Talk Elections

The poll is here (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot), GOP 48%, Dems 36%.  This spread replicates one from 3 weeks ago by Ras, however.

It might be good to have one thread for all of these generic polls Sam. What do you think?

We don't need a thread each time this happens.

Just creating more work for the poor moderator...

Well, it is either that, or clutter on your little Board, or no more generic polls, I guess. :)

You ever imagine what an elephant raping a donkey would look like? The elephant would probably crush the donkey under its weight, leaving only a mangled corpse and some guts on the elephants feet.

Meeker must think that I have been a really bad influence on you.  :)

Beware of any poll taken the week before Labor Day.  Many people are on vacation.

That said, I'm sure the Republicans have a solid lead in the generic poll - but probably not 12%.

Don't folks out of town on vacation tend to have a GOP bias, or has the correlation between partisan affiliation and wealth become so attenuated now, that any such bias is merely an historical artifact at this point?

Great thinkers are never understood by their contemporaries ;)

CNN says GOP+7

GOP: 52%
DEM: 45%

That 7-point advantage is up from a 3-point margin last month.

Republicans also have a large and growing advantage among independents. 62 percent of independents questioned say they would vote for the generic Republican in their district, with three in 10 saying they'd cast a ballot for the generic Democrat. That 32-point margin for the Republicans among independents is up from an 8-point advantage last month.

What will the "Obama factor" be in November? The poll indicates that most say that their vote for Congress will not be intended as a message for the president.

24 percent say their vote will be in opposition to Obama; with one in five saying their vote will be a message of support for the president. In 2006, anti-Bush voters outnumbered pro-Bush voters by more than two-to-one.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/06/midterm.poll

As a bonus, here (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/partisan_trends) is a Ras poll on partisan affiliation, that has the gap between the parties down to 1.2%, the lowest since back in 2004,  with likely voters even more GOP, pushing the gap down to something unspecified, or closed, or whatever.

And here (http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/245775/it-took-obama-ruin-illinois-democrats) is a squib that the lead in Illinois by the Dems in partisan affiliation has been cut from 20% to 10%.

cc: Sbane

Generic ballot polls should go in the same thread (starting now would be fine, though) so that it's easier to track/clogging issues.

Yeah, deciding to go on vacation is a partisan decision. :)

Agreed.

Couldn't we do a generic Congressional poll thread?

Politico has a bunch of generic polls (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/41823.html) listed all showing the a GOP blowout. The headline of the article:  "New polls point to tsunami."  NBC/Wall St. Journal - GOP +9%; ABC/Washington Post GOP +13%.

And here is the reason:

"“Voters were also asked whether they think it is more important to have Democrats in charge of Congress to help support the president's policies or to have Republicans in control to serve as a check on Obama's agenda,” the Post’s Dan Balz and Jon Cohen write. “Here, 55 percent say they prefer Republicans, while 39 percent choose Democrats. The GOP's 16-point edge is double what it was in July.”

Charlie Cook meanwhile, just upped this morning his estimate (http://www.cookpolitical.com/) from 35 seats to 40 seats of the  minimum projected GOP house seat gain.

Uh, Torie,

Its ABC/Washington Post, not CBS/Washington Post.

Also, note the changeover in methodology in polls from RV to LV.

Thanks for noticing the errata and noting the change in methodology. Are you sure that in the past both polls just used registered voters?

Labour day is sort of the "tweener" time between when it is best to use RV or LV polls.

2 months is a long time and it's still a bit early to be using LV polls, on the other hand, the die is more or less cast for November, and the relative energies of the two parties will not change all that much.... so simple RV polls don't work perfectly either.

Come October, LV polls will clearly be the way to go so we just put up with things for a month where we are in the "tweener" time.

Looking at the last few polls when you group by methodology, polls within each group agree pretty darn closely actually...

