2018 Congressional Generic Ballot/House Polls Megathread 2 - no debates please

[Zaybay]

DCCC poll of CA-10: All tied up

Denham (GOP): 48
Harder (Dem): 48

Harder winning independents 53-35, Latinos 70-26.

These "shock" polls showing entrenched incumbents losing/tied always show up in wave elections, but it feels like they're coming a lot sooner than they did in 2006/10. See also: that Katko poll.

You make a valid observation. It could be possible that this wave is much larger than we all thought. The GCB has been heavily D, even when in most waves the GCB rises heavily near the end. The GOP was tied/leading by a couple of points in 2014 and 2010 around this part of the cycle, and we have been in the 7-9 range this whole time.

[Zaybay]

If that's anywhere close to being accurate, then Democrats could pick up 4, maybe even 5 Congressional Districts in Virginia.

4 is probably the limit. With this GCB, I could definitely see Comstock getting blanched and Taylor/Brat losing. I'm not entirely confident Leslie Cockburn can win in VA-05 because she's such a godawful candidate but she might get swept in by the wave and the fact that she's facing a bigfoot erotica enthusiast. Wittman, Griffith, and the Goodlatte seat are almost assuredly staying in the R column.

It indeed cannot be overstated just how badly Leslie Cockburn sucks, but even Joe Walsh and Allen West were pulled over by the wave, so it's certainly possible.

She's literally the worst competitive Democratic candidate of the year. She makes Scott Wallace and TJ Cox look good. Precisely why it's so incredible she has any hint of a chance this year.

TJ Cox is bad, but Scott Wallace is below-average. Hes got money, and is likely to win the district.

Cockburn just sucks, and has nothing going for her.

[Zaybay]

If that's anywhere close to being accurate, then Democrats could pick up 4, maybe even 5 Congressional Districts in Virginia.

4 is probably the limit. With this GCB, I could definitely see Comstock getting blanched and Taylor/Brat losing. I'm not entirely confident Leslie Cockburn can win in VA-05 because she's such a godawful candidate but she might get swept in by the wave and the fact that she's facing a bigfoot erotica enthusiast. Wittman, Griffith, and the Goodlatte seat are almost assuredly staying in the R column.

It indeed cannot be overstated just how badly Leslie Cockburn sucks, but even Joe Walsh and Allen West were pulled over by the wave, so it's certainly possible.

She's literally the worst competitive Democratic candidate of the year. She makes Scott Wallace and TJ Cox look good. Precisely why it's so incredible she has any hint of a chance this year.

TJ Cox is bad, but Scott Wallace is below-average. Hes got money, and is likely to win the district.

Cockburn just sucks, and has nothing going for her.

TJ Cox isn't really a bad candidate in general, but he's an awful fit for his district. If he was running in a different district, he would probably be doing fine. Scott Wallace would be bad anywhere. Sure, he can self-fund, but that doesn't change the basics of why he's so bad. He's remarkably uninspiring, he doesn't have a remotely compelling story, and he managed to get outraised 300K to 400K in a race where he should be dominating fundraising. That's not even mentioning the allegations of antisemitism against him. He's a bad candidate.

Cockburn is way worse, though. She mishandled the "Bigfoot erotica" thing so hard that she somehow came out of the situation worse than the guy who actually posted the Bigfoot erotica.

True, Wallace is rather unremarkable, he seems like a guy who would be an excellent policy maker, and a terrible campaigner. Either way, I still see him winning.

[Zaybay]

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I've entirely stopped paying attention to the generic ballot. All the numbers we get are from iffy online trackers.

The rise occurring recently for the Rs is because Ipos, yes, them, went from D double digits, to D+2.

[Zaybay]

Nice, though it is an internal, I am skeptical that Kim is anywhere close to the lead.

[Zaybay]

NJ-03 poll coming tomorrow:

https://twitter.com/MonmouthPoll/status/1029013352490651648

My body is ready

Prediction: MacArthur up one

I've always had a good feeling about this race. MacArthur is strong but somewhat overrated, and Kim (like all of the NJ candidates this year) is a stellar candidate. Still probably the second least likely to flip of the five GOP held NJ seats, but it's a solid tossup, maybe Tilt R.

I agree with this sentiment. Dems have been doing rather excellently in NJ, and Kim is a great candidate. MacArthur lost a lot of popularity in the Healthcare/Taxcut debacles at the end of 2017, and, unlike with some other GOP candidates, using these against him will actually stick, really stick.

