Republicans were banking on him holding on by virtue of personal popilarity in spite of the underlying shift in his district under him. Like a Republican Colin Peterson.
Makes me wonder about MI as well as the GOP has been imploding there for years since 2020.
Even the only House pickup the GOP got in MI in years, current Rep. John James is in danger of losing his seat by the same Democratic Candidate he beat in 2022, Carl Marlinga.
I don't think the MI GOP will stay the same forever. However, if bringing back former Rep. Mike Rogers (who was never a Tea Party or Trump Republican to begin with) to run for office as the next US Senator was a push, that means there's a thin bench the MI GOP seems to be working with these days.
Rogers didn't just retire from the House. He did so back in the 2014 midterms, before Trump even announced his run for the presidency back in June 2015. That's a long way back in today's post-pandemic environment.
Remember that he only won that seat by half a point in a midterm with a Democratic president. Polls are not showing that we have a great ground game in Michigan while the GOP state party is a complete sh#tshow.
Then in that standpoint, as far as MI is concerned it could be 2014 all over again but completely in reverse towards the Democratic Party's favor in the state.
Regarding U.S. House seats in Michigan in general, there's not as much in the way of pickup opportunities as there are in CA and NY, where most of the losses happened back in 2022. I'm still grappling with the embarrassment of previous DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney losing his House seat. All future DCCC Chairs should hold office in seats where they aren't endangered or in really close races.
I suspect that if we win it will be because we outrun Biden in the suburbs. If we are we are polling better than average in these suburban districts then we might be in really good shape, especially with the two competitive Phoenix suburban seats.
The competitive seats in Arizona are CD 1 and 6, one NE Phoenix and one Tucson and environs. Polling is also showing CD 2 in northern Arizona to be close with a hugh undecided population. I think we have a good chance in 1 and 6, and 2 would be icing on the cake that I'll believe when I see it.
Yeah I don’t think we’re getting CD2. The numbers there look good for Gallego running up the score but I have a hunch which way those undecideds will break
Is Harris racking up much more campaign activity lately partially to goad him to do more to keep up and cause him to have a physical breakdown (as in, he risks actually collapsing)?
If memory serves, Florida had alot of GOP mail in voting before COVID. I wonder if the relative decline compared to 2016 (or at least steady state in a state that has gained 10%+ population in the past 8 years) is due to some former GOP mail voters taking up the party's cause and going in person.
That's not actually that great of a gender gap for Georgia. In 2020 it was 56% women overall, with Election Day voters always being heavily Republican (and male)
Honest answer is idk. A lot of older constant voters voting. The only thing I can say is, the already voted pool is a bit red.
Also baked in the fact that over 200k mail votes are still outstanding. Mostly delayed several days from the center counties. So if they returned, would be quite blue there.
A chunk of Eday voters already voted.
And a lot of people who were even in Georgia in 2020 are expected to vote as well (they are currently underrepresented in the already voted pool). No one knows who will turn out in the next couple of weeks.
Tom Bonier’s TargetSmart has posted his "Modeled Party" analysis of Georgia’s Early Vote, which shows Democrats and Republicans running neck-in-neck. (I understand Bonier’s model is controversial. The data in his analysis currently has about a one-day lag.)
As of 9:20am today, at least 10,144,272 people have voted. In-Person Early Votes: 2,728,222 • Mail Ballots Returned: 7,379,775. Early Votes have been cast in 36 states plus DC. These 18 states have at least 100,000 votes:
I hope the majority of those are for Colin Alred. I would love to see Ted Cruz fly back to Cancun, permanently – this time not abandoning his dog, Snowflake.
"NC in-person early voting started yesterday and we're getting first statistics this morning. Typically ~90% of NC's early vote is in-person. The party reg appears to be where we might expect if NC is to be competitive with a slight reg Dem lead."
I'm really interested to see how the Independents are voting in NC. I'd imagine a sizable portion of them (not sure about an exact percentage) have voted for Harris.
I've been expecting more updates like yesterday but it looks like everyday is going to be random. The next three Monday updates are going to be HUGE. One thing still gives potential to massive updates: Each of the six large counties still have at least 40% of their Dem requests left.
The 390k firewall has a chance to be hit late next week, while my person firewall of 450k will probably be hit a week before Election Day. A few of the big counties have a little over half their requests in but still a lot of room to grow plus more satellite drop-off locations open for the weekend tomorrow. The medium-sized counties I talked about yesterday continue to lag behind: Erie & Westmoreland are finally starting to report in bulk but Luzerne is still way, way, WAY behind. Those three counties combined are D+32k request advantage.
Some fun news to end the update: At least one GOP mail-in ballot includes a vote for Harris, from former GOP Congressman Charlie Dent.
It's just a raw number that speculates a huge percentage of Democratic voters vote for their party and vice versa Republican(an extrapolation would be used to average in the independent vote; which it's all kind of a crapshoot); right now, I'd rather be us than them
I got it from Joshua Smithley aka @blockedfreq on the app formerly known as Twitter. Whether he came up with it or not & how it became so popular, I don't know. My 450k isn't really based on anything.
I'm not really sure what to make of most of the early vote data we're seeing. By all accounts the GOP is pushing early/mail voting in contrast to 2020 when they discouraged it, and Dems are less dead set on early/mail voting than they were during the pandemic. But how big is the impact of these shifts? It makes it impossible to try to use the early vote data as a gauge of enthusiasm. I suppose early voting data could in some cases be an indicator of an eventual collapse in turnout in an area, but we don't seem to be seeing that anywhere.
It's really to give a sense of calm to Democrats. It's looking like 2024 mail-in ballots are going to be about 25% of 2020 turnout. The current theory is that turnout is going to be lower this year but not 2016 low. If Democrats have 450k net ballot lead (net vote lead will be higher) going into Election Day with 28% of ballots already cast, it will calm those who pay attention.
As far as GOP pushing mail-in voting, that's only been happening for the past three weeks. Democrats started with an almost 480k request lead & it has been as high as 528.3k this week. This week was the GOP's best week in requests ever & still only "won" the week by 5,145 requests. They also closed the returned gap this week...from 7.99% to 7.93%.