LV Polls:

Rasmussen Reports   (LV)   Republicans +12
ABC News/Wash Post (LV)   Republicans +13
WSJ-NBC - (LV) - Republicans +9

RV polls that don't push the leaners too hard

Gallup   8/23 - 8/29   1540 RV   51   41   Republicans +10
FOX News   9/1 - 9/2   900 RV   46   37   Republicans +9

RV Polls

CNN/Opinion Research   9/1 - 9/2   936 RV   52   45   Republicans +7
USA Today/Gallup   8/27 - 8/30   928 RV   49   43   Republicans +6

The WSJ Poll just released, as always, is an excellent poll worth a read...

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/LateAugustWSJNBCpoll.pdf

However, the ABC/Wapo poll showing the GOP ahead with LV's by 13%, only has the GOP ahead by 2% among RV's.

You're welcome

ABC/Post   7/7-11/10     1151   RV    47    46    -    7 -        +1R
ABC/Post   6/3-6/10          ?       RV   44    47    2    6    1    +3D
ABC/Post   4/22-25/10    870    RV    43    48    1    8    1    +5D

Thanks Obama, you jackass.  Im sure you will love having Republicans strap strings onto and move you around like a mariannette after this election.  Democrats should have tanked Obama when they had a chance in 2008. 

President Clinton wouldn't be doing any better, not unless she had the magical cure for avoiding a massive deleveraging that Obama doesn't.

Unlike with Beet, this isn't about Clinton; the poster just developed this very pessimistic theory about having a Democrat in the White House after the economy crashed.

I was waiting for that one.

One of the reasons that McCain should have been elected is that he would have been a one term president.

A fresh Obama in 2012 could have taken the country in another direction; the direction has now been set and it away from Obama and everything he stands for.

Obama's win in 2008 was the worst thing that ever happened to the Democrats.

Gallup has it back to a 46-46 tie


http://www.gallup.com/poll/142892/Parties-Tied-Generic-Ballot.aspx

LOL.

So this would have us believe that 8 million people changed their mind in the past week.

Not according to their site:  http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Job-Approval-Center.aspx

Well I don't understand how the GOP's generic lead could go from 8 points to 16 points in two months. What's happened since July? Not all that much. The Gulf oil leak was plugged. That should help Obama. The Iraq pullout completed. That, too, should have helped Obama. At this rate, by November the GOP lead will be 24 points.


So Gallup has two sites now? Because the link Smash provided clearly backs up his assertion, whereas I don't see anything on the link you provided contradicting that.

I hope it is real. I changed the headline to reflect Smash's input. I will do that from now on, when posters put stuff into this thread that makes the headline dated.

BINGO.  And the only way to to give Democrats any chance of a comeback is to make sure he tanks in 2012. 

Because what the country needed was McCain making Supreme Court picks right? If only for the chance to replenish our bench on the Supreme Court with younger justices Obama was necessary. Also, I think you are seriously underestimating how much trouble we would be in right now with McCain(the country not the party), and just because we are going to lose a few seats in the midterm doesn't change that fact.

Plus, Obama's been pretty good. Much too conservative, but still pretty good. We have healthcare and financial reform and I'll take that.

You two can wail and gnash your teeth, I'm glad that Obama accomplished what he did with health care and financial regulation and don't give a damn if it means the country flips back for the short term. Republicans are going to get elected on a pure protest vote with almost no ideas other than extending the Bush tax cuts and making life tough for Obama. That's not a mandate for a bright future. This past term has been meaningful and done a lot of good for the country. If nothing else, it means future Democratic Congresses will never again have to tear themselves up over the idea of universal coverage. There will be a time in the future when I would be content for Democrats to merely govern, and not legislate, but that time wasn't 2008-2009 after 30 years of conservative government. A Republican victory in 2010 sets us up for a clash of ideas in 2012. Bring it on. Viva democracy.

But it's not even clear that Souter and Stevens would have retired had McCain won.

I disagree with Mr Phips on 2012, but it's pretty clear that Obama's win in 2008 is similar to Jimmy Carter's win in 1976, or Herbert Hoover's win in 1928: one of those rare elections where it would have been better to lose.

No, but it's always good to recycle the older members out just in case something happens. Ginsberg will likely retire next year too.

