Generic Congressional Ballot Polls Thread

[morgieb]

WTF is up with the Congressional Ballot being so mixed?

[IceSpear]

WTF is up with the Congressional Ballot being so mixed?

I have no idea, it's extremely strange. In the past couple weeks we've gotten:

Pew: D+1
FOX: D+1
USA Today: D+1
CNN: D+1

CBS: R+8
WaPo: R+6
AP: R+8

The fact that there's clearly two distinct groups showing vastly different things is starting to make me think that "averaging" them may not be the best strategy. It could just be that one group is going to be right and the other wrong.

[Boston Bread]

I have no idea, it's extremely strange. In the past couple weeks we've gotten:

Pew: D+1
FOX: D+1
USA Today: D+1
CNN: D+1

CBS: R+8
WaPo: R+6
AP: R+8

The fact that there's clearly two distinct groups showing vastly different things is starting to make me think that "averaging" them may not be the best strategy. It could just be that one group is going to be right and the other wrong.

Likely some likely voter models which are likely too tight are likely off.

[Devils30]

The RCP average of GOP up 2.5 does seem plausible though. Still, it's surprising to see everyone downgrading Democratic seats in the house even though the national state of things and senate races haven't changed in 6 weeks.

[Lief 🗽]

Final NBC/WSJ "generic ballot": R+1

Who wants to bet this will get nowhere near the coverage that ridiculous R+11 poll last week got?

[Devils30]

If the GOP thinks R+1 in a midterm is a good result they're delusional. Adjusting for presidential turnout means the Dems would go into 2016 favored in the presidential race easily. If Rs only have a slight lead like that the Senate won't be more than 52-53 R.

[Lief 🗽]

I got polled today by YouGov and they asked questions about Obama's approval and a generic ballot question. So we might get another national YouGov poll tomorrow.

[IceSpear]

Final NBC/WSJ "generic ballot": R+1

Who wants to bet this will get nowhere near the coverage that ridiculous R+11 poll last week got?

It's actually a tie, 48-48. Their last poll back in early October was R+1 (48-47).

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Final NBC/WSJ "generic ballot": R+1

Who wants to bet this will get nowhere near the coverage that ridiculous R+11 poll last week got?

It's actually a tie, 48-48. Their last poll back in early October was R+1 (48-47).

This is the thing that isn't gelling in my mind.

[Lief 🗽]

Final NBC/WSJ "generic ballot": R+1

Who wants to bet this will get nowhere near the coverage that ridiculous R+11 poll last week got?

It's actually a tie, 48-48. Their last poll back in early October was R+1 (48-47).

The problem is that they've been asked a generic ballot question ("who would you vote for in your district") and a preferred control question ("who would you prefer to control Congress") in their polls. Understandably the results have been very different and they've done a very, very bad job of actually distinguished between the two. So it's a tie in the generic ballot (from R+1 earlier in the month) and R+1 in the preferred control question (from R+11 earlier in the month).

Basically NBC/WSJ is horrible and I hate them.

[IceSpear]

Final NBC/WSJ "generic ballot": R+1

Who wants to bet this will get nowhere near the coverage that ridiculous R+11 poll last week got?

It's actually a tie, 48-48. Their last poll back in early October was R+1 (48-47).

The problem is that they've been asked a generic ballot question ("who would you vote for in your district") and a preferred control question ("who would you prefer to control Congress") in their polls. Understandably the results have been very different and they've done a very, very bad job of actually distinguished between the two. So it's a tie in the generic ballot (from R+1 earlier in the month) and R+1 in the preferred control question (from R+11 earlier in the month).

Basically NBC/WSJ is horrible and I hate them.

Yeah, that really makes no sense at all.

[memphis]

What makes the least sense of all is why somebody would want one party to control Congress and then support somebody from the other party. But he shook my hand one time. And he has such a beautiful family
My prediction is that the Dems will win the total House vote by 2 percentage points but will stay in the minority because of egregious and pervasve Republican gerrymandering.

[IceSpear]

I got polled today by YouGov and they asked questions about Obama's approval and a generic ballot question. So we might get another national YouGov poll tomorrow.

Yup, it got released. R+4 (46-42).

[IceSpear]

Ras's final poll has R+3 (44-41).

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

Considering everyone else is showing Dems up or the GOP up by huge margins, if it does end up being a moderately decent GOP result but not a landslide, looks like Ras will be our new generic ballot gold standard. lol

[memphis]

Ras's final poll has R+3 (44-41).

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

Considering everyone else is showing Dems up or the GOP up by huge margins, if it does end up being a moderately decent GOP result but not a landslide, looks like Ras will be our new generic ballot gold standard. lol

Producing a moderate hero result doesn't make an organization the gold standard for polling.

[IceSpear]

Ras's final poll has R+3 (44-41).

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

Considering everyone else is showing Dems up or the GOP up by huge margins, if it does end up being a moderately decent GOP result but not a landslide, looks like Ras will be our new generic ballot gold standard. lol

Producing a moderate hero result doesn't make an organization the gold standard for polling.

Regardless, if everyone else is dead wrong, they're still going to look better.

[memphis]

Ras's final poll has R+3 (44-41).

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

Considering everyone else is showing Dems up or the GOP up by huge margins, if it does end up being a moderately decent GOP result but not a landslide, looks like Ras will be our new generic ballot gold standard. lol

Producing a moderate hero result doesn't make an organization the gold standard for polling.

Regardless, if everyone else is dead wrong, they're still going to look better.

And if not....

[King]

I often wondered if I could get away with being a fake polling firm that simply takes the complete toplines from 3 polls from around the same time and average their data.

It'd be interesting experiment to see if 538 or here could pick up that King Research Institute was really a scam or if they would actually credit me as the most accurate firm.