Im going to be optimistic, and say Kim+3

[Zaybay]

Guys, can we all do each other a favor and try to keep page(s)-long arguments out of these poll/candidate megathreads? Even if someone could PM me before it turns into 2 pages of massive posts with 438192312 embedded quotes, that would be nice, because it's a pain in the ass to have to split pages of posts out, as the split tool isn't exactly the most user-friendly tool we have. This thread really isn't the place for multi-page arguments that quickly go off-topic, especially when it starts crowding out posts that actually belong here.

I'm saying this because this must be like the 3rd or 4th time in the past 5 days or so that I've had to do mass deletions or thread splits because no one was content to just walk away from an argument or at least move it to a new thread.

sorry about that Virginia. Ill try to keep it to a minimum next time.

[Zaybay]

TX-32 Democratic internal poll
Pete Sessions (R) - 47%
Colin Allred (D) - 45%

Trump at 41% approval and Sessions at 38% approval

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/democratic-poll-shows-close-race-pete-sessions-seat-texas

Not sure what to make of it. I guess it confirms this is a real race.

It’s an internal

And I'm sure Sessions will respond with his own internals showing him dominating in the district.

yeah, thats the thing with internals, they can either be spot on, or complete hogwash. But a clear sign to know if an internal is close to the real result is to see if the opponent will release an internal. If they do, then it should be between the two, if they dont, then, well, they might be in a bit of trouble.

[Zaybay]

https://twitter.com/MonmouthPoll/status/1029382245180690432?s=19

yep, Tom is screwed, its unlikely he will be the one to capture the undecided vote.

But I really wish Monmouth would do some other races, besides house ones. They have been helpful finding which seats are really tossups, like WV-03, but the senate and gubernatorial races are rather important too.

[Zaybay]

So the pundits keep moving races in favor of the Dems like every single time a new poll comes out...have they ever considered that maybe they should start moving some of the races without polls too, because their ratings are clearly way too GOP friendly? I suppose that's too logical.

Yeah, pundits seem to need a mountain of evidence to move a race towards the Dems, but need only one poll to move it to the GOP(looking at you Gonzalez, with the lean R rating for ND, and at you Cook, with the Oregon garbage)

[Zaybay]

So the pundits keep moving races in favor of the Dems like every single time a new poll comes out...have they ever considered that maybe they should start moving some of the races without polls too, because their ratings are clearly way too GOP friendly? I suppose that's too logical.

Yeah, pundits seem to need a mountain of evidence to move a race towards the Dems, but need only one poll to move it to the GOP(looking at you Gonzalez, with the lean R rating for ND, and at you Cook, with the Oregon garbage)

A lot of the prognosticators are too incumbent-friendly because they get leaks/internal polls shared with them from incumbents, from NRCC, and from DCCC, and they want to maintain good relationships with the powers that be. So they are sometimes overly inclined to not move a race against an incumbent unless it is really very clear that the particular race has actually moved against that incumbent.

But this year has been especially bad. Most prognosticators have such mind boggling ratings for governors, senators, and house members Ive ever seen. And I dont think its why you said it is, after all, it only took one poll for Cook to move McArthur, Ojeda, Brown, and others. I think its because they are over-correcting, and giving the Rs the best possible scenario to save face. They messed up in 2016, and just like after 2006, and 2010, they are over-correcting.

[Zaybay]

Crosstabs for Harris Interactive-

Dems winning Gen Z 42-20% (Muh conservative generation!!)

Dems winning Millennials 46-25%

Dems winning Gen X 44-31%

Reps winning Boomers 41-40%

Dems winning Silents 48-35%

Dems winning African Americans 74-6% (Don't tell Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk!)

Dems winning Hispanics 52-18%

Reps winning Whites 41-37%

Dems winning Asians 47-23%

Dems winning the Midwest 42-36%

Dems winning the South 37-36%

Dems winning 19% of those who "Lean Conservative" and 12% of those who are "Strong Conservative"

really glad that that stereotype is dying

[Zaybay]

Crosstabs for Harris Interactive-

Dems winning Gen Z 42-20% (Muh conservative generation!!)

Dems winning Millennials 46-25%

Dems winning Gen X 44-31%

Reps winning Boomers 41-40%

Dems winning Silents 48-35%

Dems winning African Americans 74-6% (Don't tell Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk!)

Dems winning Hispanics 52-18%

Reps winning Whites 41-37%

Dems winning Asians 47-23%

Dems winning the Midwest 42-36%

Dems winning the South 37-36%

Dems winning 19% of those who "Lean Conservative" and 12% of those who are "Strong Conservative"

really glad that that stereotype is dying

Dems ahead with Silents by 14 points seems wrong though

Silents are rather evenly split, and used to be a Dem generation. It really is the Baby Boomers who support the Rs.