A FEW SEATS?  A FEW SEATS?  We are in path to lose 70 seats in the House and probably control of that chamber for the rest of our lives.  Had we waited until 2012, we could have had 300 House seats and 67 Senators and the White House and Obama could have been another FDR. 

Now, at best it will be another 1953-1959 period, 1969-1977 period, or 1995-2001 period, where one party held the White House, but the other party basically ran the whole agenda.

Democrats f**ked up big time in 2008.  We should have thrown the election to McCain and waited our turn. 

Well said. That is the kind of attitude that I admire. In the end it is about policy; it is not a football game.

2008 was our turn. We didn't  up at all, we won. Also, we're not going to lose 70 seats and we never would have gotten to 300 and 67 even with McCain as president. Dem gains were nearly maxed out after 2008,

I guarantee you that we don't lose 70 seats in the House. If we do I'll give you $1,000 in real life.

Under this President we've accomplished a great deal and I wouldn't go crazy over one election. Just as I said this word is coming out that he is going to go against the extension of the bush tax cuts. What do you think McCain would do about that? Even with a Dem congress?

I wish it were so. That's a noble sentiment; it is only contradicted by all the evidence.

Yes, the sentiment is not widely shared; the point is to accomplish something worthy while in power (as you see it in your own best and honest judgment), not to become a careerist, and maximize one's tenure.

Taking your argument to its logical conclusion, 'having your turn' will never be worth it and ought to be avoided at all costs. Which is bizarre. The point of politics is power; after all, if the right people don't have it, the wrong people do.

Which isn't to say that the Obama administration hasn't done a huge amount of damage to the Democratic Party's chances in the mid-terms; of course it has (and so, actually, have the Congressional Democrats. Both in terms of the Leadership and individual members). But more through a tin ear and a failure to understand that the post-Cold War phase of American politics is over than because of the inevitability of electoral disaster for whichever party won in 2008.

Over 50 is still a major disaster.  A few seats is 10-15, not 40-50. 

Folks, there is a time when you trust generic polls somewhat.  It's known as the week before the election.

Nevertheless, what I'm seeing right now suggests a 40-50 seat gain for the GOP right now, and the possible floor of 35-40 that Cook is talking about and 45 that Vorlon said earlier.  Need to adjust.

40-50 is your number if the election were held tomorrow?  I'm at 65 myself. :P

Yes, I suspect that the odds are that it will regress some. The Dems will not just sit around and die, and folks may decide that too much of a "good thing" is a bad thing.

If Democrats lose more than 50, Pelosi and Democrats will be at war with him for the rest of his Presidency.  They wont support any new stimulus measures in the lame duck session and will try to tank his Presidency.  They did all this hard work in 2006 to get the majority back and now Obama comes in and destroys it.

I wouldnt be surprised after 1994 and 2010 that Democrats in Congress deliberately try to sink the chances of Democratic canidates for President every four years.   

In short, Obama better watch his back, since Democrats in Congress right now want to put led boots on him and dump him into Lake Michigan.

Another log on the fire...

Democracy Corps (D) says GOP are up 7 among LVs, 6 among RVs

http://www.democracycorps.com/wp-content/files/dcor090210fq8.pdf

Yikes! If you also take into account that Republicans almost always outperform the generic ballot...

How many points do you add to all of these ballot results to "adjust" for this phenomenon?

Why, 6 of course :)

I can't find a link, but I remember Gallup's top pollster say that it was along the lines of +5-ish.

Also, the pollster.com average is at +5.4 fwiw.

For what it is worth,

in the last 4 mid term elections the GOP has, on average, done about 6% better than the final Gallup Generic ballot result.*

The broad, virtually across the board GOP advantage in the "generic ballot" is pretty much unprecedented in polling history.

CNN has the GOP +7
Democracy Corps (D) has the GOP +7
ABC/Washington Post has the GOP +13

This is uncharted territory, there really are no models to project what this means in terms of seats.

()

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns, Your mileage may vary, see dealer for details.