I may be off base, but to me the most interesting piece of PA early voting data is the return rates. The higher Dem return rate among the people who requested ballots suggests that Dems may be more enthusiastic this year, especially since they tend to be younger than Rs and as such might be less likely to vote early all else equal. I'd expect indies to have the lowest return rate, because they skew so young.
I am concerned at how "under the radar" her campaign has been. Seen lots of Jeff Jackson ads, but none for Ms. Hunt. Heck, my retired mother (who I kid about being "mad about politics on the internet" all day) didn't even know she was Jim Hunt's daughter.
Could also see the voters who have broken sharply for Josh Stein voting GOP for LG as a "check" - not knowing much about either candidate seems likely to default to that result.
I'd say that's a true 50/50, much like the Supreme Court seat.
Harris is getting decent polling out of NC; Robinson is a clown, and Cooper is relatively popular; I figure that gives you a margin of error race and with a ground game run by the NCDP and it's coordinated campaign, you get close or actually win(basically;GOTV, GOTV, GOTV, and GOTV !)
I respectfully disagree. Given that North Carolina has only gone Democratic twice for President from 1968 onward, it would be considered somewhat of an upset if Harris pulled it off (and I hope she does).
Joshua Smithley has updated his firewall calculation (based on my understanding): Combining Democrats & 40% of Other ballots (this assumes that the Other split is 70D-30R like other elections) and comparing THAT sum to Republican ballots. That new figure is D&O+500k.
Using those parameters, the new requests advantage is D&O+608,908 and the returns advantage is D&O+323,693. We're 64.73% of the way to the new firewall.
I want to just say I disagree with this theory. I don't think that 70-30 split is a reliable metric to work with. And even if I DID agree with the theory, that firewall is 50k too low.
I'm not loving the polls right now - seems to be a bit of a drip-drip-drip inching to the right across multiple modes. FiveThirtyEight's forecast will probably be at 50/50 within a day or two.
That said, I go look at the details and I see extremely, nearly implausibly, R-favorable electorates. Take Ipsos/Reuters, most recent poll linked below. It has Harris +3 among likely voters. But she is +91 among Ds, -82 among Rs, and +9 among Is. How is this possible? It's possible if your sample of likely voters is somewhere between R+3 and R+4 (least-squares regression indicates about R+3.3).
Similarly, that Fox News poll that had Trump +2 nationwide has Harris +85 among Ds, -87 among Rs, and +9 among Is. Again, least-squares regression indicates an R+3.1 composition of the likely electorate, and indeed their writeup says it's R+3.
This seems a little hard for me to buy. I don't know why you'd assume it's a 2014 electorate. If it is, I agree we're in deep trouble, but it just doesn't seem likely. It feels to me like 2020, where partisan samples favored the out party by a lot (D+5, D+6, etc.) and we ended up with a D+1 electorate instead. If Harris out-performs the polls by 3-4 points, like Trump did in 2020, this might be why.
Furthermore, a number of other polls that have moved right seem to mostly be moving right because of sample. Emerson two weeks ago had a D+1.6 sample with Harris +1.4. Today they have a D+0.1 sample with Harris +0.3.
Many bad pollsters have taken Steve Bannon’s advice to heart: "Flood the zone with shit." All too many pollsters are really not in the business of conscientious polling, but instead have found an extremely cost-effective way to impact the media narrative. There’s now a massive flood of bad polls, mostly of swing states. A clear objective is to impact the polling averages and create the illusion that Trump is winning.
Unfortunately, all the bad-faith polling also creates a very fertile ground for the guaranteed claims of "Election fraud!" and "Stolen election!" after Trump loses.
If it were just the red-wavey pollsters, the Emersons of the world, I'd agree that this is what's going on. But Ipsos/Reuters aren't partisan, and in the past Fox hasn't been partisan in its polling either (though that R+3, plus the release timed to ambush Harris live, makes me wonder). I think there's something fundamentally weird right now. I just don't quite know what it is. Maybe it's that the electorate really will be R+3, but I'm suspicious.
There may well be something going on, such as some Republicans "returning home". And I share your impression that Fox commissions high-quality polls. But if you look at the makeup of the recent wave of swing-state polls, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that much of the narrative is manufactured.
It’s worth noting that bad pollsters did exactly the same in 2022, creating the illusion of a "Red Wave" that never materialized. In fact, a chorus of pundits were mocking Simon Rosenberg, Tom Bonier, Michael McDonald, Jennifer Rubin and a few others that were insisting: "There may be a Red Wave coming, but so far we see no signs of that."
Nate Silver went so far as to accuse Simon Rosenberg of "Smoking Hopium!" That’s how the Hopium Chronicles were born. :)
Suggestion: Look very closely at the assumptions built into each good-faith pollster’s Likely Voter model. My impression is that they have tweaked their model to account for Trump’s overperforming the polls in 2016 and again in 2020 – but that they have failed to adjust for the post-Dobbs reality. Consider:
– Democrats overperformed in the 2022 Midterm Elections
– Democrats have overperformed in every Special Election, post-Dobbs
– Trump underperformed the polls in almost every single Republican primary.
I would hope they already had tweaked their model to account for that but recent tweaks could be the cause. I think there is also a very good chance that they’re not accounting for (potentially) new Harris voters. The difference between her and Biden is so stark, that along with Dobbs I fully expect there to be a significant number of new women voters, young voters, and voters of color. There is data from new voter registrations to support that, but if pollsters are modeling based on the 2020 electorate those people will not be included.
I have to also consider that may be bias or wishful thinking, but there is enough evidence, both solid and anecdotal, that I would be more surprised by the polls underestimating Harris by a few points than Trump. It’s been stated on here multiple times that Trump has a hard ceiling of 46-47%. The only way he gets to 49-51% which is the number in a couple of polls today is if Dem enthusiasm craters. There is absolutely zero indication that will happen, and indeed every sign points to the opposite.
Trump's "hard ceiling" of 47% is an article of faith, leaning far too heavily into past performance and ignoring the significant coalitional dynamism that's been playing out in the last decade.