[Zaybay]

Crosstabs for Harris Interactive-

Dems winning Gen Z 42-20% (Muh conservative generation!!)

Dems winning Millennials 46-25%

Dems winning Gen X 44-31%

Reps winning Boomers 41-40%

Dems winning Silents 48-35%

Dems winning African Americans 74-6% (Don't tell Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk!)

Dems winning Hispanics 52-18%

Reps winning Whites 41-37%

Dems winning Asians 47-23%

Dems winning the Midwest 42-36%

Dems winning the South 37-36%

Dems winning 19% of those who "Lean Conservative" and 12% of those who are "Strong Conservative"

really glad that that stereotype is dying

Dems ahead with Silents by 14 points seems wrong though

Silents are rather evenly split, and used to be a Dem generation. It really is the Baby Boomers who support the Rs.

The Silents (like my parents) always were Rs... they came of age under late Truman and Eisenhower. It’s the Greatest Generation which is almost entirely gone which leaned D for Roosevelt.

Depends on which half of the silent. The early silent, like my grandparents, came around during the Great Depression and practically worship FDR, the late end has more to do with the baby boomers, being too young to remember FDR, and being the perfect age to embrace all the anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda.

[Zaybay]

This could be nothing and could potentially change wildly as these types of polls often do, but...it seems like Trump's approval, the generic ballot, and the right track/wrong direction numbers are more or less converging. Which would make sense logically. If you approve of Trump and think the country is on the right track, it only makes sense that you would vote Republican, and vice versa.

It certainly makes more sense than the hot takes of "Trump at -20 approval but Dems only up 3 in generic ballot! So many voters holding their nose against Pelosi!" or "Trump at -5 approval but Dems up 15 on the generic ballot! Trump Democrats are coming home!"

This would make sense. The undecided vote probably constitutes that portion that isnt decided on a party/candidate, but doesnt like the president. While I do not think D+20 is believable, a double digit victory is.

[Zaybay]

FL-26 is Likely D

Oh Solid, never change.

I like Solid's ratings.  Move them all two places to the right and they're a pretty good indicator.

So the Hawaii Senate race is only lean D?

Anyway, please let's not make Curbelo the next Unbeatable Titan. Having a 7 point lead in a single poll and being under 50% 3 months before the election (and before he even has an official opponent) does not make him inevitable.

This concept is so important yet so many pundits and Atlas users ignore it.

[Zaybay]

That NY-19 number is a bit concerning. I imagine the Dems will definitely need to win that seat if they're winning the House.

They dont need it to win the house, but they will need it to have a modest margin in it.

[Zaybay]

https://imge.com/what-we-do/imge-insights/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I think the usual rules for internals apply here, so subtract six from the Republican margin.

What am I supposed to be looking at here?

the pollster is basically a R staffer, so its possible that the Rs have an advantage in these poll numbers. But thats just what I get from this description

[Zaybay]

Instead of taking CBS and declaring it the king of polling, perhaps we should look at, you know, other factors such as the GCB, polling, and other indicators instead of listening to YouGov.

[Zaybay]

Yeah, the story really has died by now, its not in headlines and it seems that the victims claims are untruthful. If the only things Rs can run on is this, then that speaks to R weakness, not strength.

But then again, this is the CLF, which has also made the "Nancy had a little Lamb", the 57859 Pelosi ads, and has generally been pretty poor this entire time, so it might just be the CLF.

[Zaybay]

I cannot wait until we start seeing the conviction bump.

I wouldn't count on there actually being much of a bump (if any). The public so often just doesn't react to things that they should react to.

I think it more of "The public is so used to it at this point that they dont care". What they will care about, however, is the healthcare rise that will occur in Autumn. That could either be a tiny bit bad or severely crippling for the Republicans.

[Zaybay]

3 new polls today.

Monmouth: D+5 (-2)
Rasmussen: D+0 TIE (-7)
Morning Consult: D+9 (+5)

Wow, really quaking in my boots, Rasmuseen says that the GCB is tied.

[Zaybay]

Rasmussen polls what they consider to be likely voters.  It would be very interesting to see the criteria for their likely voter screen.

Thats a key idea that I fear is not being picked up in polling. Likely voters usually consist of older, more educated voters. The problem is if more non-voters, or uncommon voters show up then we could be seeing a larger wave than previously thought.

[Zaybay]

NBC/Marist TX Poll incoming at 5pm ET

https://twitter.com/mmurraypolitics/status/1032357204672892928

Whoopie, another TX senate poll. We havent gotten one of those in...a week?

[Zaybay]

That is genuinely shocking