Yes, it's important not to get superstitious about that kind of thing; as people who follow elections are wont to.

1.  Mr. Phipps, et al., for God's sake control yourselves.   Everybody sane expected a bad year, but the Democratic double decimation talk is a bit much, at least for now.  Okay, you can panic, but get in off the ledge.  Obama could survive in two years; it is still too early to tell.

I'll concede that the House is probably going Republican, but maybe not by much.  

2.  The 'bots have it it back up to twelve, but it is still early.

Obama surviving would be horrible for Democrats.  The party would not survive another four years of Obama. 

It is like what would have happpened to Republicans had Gerald Ford been reelected in 1976.

For those interested, there is a long interview with Ras here (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/245997/rasmussen-retorts-jim-geraghty?page=1). I found it reasonably interesting, but alas he was not asked why he does not poll right before primaries.

It's an interesting interview, got to say.

I guess the latest Gallup isn't very interesting since it's a tie instead of R+10.

Jfern,

When The Vorlon posted the thread about Gallup showing a 10 point Republican lead, I concurred with him that the next poll would likely be far more favorable to Democrats, and that due to its methodology, Gallup is over short terms, far more erratic than many other survey research firms.

That being said, there are a couple of other reasons for discounting the Gallup poll you cite.

First, it is a Registered Voter poll in a mid-term election.  Since turnout is far lower in such elections, Registered Voter polls are even more unreliable  than in Presidential elections.

Second, if you read the entire Gallup release, you will note that they concede that intensity favors Republicans in their own poll.  That's a fance way of saying that if it were a Likely Voter poll, it would have given the Republicans an edge.

Third, there is some validity to the methodology (as well as problems) used by RealClearPolitics (and others) in blending several polls.  After all, there is a generally accepted statistical likelihood that one out of twenty polls will have a Margain of error greater than the one which the size of the sample would create.

So, in conclusion, lets see what the polls show, both from Gallup and other sources, for the next few days, before jumping to conclusions based on one poll.

Registered voters, not likely voters.  The "enthusiasm poll" give is R +25.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/142892/Parties-Tied-Generic-Ballot.aspx

Well, it would obviously be pretty epic if only people who are currently "enthused" showed up to vote, but that's not going to happen.

Its really amazing that Republicans have gotten such a generic ballot lead.  I remember 1978, where even in the midst of rampant inflation and Carter being more unpopular than Obama, Democrats still held a 15%+ generic ballot lead and most people blamed the inflation on businesses rather than Democrats.

Remember the days when Democrats could actually create a message and make it stick?

Inflation only matters if you have substabtial wealth. Unemployment is a much more severe problem for most people. Comparable elections with high unemployment would be 1974 and 1982.

Unemployment in 1974 was actually lower than in 1978.  The big jump in unemployment in 1974 didnt come until November, after the elections already had been held. 

It is probably a better indication of who will turn out.  That's why the RV number becomes less important each day.

See sig.

Gallup says the GOP is back to +5 on the Generic ballot, which is, more or less, the real number among RVs.

At least for the next twenty minutes or so, the polling all looks reasonably sane and consistent....

Likely Voters

ABC News/Wash Post:   Republicans +13
Democracy Corps (D):   Republicans +7
Rasmussen Reports:        Republicans +9

Average: - GOP + 9.7%

Registered Voters:

Quinnipiac: Republicans +5
CNN/Opinion Research:   Republicans +7
FOX News:   Republicans +9
Gallup:   Republicans +5

Average - GOP + 6.5%

Polls of similar populations more or less agree, and the gap of 3.2% between LVs and RVs is consistent with historical patterns.

Stay tuned for next weeks thrilling new episode.....

Gallup had some really strong swings in the previous few weeks.

Republicans up 10 points, then tied!?!

Their current 5 point lead for Republicans seems a little more reasonable.

Gallup is a mess... the worst pollster. On this forum, the word gallup should be forbidden.

     They're not great or anything, but I wouldn't go that far. Remember how bad ARG was back in 2008, after all. Now that I think about it, whatever happened to ARG?