I usually think of floors and ceilings in terms of absolute numbers of voters, not shares of the electorate. If turnout collapses for one party, the other party can break through its supposed ceiling of the vote share even if its own turnout isn't that special.
That’s a fair point, but I don’t believe for a second that the majority of American’s support him. As sacman701 states below, him getting a higher percentage than that is heavily dependent on turnout collapsing on the Democratic side. I’ll concede that the 47% ceiling is based on slim to limited evidence, but that compares pretty well to the complete lack of evidence that he has majority support.
what makes it a poor argument, too, is easy: 47% of what electorate? If GOP turnout craters he’s not getting 47. If D turnout craters he probably beats that number. It’s entirely relative
It could be that pollsters are now getting actual voting data from early/mail in voting and its showing an R leaning year.
I often think - I basically live in a bubble with very little true interaction with how a good chunk of the country thinks.
But it could very well be that at the end of the day - the price of milk and rent and gas is just too high for the infrequent voter to ignore. Or that alot of the country is just too racist and misogynist. Or just too anti-California liberal - maybe those "Kamala saying in her own words how proud she is that she approved money for murderers to get trans surgery" ads are working.
Or that the softness in enthusiasm among infrequent Dem voters that we saw clearly when Biden was the candidate never really went away and now that the Harris announcement/Walz announcement/DNC/debate bounces have receded, we are in not so great shape.
Or just enough of all of the above for Trump to win. We will have to see.
All I can say is - if Trump wins and the GOP takes the house and senate it will prove that basically nothing matters in national politics but vibes. Not fundraising or organization or candidate quality or even ideology.
That's exactly how Glenn Youngkin got elected Governor here in Virginia. He managed to get father of five Terry McAuliffe perceived as "anti parent" and exit polls indicated that voters thought Youngkin, not McAuliffe was the "moderate." Not to mention the hard feelings that McAuliffe even ran in the race to begin with - Virginia is the one state in the USA where Governors are not permitted to serve consecutive terms - NEVER went away. Many "progressives" and African American voters wanted an African American nominee for Governor because "our turn" and felt that McAuliffe's run violated the "spirit of the law" I described above. I knew McAuliffe was in trouble when he let Youngkin beat him to the punch about repealing the grocery tax (Virginia is a VERY anti tax state) and when there were Democrats claiming that the law I described above meant that Governors could only serve one term. In short, vibes absolutely matter and we do ourselves no favors by pretending otherwise.
I would say perceived ideology matters. Not actual ideology. Reagan was VERY right wing but because he looked good on television, he wasn't seen as such.
He can switch on almost anything *that isn't what his voters actually care most about,* which is bigotry in support of a rigorously enforced social order. They're extremely ideological - they just don't actually care very much about traditionally Republican-coded policies of low taxes and pro-business policies. They care about people behaving the "correct way" and obeying their given place in the hierarchy.
Of course, because that's exactly who Trump is at his core, he won't be switching.
The oddest thing about it is they’re modeling these Republican leaning electorates while simultaneously showing Democratic enthusiasm to be fairly high.
I wonder if it's just that they didn't change their models after Biden left the race? Which, I can't totally blame them if that's the case. Like, if you think people didn't like Biden because they were unhappy about the economy and other issues, then you should keep your models favoring a conservative electorate. But if it was just a lack of enthusiasm that has flipped, you'll get the wrong electorate. It sure doesn't seem like Dems are suffering from a lack of enthusiasm.
I like the idea. Nice thought. Here's another variation: what if they changed them, but changed them during the sugar high of the replacement/DNC when response bias was favoring Ds, so they had to deflate the D share a bit? Would produce similar results.
Most of the polls results seem to be based on modeling the electorate, and I’m glad they’re publishing their numbers no matter what they are. Modeling an electorate in this era is difficult.
I agree that an R+3 electorate seems… unlikely, as of right now. Maybe I’m wrong! But that Emerson example you give seems to show that all that slide is almost 1-1 correlated with their assumed electorate model and that leads me to my prior that the race remains static and narrow, as it has more or less since Labor Day
Are they weighting by recalled 2020 vote? If so, that will likely skew the weighted sample towards Republicans, since people tend to misremember voting for the winning candidate (Biden).
Some of them are, yes. Ipsos/Reuters is, for example. I just looked at the most recent YouGov/Economist, where they weight on it, and I see the same pattern (Harris +93 among Ds, -82 among Rs, +3 among Is, but only +3 overall, meaning a roughly R+2 sample).
Good catch. Of course self-reported party ID is fluid, but nothing has happened over the last 4 years that would cause a big shift toward the GOP. The ABC exit poll for the 2022 midterm showed an R+3 electorate. This cycle, we have pundit ratings and campaigns' spending patterns both suggesting an environment much closer to 2020 (when exit polls showed a D+1 electorate) than to 2022. At worst, I would expect an R+1 electorate, and my best guess would be dead even but with Dems doing slightly better among indies than in the past because young voters tend to register indie.
And now that I'm noticing this pattern, I'm seeing it everywhere. YouGov, Harris +3, R+2 sample. Scott Rasmussen (RMG), Harris +1, R+3 sample (last week was Harris +3 in an R+1 sample).
AZ-2: Yesterday’s Inside Elections podcast adds a bit to the poll discussed yesterday showing this race tied. Neither candidate is very well known and the undecided voters "really don't like Eli Crane. The undecided voters, well, they don't really know him, but the ones who do know him don't like him at all.”
"Kari Lake's overall image in this [district] is 43 favorable, 54% unfavorable. So everybody knows who she is, and she is not popular. Among undecided voters in the congressional race, [she] has 24% favorable, 71% unfavorable.”
There is one congressional race there that might be somewhat competitive in a non presidential year; there's really nothing to see here on the federal level(I know nothing of the state\local races but I have to believe that the Democrats are in decent enough shape)
On a bad night I could see a loss in NM-02 but it's probably at least Lean D at this point with the rematch and Harris probably at least narrowly winning there.
