2018 Congressional Recruitment/Fundraising/Ratings Megathread

[Gass3268]

Pro-Trump PAC has Dems up 12%, 37-49, and some other tax bill stuff.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/republican-poll-shows-political-challenges-possible-benefits-of-passing-tax-bill/article/2643873

That's brutal.

[junior chįmp]

Pro-Trump PAC has Dems up 12%, 37-49, and some other tax bill stuff.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/republican-poll-shows-political-challenges-possible-benefits-of-passing-tax-bill/article/2643873

That's brutal.

Ironically Trump believes all polls are fake....even his own

[GeorgiaModerate]

An example of Democratic fundraising and engagement from this year's Virginia House of Delegates election:

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[Hindsight was 2020]

Sean Trende from RCP is saying dems should pick up 40 seats and that people are seriously downplaying the likely Trump backlash https://mobile.twitter.com/SeanTrende/status/942876809020010498

[junior chįmp]

Sean Trende from RCP is saying dems should pick up 40 seats and that people are seriously downplaying the likely Trump backlash https://mobile.twitter.com/SeanTrende/status/942876809020010498

Sean is wrong....it's going to be 70+ seats

[smoltchanov]

Sean Trende from RCP is saying dems should pick up 40 seats and that people are seriously downplaying the likely Trump backlash https://mobile.twitter.com/SeanTrende/status/942876809020010498

Sean is wrong....it's going to be 70+ seats

Why not 120? Or - 240?

[Gass3268]

Quinnipiac:

Would you want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States House of Representatives?

Democratic Party 52
Republican Party 37

Would you want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States Senate?

Democratic Party 53
Republican Party 37

Source

[junior chįmp]

Stand back folks, GOP's a dead man walkin'....AH dead man walkin'

538 Generic Congressional Ballot average gives Democrats highest advantage yet: D+11.9

[junior chįmp]

Stand back folks, GOP's a dead man walkin'....AH dead man walkin'

538 Generic Congressional Ballot average gives Democrats highest advantage yet: D+11.9

I'm seeing D+12.3. Talk about BTFO.

Literally went up in the time I took to type it up

Oh lawd...dey so ded

[Statilius the Epicurean]

A year is a long time in politics

[GeorgiaModerate]

A year is a long time in politics

Very true, but it's better to be the party on the long end of that advantage.

[smoltchanov]

Everyone will say, that democrats are in very good position now, but i remember them being fairly optimistic in 2014, and even 2010 too (and 2016 on Presidential level). Democrats are very skillfull in snatching defeats from jaws of victory

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

These are some seriously brutal and catastrophic numbers for the GOP. The election is still about a year away but the polling has been consistent and Trump and the GOP have shown no signs of changing the way they work.
I will say that yes, the Democrats are favored to retake the house and quite possibly the senate. Just imagine how many seats they could win if gerrymandering wasn’t a thing.
I think the Democrats will be in a far better position in 2018 than the republicans were in 2014 or even 2010.

[Brittain33]

Everyone will say, that democrats are in very good position now, but i remember them being fairly optimistic in 2014, and even 2010 too (and 2016 on Presidential level). Democrats are very skillfull in snatching defeats from jaws of victory

While the size of the wave could vary, we have a midterm with an unpopular President of the opposing party and that bakes in a certain reaction we wouldn't see in those other years and which has already been validated in elections in 2017.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Everyone will say, that democrats are in very good position now, but i remember them being fairly optimistic in 2014, and even 2010 too (and 2016 on Presidential level). Democrats are very skillfull in snatching defeats from jaws of victory

They were dumb for being optimistic in 2010 and 2014 because those were midterm years when democrats were in the white house. Historically, the party in control of the white house does poorly in midterm elections, especially when they are unpopular (like Trump and the GOP is now).

[heatcharger]

CNN generic ballot:

Democratic 56%
Republican 38%

[ajc0918]

Realistically, what does the generic ballot need to be at for the Dems to take the House?

[Virginiá]

Realistically, what does the generic ballot need to be at for the Dems to take the House?