Gallup has a lot of very bright people working for them, and they have a great deal of integrity.

That being said, Gallup is trying to use 1970s methodology in 21st century situations - with predictable results.

The REAL reason Gallup is running a daily tracking poll is so they can build up a huge dataset and actually go in and truly "fix" they way they are doing things.

When a pollster truly and profoundly $ up they can react one of two ways - denial or increased determination.

In 2000 Rasmussen totally blew it (He has Bush winning by 10% in a 3000 person sample size) - Rasmussen went in and fixed things and has done quite well since then.

Let's hope Gallup can do the same.

You are dead wrong on this. Inflation hits hardest at the poor. The rich have access to financial instruments that shield them from the impact. It is the poor who do not. Inflation is, probably, the most regressive tax the government ever imposes in practice.

ag, doesn't inflation hit the middle class the hardest?

The poor aren't hit the hardest because they generally live paycheck to paycheck - they have little savings. And during inflation, wages usually rise just as fast as prices. So the net effect on the poor would be nil.

The wealthy, of course, have assets - homes, stocks, land - that all rise in value with inflation. That protects them.

The middle class though, have cash savings which can easily be wiped out by inflation if not invested. Isn't this what happened during hyperinflation in Germany (of course they're not the same thing, but still)?

Also,doesn't inflation hurt creditors at the expense of debtors? The reason being that debt is not indexed to inflation, so over time, it decreases the debt load, where deflation increases it. This is why poor farmers in the American midwest advocated inflationary (or at least anti-deflationary) policies in the late 19th century.

I must disagree.

Polimetrix is probably THE most inaccurate, closely followed by Washington Post (they usually combine with ABC) and PSRA.

Warning!

There is a new Roper poll coming out which (based on initial limited data) appears to be wildly off!

So, when it appears, please be skeptical.

Hardly anybody has substantial cash lying around in the bank, and most people are a paycheck or two away from serious trouble. Short of the crazy, runaway inflation in unstable nations, the worst inflation does to most people is the "OMGZ, I remember when five cents was a lot of money" crap I hear from my dad. 

Memphis, who was president during our last inflationary period and what happened to him?

RCP has an article (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/17/what_the_latest_polls_told_us_--_9172010_edition_107206.html) going over a bunch of polls, generic and race specific. The shocker was that the GOP challenger was ahead by 4-5 points in MI-9.  Michigan seems to be joining Ohio as a blowout state.

Peters barely won in a 2008 wave in which he underperformed Obama by about 7% against a very weak incumbent and was on everyone's endangered list from that moment onwards. Its an overwhelmingly Republican area on the local level, and in that respect looks a lot like PA-06 or PA-12 for the GOP, ie. fools gold because the PVI is highly misleading. It was quite obviously a top fifteen target along with MI-7 even in a neutral year, and it falling is like hearing that AZ-05 is. Bad news, but far less scary than the CA-20 poll, or the MA-10 primary numbers. Now those point more towards a 50+ seat loss.

Gallup
9/13-19/10; 2,925 registered voters, 2% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews

2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
46% Democrat, 45% Republican


Rasmussen
9/13-19/10; 3,500 likely voters, 2% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone

2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
48% Republican, 38% Democrat

Inflation is a meat grinder for large sums of money in the bank. Something most people don't have. There is a psychological OMGZ I remember when 5 cents was a a lot of money effect that annoys people (and perceptions are important) but it doesn't really make any practical difference.

Hmm, interesting contrast we have here.  Surprised to see the Dems leading on the Gallup ballot though.

Further data from Rasmussen's sample: Palin's fav/unfav numbers are 48/49 and health care's numbers are 33/56 support/oppose. Whether or not that reflects the electorate is debatable since this is quite a conservative slice of America; it's interesting to think of the Republican ballot number tracking exactly with Palin's favorables.

Gallup has had some really weird swings in its surveys the past few weeks.

Expect the next Gallup poll to show the Republicans up several points, given the pendulum trend of Gallup.

Yes it does, if you are trying to save money or are on a fixed income.