To me New Mexico is the dog that isn't barking about a Latino GOP shift this year. Biden won by a little less than 9 in 2020. If there were really a big red shift among Hispanics, the presidential and Senate races would probably be at least fringe competitive, and Vasquez likely toast after winning by less than 1 in 2022. Instead he seems to be comfortably ahead, and otherwise there isn't a peep out of the state.
If Tester still pulls this off, it's not going to be ANYTHING other than 49% - 47% or 49% - 48% and if it happens, I'll be celebrating all the way up until 2030 when the seat is up again.
Sheehy is truly terrible Tim and badly want him taken down, or Montana will get 0 attention politically for the rest of eternity and will truly be twinning it with their neighbor Idaho, as there will be no difference between them politically in that awful scenario!! 💙🇺🇲
Also important to note that Nolan's time in the House serving in MN-08 is not the first time he was in the House.
He served in the then-MN-06 Congressional District from 1975-1981 and at a much younger age. He served during the years of Presidents Ford and Carter and left before President Reagan took office.
Thank you, Nolan for your service to this country.
It’s my understanding that they’ve viewed Bacon as effectively gone for a month or two, no?
Republicans were banking on him holding on by virtue of personal popilarity in spite of the underlying shift in his district under him. Like a Republican Colin Peterson.
If they're that concerned about AZ, saying it's a worse environment than 2020, that's great for us, no?
Makes me wonder about MI as well as the GOP has been imploding there for years since 2020.
Even the only House pickup the GOP got in MI in years, current Rep. John James is in danger of losing his seat by the same Democratic Candidate he beat in 2022, Carl Marlinga.
I wonder how much of a premium one can place on State party competence. Worth what, maybe 0.25-0.5%?
I don't think the MI GOP will stay the same forever. However, if bringing back former Rep. Mike Rogers (who was never a Tea Party or Trump Republican to begin with) to run for office as the next US Senator was a push, that means there's a thin bench the MI GOP seems to be working with these days.
Rogers didn't just retire from the House. He did so back in the 2014 midterms, before Trump even announced his run for the presidency back in June 2015. That's a long way back in today's post-pandemic environment.
Remember that he only won that seat by half a point in a midterm with a Democratic president. Polls are not showing that we have a great ground game in Michigan while the GOP state party is a complete sh#tshow.
Then in that standpoint, as far as MI is concerned it could be 2014 all over again but completely in reverse towards the Democratic Party's favor in the state.
Regarding U.S. House seats in Michigan in general, there's not as much in the way of pickup opportunities as there are in CA and NY, where most of the losses happened back in 2022. I'm still grappling with the embarrassment of previous DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney losing his House seat. All future DCCC Chairs should hold office in seats where they aren't endangered or in really close races.
I’d say so. the state party there is a disaster at that, and Lake isn’t helping
Good!
I suspect that if we win it will be because we outrun Biden in the suburbs. If we are we are polling better than average in these suburban districts then we might be in really good shape, especially with the two competitive Phoenix suburban seats.
There’s the seat Ciscomani holds down in Tucson, too.
The competitive seats in Arizona are CD 1 and 6, one NE Phoenix and one Tucson and environs. Polling is also showing CD 2 in northern Arizona to be close with a hugh undecided population. I think we have a good chance in 1 and 6, and 2 would be icing on the cake that I'll believe when I see it.
Yeah I don’t think we’re getting CD2. The numbers there look good for Gallego running up the score but I have a hunch which way those undecideds will break
The incumbent is not popular(that helps)
Is Harris racking up much more campaign activity lately partially to goad him to do more to keep up and cause him to have a physical breakdown (as in, he risks actually collapsing)?
Maybe. Two birds, one stone?
Yep. She's doing three events today in Michigan.
Do you think she wouldn't if Trump weren't canceling stuff? I think she would, regardless.
Of course she would. My post was a response to people who claim that she is "phoning it in", which is complete nonsense.
Who's the idiot claiming that?
I wouldn't think so. She has her own reasons. But if it happens, that won't hurt her.
???
Speak your truth king
We're about to delete and ban, but this reply made me laugh out loud.
I missed all the fun !!🙃
FLORIDA EARLY VOTE
(As of evening, October 17)
@FlaDems +51,851 over @FloridaGOP
- DEM: 406,759 (42.4%)
- GOP: 355,097 (37.1%)
- OTH: 196,571 20.5%)
Statewide turnout is D+5.3
Dems outperforming GOP in 66 of 67 counties.
https://nitter.poast.org/meyer0656/status/1847030517629440272#m
See county level data here:
https://freshtake.vote/2024G/index.php
These were Florida's returned mail ballot totals the day early voting opened. (Monday)
2016: 1.2M
2020: 2.5M
2024: 979K (Three days remaining)
This may indicate that the electorate is returning to pre-COVID form.
https://nitter.poast.org/meyer0656/status/1847246075171586480#m
If memory serves, Florida had alot of GOP mail in voting before COVID. I wonder if the relative decline compared to 2016 (or at least steady state in a state that has gained 10%+ population in the past 8 years) is due to some former GOP mail voters taking up the party's cause and going in person.
Or not being around to vote anymore? In part because of Covid?
More or less what most figured would happen, no? 2020 was a one-off
But later GOP turnout will erase that edge.
Brandon Meyer reports that Florida’s 1,000,00th vote was cast late this morning. Here is the party split so far:
Democrats: 425,971 (42.49%)
Republicans: 370,206 (36.93%)
Independents: 206,313 (20.58%)
https://nitter.poast.org/pic/orig/media%2FGaLuvomWkAA-ar-.png
GEORGIA EARLY VOTE:
In-Person:
– 312,260 on Tuesday
– 276,667 on Wednesday
– 255,329 yesterday
Mail Ballots ("Absentee")
– 50,140 accepted (of 50,510 returned)
– 284,519 requested
TOTAL EARLY VOTE:
– 902,517
– 12.6% of registered Georgians have already voted.
https://sos.ga.gov/page/election-data-hub-turnout
.
UPDATE 2:30pm: 184,181 more Georgians have voted in-person today.
UPDATE 3:30pm: 216,184 more Georgians have voted in-person today.
UPDATE 4:30pm: 247,407 more Georgians have voted in-person today.