Democrats tend to over-poll due to the demographic change of the electorate from presidential to midterm. Older, wealthier, more educated and white people are overrepresented compared to presidential elections. In 2006, the final RCP average for the GCB polls was 11.5 margin and Democrats ended up with an 8 point margin. However, one thing to keep in mind is that there has been a big shift of white college graduates to Democrats since then, and that demographic has also grown more, so it could make the gap smaller. This is compounded for Republicans as their party has shifted more towards a base of white working class voters, who have notably worse turnout rates than college grads.

I'd say, maybe to be safe, subtract 2.5 points from their GCB average. It could be larger, but I'm not convinced yet it will be the same as 2006.

Democrats need around 7 - 8 to win the House, so the GCB polling average will probably need to settle at 10 points or so.

[windjammer]

Realistically, what does the generic ballot need to be at for the Dems to take the House?

Around +8

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Realistically, what does the generic ballot need to be at for the Dems to take the House?

Probably +4/+5 at a minimum. Dems won the CGB by 1.2% in 2012 well Republicans won the House by a 33 seat Majority.

[GeorgiaModerate]

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Mean and median are both D+14.

[Chief Justice Keef]

CNN generic ballot:

Democratic 56%
Republican 38%

Holy crap.

[Brittain33]

CNN generic ballot:

Democratic 56%
Republican 38%

For is the first time I really believe McCaskill is going to win on the fundamentals, instead of hoping and praying it's going to happen but not being sure how it adds up.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Realistically, what does the generic ballot need to be at for the Dems to take the House?

Democrats tend to over-poll due to the demographic change of the electorate from presidential to midterm. Older, wealthier, more educated and white people are overrepresented compared to presidential elections. In 2006, the final RCP average for the GCB polls was 11.5 margin and Democrats ended up with an 8 point margin. However, one thing to keep in mind is that there has been a big shift of white college graduates to Democrats since then, and that demographic has also grown more, so it could make the gap smaller. This is compounded for Republicans as their party has shifted more towards a base of white working class voters, who have notably worse turnout rates than college grads.

I'd say, maybe to be safe, subtract 2.5 points from their GCB average. It could be larger, but I'm not convinced yet it will be the same as 2006.

Democrats need around 7 - 8 to win the House, so the GCB polling average will probably need to settle at 10 points or so.

I think 7/8 is the widely-agreed upon magic number for the House. What do you think about the Senate generic ballot though, or is that too many unique races with individually strong senators to accurately be gauged by the GCB? I would guess that incumbent senators (from both parties) would tend to do at least a little bit better than the GCB numbers for their party would suggest, unless a Senator is just horribly despised.

The problem with the generic ballot for Senate is that it's a nationwide poll, but there aren't races in every state.  Also, there are relatively few of them; a huge generic advantage in California could dominate the national results, but it only affects one seat.

I believe that some past studies have shown that incumbent senators of the non-WH party are very unlikely to lose in midterms.  Not sure about the WH party.

[Virginiá]

CNN generic ballot:

Democratic 56%
Republican 38%

For is the first time I really believe McCaskill is going to win on the fundamentals, instead of hoping and praying it's going to happen but not being sure how it adds up.

If there was any environment where Democrats could hold 26 Senate seats, including 5 or so in bigly Trump state states, this is it. I'm favoring that scenario if the House PV is 7 points or more.

I think 7/8 is the widely-agreed upon magic number for the House. What do you think about the Senate generic ballot though, or is that too many unique races with individually strong senators to accurately be gauged by the GCB? I would guess that incumbent senators (from both parties) would tend to do at least a little bit better than the GCB numbers for their party would suggest, unless a Senator is just horribly despised.

I don't think that number is very good to go by. The House PV is reasonably accurate because there are 435 races (with at least 1 in every state) as opposed to just 33 for the Senate. Looking at the margins from 2014 to 2016, they are pretty close to each other yet Republicans won way more seats in '14 than Democrats did in '16.

Maybe if you applied some fancy math to it you could derive more meaning, but from a cursory glance it doesn't seem worth investing attention into.