Rasmussen, +10 GOP 48/38.

Not Technically a Generic Ballot, but the parties have similar favorable rankings among registered voters.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143213/Republican-Democratic-Party-Favorability-Identical.aspx

Which is terrible for the Democrats, as their 53% disapproval rating is the highest it's ever been by 6-7 points, and for all their talk about the Tea party making the GOP unelectable, the party has gained about 10 approval points since they first emerged in early 2009.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/24/cnn-poll-gop-has-big-advantage/) has the GOP up by 9% (53%-44%).

Generally an 8-12 point range across polls.

Let's put "tied" into perspective.

In 1994 Gallup had the "generic ballot" tied, and we all know how that turned out.

The AVERAGE of the last 4 mid term elections, the Gallup RV generic ballot has under-polled the GOP by 7+ %

Tied in RVs is a big night for the GOP, anything above that is really putting a hurt on the Dems.

New Ras generic poll (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot): +6%R (46-40).

The generic ballot has tightened considerably in the last month: http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/10-us-house-genballot.php

+6 from Ras is great news.

It might be an outlier.  That is highest D number since June 2009.  It was a 2 point increase as well.

Interesting, though it was clear a GOP lead as high as it was in the late-summer was not going to last. Still, as Vorlon pointed out, if the Republicans are ahead, it's a bad night for Democrats.

Gallup will shift to a likely voter model next week, and assuming Gallup uses their standard model, current data suggest a gap of about 9 points between RV and LVs in the Gallup universe.

UPDATE:

Gallup's website suggest a 10%+ GOP lead using "likely Voters"

Additionally, preliminary modeling of the likely electorate using Gallup’s traditional likely voter questions (more on this next week) suggests that if current patterns persist, Republicans could have a double-digit lead in the national House vote on Election Day, which would translate into Republicans gaining well above the number of seats necessary to control the House.

http://2010central.gallup.com/2010/09/story-of-election-disproportionate.html

It is "highly" unlikely that kind of enthusiasm gap will last till election day, I would expect it to narrow to the more normal midterm  6% (ish) gap between RVs and LVs by election day

Vorlon, you are calling for a sixty seat Republican gain in the House?

"calling for" would imply advocacy for that outcome, and I don't actually trust the GOP enough to want them to have that many seats.  

There are about 35 Dem seats that are basically "gone", baring some major shift the race is over.  There are another 35 or so where it is very very close, more or less toss-ups  I expect the GOP to win about 3/4s of them or so.  The Dems will likely win back LA2, HI1, and Delaware AL, ~~maybe~~ Illinois 10, so yes 60 seats +/- is the middle of the range.

There are dozens of seats, mainly in the Midwest, that are all very close, so it's really hard to get an exact read right now.  A shift or even 2 or 3 points Nationally changes a couple dozen seats in the house.  It's actually quite exciting.  Depending on the turnout model, GOP gains could be anywhere from 28 to about 105 seats at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

In politics, follow the money - The GOP is shifting money from the mid-west to the coasts.  You play offense in the other guys marginals, and if the marginals are New York, California, Washington, the GOP is looking at 60 (ish) seats.

Ok, so which 35 seats to you are "gone" for the Dems?

Well, I agree with a 30-35 range of "gone" seats, but I'm a less certain about another 25-30 on top of that.  105 is possible if Obama nominates bin Laden for the Supreme Court.  That 60 seems excessive.

I wouldn't say 35 seats are dead at this point. Maybe leaning towards the GOP, but the incumbents involved could certainly close the gap in some cases.

Give me a list of flipped seats in 2006 and 2008, and I'll show you 30-35 seats.

As I said, 105 is a really "extreme" scenario - maximum GOP turnout, very depressed Dem turnout, a "big" event worth a couple extra points, so "shock and awe" event.

In terms of counting 35 or so...

these I am pretty sure of, and then there are another 40 or so that are very much in play... in a wave year the wave party will get most of the marginals...

I am sure there are a bunch in the mid-west nobody is watching that will go GOP as well.