UPDATE 5:30pm: 270,424 more Georgians have voted in-person today.
UPDATE 6:30pm: 279,496 more Georgians have voted in-person today.
Nothing on party breakdown?
GA does not have party registration.
You have to go into the demographics in Georgia(the state SOS does a great job with the breakdown)
Women account for 54.4% of the Early Vote so far. That’s a massive gender gap!
Georgia’s Election Data Hub, also has breakdowns by age and ethnicity, as well as by county. McDonald’s also has this, at the link below.
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/2024-general-election-early-vote-georgia/
Georgia does not report party registration.
That's not actually that great of a gender gap for Georgia. In 2020 it was 56% women overall, with Election Day voters always being heavily Republican (and male)
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/georgia
Don’t count on that.
A lot of Rs are voting early. If anything, the already voted pool is exurban and rural heavy. might be slightly pink.
The still outstanding mail votes are very blue though, if they come in.
If anything, the Election Day votes won’t be super red.
Is GA gone from Harris?
Honest answer is idk. A lot of older constant voters voting. The only thing I can say is, the already voted pool is a bit red.
Also baked in the fact that over 200k mail votes are still outstanding. Mostly delayed several days from the center counties. So if they returned, would be quite blue there.
A chunk of Eday voters already voted.
And a lot of people who were even in Georgia in 2020 are expected to vote as well (they are currently underrepresented in the already voted pool). No one knows who will turn out in the next couple of weeks.
Tom Bonier’s TargetSmart has posted his "Modeled Party" analysis of Georgia’s Early Vote, which shows Democrats and Republicans running neck-in-neck. (I understand Bonier’s model is controversial. The data in his analysis currently has about a one-day lag.)
https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?calc_type=voteShare&count_prefix=current_eav_voted_count_&demo_filters=%5B%7B%22key%22%3A%22modeledParty%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&state=GA&view_type=state
Any breakdown by county?
Georgia’s Election Data Hub is one of the best official websites I have seen. Check it out! And, yes, you can pull up a breakdown by county.
https://sos.ga.gov/page/election-data-hub-turnout
That’s a very clean website design
EARLY VOTE – NATIONALLY
As of 9:20am today, at least 10,144,272 people have voted. In-Person Early Votes: 2,728,222 • Mail Ballots Returned: 7,379,775. Early Votes have been cast in 36 states plus DC. These 18 states have at least 100,000 votes:
CA 1,205,058•
FL 988,814•*
GA 897,254•
MI 857,270
VA 815,119
PA 690,891
OH 551,001
IL 432,934
NC 428,170•*
NJ 408,261*
MA 360,707
MN 337,633
MD 326,768•*
WI 283,123
IN 220,686
AZ 172,145
NE 115,501•*
TX 114,810•
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/
Greetings! Texas offers Early In-Person Voting starting on 21 October, until 1 November.
I hope the majority of those are for Colin Alred. I would love to see Ted Cruz fly back to Cancun, permanently – this time not abandoning his dog, Snowflake.
And early voting starts tomorrow in Nevada. Enter Jon Ralston!
He's the f ing man !!
Update: Wow, things are moving quickly. We’ve passed 11.5 million Early Votes, and there’s a lot left of the day!
Cook moves PA 10 from lean R to tossup.
https://x.com/Redistrict/status/1847253788815421715
Hopefully the authoritarian similarity between Perry and Trump will help Harris win support as well in PA 10.
It would be weird if people are pissed off at a henchman of 1/6 for 1/6 and not the leader of it.
NORTH CAROLINA EARLY VOTE
Yesterday, a total of 353,036 people cast Early In-Person Votes yesterday. So far, 75,134 Mail Ballots have been returned.
Party split: 36.4% Democrats, 33.4% Republicans, 30.2% Independents
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/2024-general-election-early-vote-north-carolina/
"NC in-person early voting started yesterday and we're getting first statistics this morning. Typically ~90% of NC's early vote is in-person. The party reg appears to be where we might expect if NC is to be competitive with a slight reg Dem lead."
– Michael McDonald
I'm really interested to see how the Independents are voting in NC. I'd imagine a sizable portion of them (not sure about an exact percentage) have voted for Harris.
Congrats on your blog being old enough to drink!
We’ll have to do the drinking on behalf of The DownBallot. Tonight I’ll raise a shot of Balvenie and toast this excellent, now-legal endeavor!
Thursday's PA Mail-In Ballot Update is in.
28,390 new requests, R+524. Overall request advantage now down to D+522,690 (lowest since 10/4)
99,243 ballot returns, D+23,134. Overall ballot advantage now D+294,305. Under 100k short of the popular firewall
Total Requests:
D - 1,046,972 (58.59%)
R - 524,282 (29.34%)
O - 215,545 (12.06%)
Total - 1,786,799
Total Returns:
D - 506,320 (48.36% return rate)
R - 212,015 (40.44%)
O - 73,469 (34.09%)
Total - 791,804
Nice! That’s an increase in the Democratic "Firewall" of about 23,000 since yesterday. Slowing down since we saw 30k per day, but still strong!
I've been expecting more updates like yesterday but it looks like everyday is going to be random. The next three Monday updates are going to be HUGE. One thing still gives potential to massive updates: Each of the six large counties still have at least 40% of their Dem requests left.
The 390k firewall has a chance to be hit late next week, while my person firewall of 450k will probably be hit a week before Election Day. A few of the big counties have a little over half their requests in but still a lot of room to grow plus more satellite drop-off locations open for the weekend tomorrow. The medium-sized counties I talked about yesterday continue to lag behind: Erie & Westmoreland are finally starting to report in bulk but Luzerne is still way, way, WAY behind. Those three counties combined are D+32k request advantage.
Some fun news to end the update: At least one GOP mail-in ballot includes a vote for Harris, from former GOP Congressman Charlie Dent.
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/17/charlie-dent-2024-republicans-trump-harris
It's just a raw number that speculates a huge percentage of Democratic voters vote for their party and vice versa Republican(an extrapolation would be used to average in the independent vote; which it's all kind of a crapshoot); right now, I'd rather be us than them
Good for Dent
On a related note, Luzerne had been resisting allowing for ballot drop boxes but finally relented on Oct. 15.
