,843,687
Total Returns:
D - 580,073 (54.20% return rate)
R - 254,424 (46.36%)
O - 87,223 (38.83%)
Total - 921,720
Nice to see another +30K addition to the D firewall.
Nicer even still to see that return rate gap. It's been hovering around D+8 and doesn't seem to be moving.
That's the first thing I check. I use it as a crude gauge of enthusiasm.
Just posted it in my analysis but the Return Rate Gap % is now 7.84%. It was 7.99% on 10/11.
Considering how long this took, I expected a bigger update but it's still fine. GOP continues chipping away at the Request Advantage (down 6,361 since 10/11) but the Return Rate Variance % has only decreased by 0.15% (7.99% to 7.84%) since Oct 11. Erie, Luzerne & Westmoreland FINALLY had a decent updates but each still has roughly 80% of ballots outstanding. The distribution of the outstanding ballots is fairly proportional across the Commonwealth so not one county is over-represented.
One week left to request ballots. I wouldn't recommend doing so but it's going to happen. 1.9 million requests & 1 million returns are likely to happen by Wednesday.
Do you expect Democrats to reach a 450k firewall this week? 500k by Election Day?
I'm thinking going into Election Day, the traditional firewall (Dem - GOP) to be between 465-475k. Based on how requests are going, 500k is a tall task. Using the new firewall formula [D+(O*.40)-R], 550k is possible.
Imo; in Portland, Blumenauer should have run(the driving issues of Rubio is disqualifying to me)
Would have been a great career capstone
A fair point!
I believe there was a Dallas-area Republican who ran for Mayor after leaving Congress. Steve Bartlett maybe?
Filner in San Diego? Of course, that all fell apart not soon after.
Mayor Ron Dellums of Oakland had previously been a Representative.
We finally have official Harris and Trump fundraising totals. These numbers are for the camapgin specifically and are in addition to the party / JFCs numbers released earlier this month.
Harris: $221.8M raised, $187.5M COH
Trump: $62.7M raised, $119.7M COH
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harris-trump-campaigns-fundraising-fec-september/