Not having drop boxes in Luzerne is self defeating for the Republicans in charge. It's one of the more populated Republican strongholds in the state
But the mail-in requests are D+11k. That's why.
But it's just stupid; and probably pisses off the Republicans in the county who use the EV\VBM systems
Where do you get the popular firewall of 390K?
I got it from Joshua Smithley aka @blockedfreq on the app formerly known as Twitter. Whether he came up with it or not & how it became so popular, I don't know. My 450k isn't really based on anything.
Xitter. (The pronunciation is left as an exercise for the reader.)
I think the correct pronunciation is Xi as in Jinping.
The firewall target in Pennsylvania has always been a bit of a moving target with uncertain magnitude.
I'm not really sure what to make of most of the early vote data we're seeing. By all accounts the GOP is pushing early/mail voting in contrast to 2020 when they discouraged it, and Dems are less dead set on early/mail voting than they were during the pandemic. But how big is the impact of these shifts? It makes it impossible to try to use the early vote data as a gauge of enthusiasm. I suppose early voting data could in some cases be an indicator of an eventual collapse in turnout in an area, but we don't seem to be seeing that anywhere.
It's really to give a sense of calm to Democrats. It's looking like 2024 mail-in ballots are going to be about 25% of 2020 turnout. The current theory is that turnout is going to be lower this year but not 2016 low. If Democrats have 450k net ballot lead (net vote lead will be higher) going into Election Day with 28% of ballots already cast, it will calm those who pay attention.
As far as GOP pushing mail-in voting, that's only been happening for the past three weeks. Democrats started with an almost 480k request lead & it has been as high as 528.3k this week. This week was the GOP's best week in requests ever & still only "won" the week by 5,145 requests. They also closed the returned gap this week...from 7.99% to 7.93%.
I may be off base, but to me the most interesting piece of PA early voting data is the return rates. The higher Dem return rate among the people who requested ballots suggests that Dems may be more enthusiastic this year, especially since they tend to be younger than Rs and as such might be less likely to vote early all else equal. I'd expect indies to have the lowest return rate, because they skew so young.
That’s a better increase than yesterday. Good. I’m happy with where we’re at in PA, at least so far
I'm pretty certain that if we take PA and NC, we're winning this election.
PA + NC + any other swing state other than NV = Harris win
Yes. But I'd be very, very surprised if VP Harris wins NC. I just don't see it.
Think we'll win at least Gov/AG/Education, so we'll avoid the Darkest Timeline.
What about LG? Do you think Rachel Hunt pulls it off?
I am concerned at how "under the radar" her campaign has been. Seen lots of Jeff Jackson ads, but none for Ms. Hunt. Heck, my retired mother (who I kid about being "mad about politics on the internet" all day) didn't even know she was Jim Hunt's daughter.
Could also see the voters who have broken sharply for Josh Stein voting GOP for LG as a "check" - not knowing much about either candidate seems likely to default to that result.
I'd say that's a true 50/50, much like the Supreme Court seat.
Harris is getting decent polling out of NC; Robinson is a clown, and Cooper is relatively popular; I figure that gives you a margin of error race and with a ground game run by the NCDP and it's coordinated campaign, you get close or actually win(basically;GOTV, GOTV, GOTV, and GOTV !)
If we give any credence whatsoever to public polls, NC seems very close, so a win by either candidate would not be an upset.
I respectfully disagree. Given that North Carolina has only gone Democratic twice for President from 1968 onward, it would be considered somewhat of an upset if Harris pulled it off (and I hope she does).
If so, a very slight one. NC is at most Tilt-R now.
A New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Inquirer poll found Harris winning 12% of Republicans in Pennsylvania.
https://nitter.poast.org/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1847108612839076264#m
Joshua Smithley has updated his firewall calculation (based on my understanding): Combining Democrats & 40% of Other ballots (this assumes that the Other split is 70D-30R like other elections) and comparing THAT sum to Republican ballots. That new figure is D&O+500k.
Using those parameters, the new requests advantage is D&O+608,908 and the returns advantage is D&O+323,693. We're 64.73% of the way to the new firewall.
I want to just say I disagree with this theory. I don't think that 70-30 split is a reliable metric to work with. And even if I DID agree with the theory, that firewall is 50k too low.
Honestly I’d prefer just sticking to a D+ firewall since that’s an easier number to reliably forecast than depending on the 70/30 split
My thoughts exactly.
Banking on winning indies 2:1 is sketchy. I wouldn't count on that in my math
I would think you needed to know the demographics of the indy's(then maybe you can get a better assumption)
Do you happen to know if there is a planned 'Souls to the Polls' in Pennsylvania for EV; most likely next weekend??
I'm not loving the polls right now - seems to be a bit of a drip-drip-drip inching to the right across multiple modes. FiveThirtyEight's forecast will probably be at 50/50 within a day or two.
That said, I go look at the details and I see extremely, nearly implausibly, R-favorable electorates. Take Ipsos/Reuters, most recent poll linked below. It has Harris +3 among likely voters. But she is +91 among Ds, -82 among Rs, and +9 among Is. How is this possible? It's possible if your sample of likely voters is somewhere between R+3 and R+4 (least-squares regression indicates about R+3.3).
Similarly, that Fox News poll that had Trump +2 nationwide has Harris +85 among Ds, -87 among Rs, and +9 among Is. Again, least-squares regression indicates an R+3.1 composition of the likely electorate, and indeed their writeup says it's R+3.
This seems a little hard for me to buy. I don't know why you'd assume it's a 2014 electorate. If it is, I agree we're in deep trouble, but it just doesn't seem likely. It feels to me like 2020, where partisan samples favored the out party by a lot (D+5, D+6, etc.) and we ended up with a D+1 electorate instead. If Harris out-performs the polls by 3-4 points, like Trump did in 2020, this might be why.
Furthermore, a number of other polls that have moved right seem to mostly be moving right because of sample. Emerson two weeks ago had a D+1.6 sample with Harris +1.4. Today they have a D+0.1 sample with Harris +0.3.
(Ipsos link: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/Reuters%20Ipsos%20Core%20Political%2010%2016%202024%20PDF.pdf.
Fox link:
https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/10/fox_october-11-14-2024_national_cross-tabs_october-16-release.pdf)
Many bad pollsters have taken Steve Bannon’s advice to heart: "Flood the zone with shit." All too many pollsters are really not in the business of conscientious polling, but instead have found an extremely cost-effective way to impact the media narrative. There’s now a massive flood of bad polls, mostly of swing states. A clear objective is to impact the polling averages and create the illusion that Trump is winning.
Unfortunately, all the bad-faith polling also creates a very fertile ground for the guaranteed claims of "Election fraud!" and "Stolen election!" after Trump loses.
If it were just the red-wavey pollsters, the Emersons of the world, I'd agree that this is what's going on. But Ipsos/Reuters aren't partisan, and in the past Fox hasn't been partisan in its polling either (though that R+3, plus the release timed to ambush Harris live, makes me wonder). I think there's something fundamentally weird right now. I just don't quite know what it is. Maybe it's that the electorate really will be R+3, but I'm suspicious.
There may well be something going on, such as some Republicans "returning home". And I share your impression that Fox commissions high-quality polls. But if you look at the makeup of the recent wave of swing-state polls, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that much of the narrative is manufactured.
It’s worth noting that bad pollsters did exactly the same in 2022, creating the illusion of a "Red Wave" that never materialized. In fact, a chorus of pundits were mocking Simon Rosenberg, Tom Bonier, Michael McDonald, Jennifer Rubin and a few others that were insisting: "There may be a Red Wave coming, but so far we see no signs of that."
Nate Silver went so far as to accuse Simon Rosenberg of "Smoking Hopium!" That’s how the Hopium Chronicles were born. :)
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/
Suggestion: Look very closely at the assumptions built into each good-faith pollster’s Likely Voter model. My impression is that they have tweaked their model to account for Trump’s overperforming the polls in 2016 and again in 2020 – but that they have failed to adjust for the post-Dobbs reality. Consider:
– Democrats overperformed in the 2022 Midterm Elections
– Democrats have overperformed in every Special Election, post-Dobbs
– Trump underperformed the polls in almost every single Republican primary.
I’d rather they tweak their model to account for their misses in 2016/20 than the other way around, to be sure
I would hope they already had tweaked their model to account for that but recent tweaks could be the cause. I think there is also a very good chance that they’re not accounting for (potentially) new Harris voters. The difference between her and Biden is so stark, that along with Dobbs I fully expect there to be a significant number of new women voters, young voters, and voters of color. There is data from new voter registrations to support that, but if pollsters are modeling based on the 2020 electorate those people will not be included.
I have to also consider that may be bias or wishful thinking, but there is enough evidence, both solid and anecdotal, that I would be more surprised by the polls underestimating Harris by a few points than Trump. It’s been stated on here multiple times that Trump has a hard ceiling of 46-47%. The only way he gets to 49-51% which is the number in a couple of polls today is if Dem enthusiasm craters. There is absolutely zero indication that will happen, and indeed every sign points to the opposite.
" I think there is also a very good chance that they’re not accounting for (potentially) new Harris voters."
A modest example:
A New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Inquirer poll found Harris winning 12% of Republicans in Pennsylvania.
https://nitter.poast.org/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1847108612839076264#m
Parties typically usually only win about 4-5% of other-partisans, no?
Trump's "hard ceiling" of 47% is an article of faith, leaning far too heavily into past performance and ignoring the significant coalitional dynamism that's been playing out in the last decade.
I usually think of floors and ceilings in terms of absolute numbers of voters, not shares of the electorate. If turnout collapses for one party, the other party can break through its supposed ceiling of the vote share even if its own turnout isn't that special.
That’s a fair point, but I don’t believe for a second that the majority of American’s support him. As sacman701 states below, him getting a higher percentage than that is heavily dependent on turnout collapsing on the Democratic side. I’ll concede that the 47% ceiling is based on slim to limited evidence, but that compares pretty well to the complete lack of evidence that he has majority support.
what makes it a poor argument, too, is easy: 47% of what electorate? If GOP turnout craters he’s not getting 47. If D turnout craters he probably beats that number. It’s entirely relative
It could be that pollsters are now getting actual voting data from early/mail in voting and its showing an R leaning year.
I often think - I basically live in a bubble with very little true interaction with how a good chunk of the country thinks.
But it could very well be that at the end of the day - the price of milk and rent and gas is just too high for the infrequent voter to ignore. Or that alot of the country is just too racist and misogynist. Or just too anti-California liberal - maybe those "Kamala saying in her own words how proud she is that she approved money for murderers to get trans surgery" ads are working.
Or that the softness in enthusiasm among infrequent Dem voters that we saw clearly when Biden was the candidate never really went away and now that the Harris announcement/Walz announcement/DNC/debate bounces have receded, we are in not so great shape.
Or just enough of all of the above for Trump to win. We will have to see.
All I can say is - if Trump wins and the GOP takes the house and senate it will prove that basically nothing matters in national politics but vibes. Not fundraising or organization or candidate quality or even ideology.
What matters is information ecosystems. Which create vibes.
That's exactly how Glenn Youngkin got elected Governor here in Virginia. He managed to get father of five Terry McAuliffe perceived as "anti parent" and exit polls indicated that voters thought Youngkin, not McAuliffe was the "moderate." Not to mention the hard feelings that McAuliffe even ran in the race to begin with - Virginia is the one state in the USA where Governors are not permitted to serve consecutive terms - NEVER went away. Many "progressives" and African American voters wanted an African American nominee for Governor because "our turn" and felt that McAuliffe's run violated the "spirit of the law" I described above. I knew McAuliffe was in trouble when he let Youngkin beat him to the punch about repealing the grocery tax (Virginia is a VERY anti tax state) and when there were Democrats claiming that the law I described above meant that Governors could only serve one term. In short, vibes absolutely matter and we do ourselves no favors by pretending otherwise.
I would say perceived ideology matters. Not actual ideology. Reagan was VERY right wing but because he looked good on television, he wasn't seen as such.
Trump is almost anti-ideological, and if he switches on almost anything his voters will come along with him.
If he switched on choice, they wouldn't. The Republican Party remains hardline socially conservative.
He can switch on almost anything *that isn't what his voters actually care most about,* which is bigotry in support of a rigorously enforced social order. They're extremely ideological - they just don't actually care very much about traditionally Republican-coded policies of low taxes and pro-business policies. They care about people behaving the "correct way" and obeying their given place in the hierarchy.
Of course, because that's exactly who Trump is at his core, he won't be switching.
The oddest thing about it is they’re modeling these Republican leaning electorates while simultaneously showing Democratic enthusiasm to be fairly high.
I wonder if it's just that they didn't change their models after Biden left the race? Which, I can't totally blame them if that's the case. Like, if you think people didn't like Biden because they were unhappy about the economy and other issues, then you should keep your models favoring a conservative electorate. But if it was just a lack of enthusiasm that has flipped, you'll get the wrong electorate. It sure doesn't seem like Dems are suffering from a lack of enthusiasm.
That’s actually not a terrible theory
I like the idea. Nice thought. Here's another variation: what if they changed them, but changed them during the sugar high of the replacement/DNC when response bias was favoring Ds, so they had to deflate the D share a bit? Would produce similar results.
Most of the polls results seem to be based on modeling the electorate, and I’m glad they’re publishing their numbers no matter what they are. Modeling an electorate in this era is difficult.
I agree that an R+3 electorate seems… unlikely, as of right now. Maybe I’m wrong! But that Emerson example you give seems to show that all that slide is almost 1-1 correlated with their assumed electorate model and that leads me to my prior that the race remains static and narrow, as it has more or less since Labor Day
Are they weighting by recalled 2020 vote? If so, that will likely skew the weighted sample towards Republicans, since people tend to misremember voting for the winning candidate (Biden).
Some of them are, yes. Ipsos/Reuters is, for example. I just looked at the most recent YouGov/Economist, where they weight on it, and I see the same pattern (Harris +93 among Ds, -82 among Rs, +3 among Is, but only +3 overall, meaning a roughly R+2 sample).
Doesn't explain Fox, but, well, Fox.
Good catch. Of course self-reported party ID is fluid, but nothing has happened over the last 4 years that would cause a big shift toward the GOP. The ABC exit poll for the 2022 midterm showed an R+3 electorate. This cycle, we have pundit ratings and campaigns' spending patterns both suggesting an environment much closer to 2020 (when exit polls showed a D+1 electorate) than to 2022. At worst, I would expect an R+1 electorate, and my best guess would be dead even but with Dems doing slightly better among indies than in the past because young voters tend to register indie.
Very thoughtful comment.
Thanks, that's very kind of you!
And now that I'm noticing this pattern, I'm seeing it everywhere. YouGov, Harris +3, R+2 sample. Scott Rasmussen (RMG), Harris +1, R+3 sample (last week was Harris +3 in an R+1 sample).
AZ-2: Yesterday’s Inside Elections podcast adds a bit to the poll discussed yesterday showing this race tied. Neither candidate is very well known and the undecided voters "really don't like Eli Crane. The undecided voters, well, they don't really know him, but the ones who do know him don't like him at all.”
"Kari Lake's overall image in this [district] is 43 favorable, 54% unfavorable. So everybody knows who she is, and she is not popular. Among undecided voters in the congressional race, [she] has 24% favorable, 71% unfavorable.”
In a district of that makeup; put a fork in Keri Lake, she's done !
MI-08: Internal R poll has the race tied for Congress and President in this R+1 district: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/10/18/2024-elections-live-coverage-updates-analysis/michigan-internal-poll-paul-junge-00184350
Biden +2.1 in 2020.
NM early vote
democratic firewall is growing, both in number and in percentage
10/15 total early votes 50,109 dem firewall 4,908 (10%)
10/16 total early votes 69,937 dem firewall 9,280 (13%)
10/17 total early votes 87,798 dem firewall 13,521 (15%)
10/18 total early votes 104,811 dem firewall 17,191 (16%)
There is one congressional race there that might be somewhat competitive in a non presidential year; there's really nothing to see here on the federal level(I know nothing of the state\local races but I have to believe that the Democrats are in decent enough shape)
On a bad night I could see a loss in NM-02 but it's probably at least Lean D at this point with the rematch and Harris probably at least narrowly winning there.
Agreed; Larry Sabato has it Lean D
To me New Mexico is the dog that isn't barking about a Latino GOP shift this year. Biden won by a little less than 9 in 2020. If there were really a big red shift among Hispanics, the presidential and Senate races would probably be at least fringe competitive, and Vasquez likely toast after winning by less than 1 in 2022. Instead he seems to be comfortably ahead, and otherwise there isn't a peep out of the state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/18/sheehy-montana-senate-gunshot-glacier-park-ranger-peach/
MT-SEN
Paywalled. Could you summarize?
If Tester still pulls this off, it's not going to be ANYTHING other than 49% - 47% or 49% - 48% and if it happens, I'll be celebrating all the way up until 2030 when the seat is up again.
Sheehy is truly terrible Tim and badly want him taken down, or Montana will get 0 attention politically for the rest of eternity and will truly be twinning it with their neighbor Idaho, as there will be no difference between them politically in that awful scenario!! 💙🇺🇲
You mean getting no attention from serious Democratic candidates, I think.
Former Minnesota Congressman Rick Nolan has passed away.
https://www.startribune.com/rick-nolan-former-northern-minnesota-congressman-has-died/601164338
Very sorry to hear this. Ol' Landslide Rick held onto that seat far longer than anyone else would have.
Two very impressive wins, especially in 2016.
Also important to note that Nolan's time in the House serving in MN-08 is not the first time he was in the House.
He served in the then-MN-06 Congressional District from 1975-1981 and at a much younger age. He served during the years of Presidents Ford and Carter and left before President Reagan took office.
Thank you, Nolan for your service to this country.
RIP. He was 80, which doesn't seem that old to me now.