1 - TN6
2 - LA3
3 - AR2
4 - NY29
5 - MD1
6 - OH15
7 - NM2
8 - OH1
9 - KS3
10 - IN8
11 - CO4
12 - NH1
13 - NH2
14 - ND99
15 - TN8
16 - FL24
17 - MS1
18 - NV3
19 - VA5
20 - VA2
21 - FL8
22 - MI1
23 - NY24
24 - PA11
25 - WV1
26 - MI7
27 - WA3
28 - PA7
29 - IL14
30 - TX17
31 - AR1
32 - AL2
33 - IN9
34 - ID1
35 - SC5
36 - PA3

Agree with last sentence (well, I'm watching them and DCCC is advertising, but that's not "watching") - unsure of other sentence.

As to your list...

1 - TN6 Yes.
2 - LA3 Yes, though Louisiana is strange.
3 - AR2 Yes.
4 - NY29 Yes.
5 - MD1 Not 100%, but in seats that are Republican (as opposed to voting Republican), the undecideds tend to move to the Republican side during good years at the end.
6 - OH15 Yes.  Dems haven't even tried to advertise here.
7 - NM2 Not 100%, and less so than MD1.  This area is strange.
8 - OH1 Close to Yes.  Black turnout is what did Chabot in anyway - and Ohio looks bad to me for Dems.
9 - KS3 Dems have thrown money here, but I think it's a waste of time.  So yes.
10 - IN8 Probably - given what else we've seen in the Midwest.
11 - CO4 Yes.
12 - NH1 Shea-Porter is stronger than we give her credit for and Guinta is weak.  Definitely can't agree here.
13 - NH2 I think so.  Not 100%, but close.
14 - ND99 You mean ND-AL.  Probably, but less so than NH-2.
15 - TN8 Yes because Fincher is the correct candidate for the CD. Watch.
16 - FL24 Yes.
17 - MS1 Not 100%, but close.  Childers will have to run strongly with McCain-voting rural whites in MS - possible, but not likely.
18 - NV3 I don't think this one's over at all.
19 - VA5 Yes.
20 - VA2
21 - FL8 I personally think Grayson's killing himself, but I've been wrong before.  So probably yes.
22 - MI1 Yes - even though there's the weird third-party guy and Dems are throwing some money here.  MI7 is where Dems think they have the better shot.
23 - NY24 No - not dead at all.
24 - PA11 Yes.
25 - WV1 I don't know - West Virginia is weird.  This is a CD I have trouble with.
26 - MI7 I'd put this seat in the same league as MD1 actually.
27 - WA3 Yes.
28 - PA7 Yes.
29 - IL14 I think IL11 is gone.  This one isn't.
30 - TX17 Yes.
31 - AR1 No, though Dems are not favored - not gone.
32 - AL2 Demographics say yes here, but who knows.  Much like Childers, he has to get great numbers from McCain-voting whites in black areas, but his opponent is much weaker.  So not gone.
33 - IN9 Haven't gotten anything from here for a while.  In theory, it should be gone though.
34 - ID1 Dems are favored here unless we get the not unlikely late collapse.  Get the memo.
35 - SC5 Probably yes.
36 - PA3 I had a feeling English was dead here in 2008 and I have the same sense about dahlkemper now.

So what does that come to?

Almost precisely my list of losses.  The only change is that I have AL-02, NM-02, ID-01, IN-09, WV-01, NY-24, and NV-03 as holds and added NY-19, AZ-01, FL-02, IL-11, OH-16, WI-07, WI-08, and GA-08 as additional losses.  

The ones on your list I disagree are dead:

5 - MD1
7 - NM2
12 - NH1
14 - ND-AL
17 - MS1
18 - NV3
23 - NY24
25 - WV1
29 - IL14
30 - TX17
31 - AR1
32 - AL2
33 - IN9
34 - ID1

Thoe only one of these that I agree is "gone" is TX-17.   The only consolation is that Edwards would almost certainly be eliminated in redistricting in 2012. 

When your opponent releases an internal saying you're down 19, and your best comment is, our polls say otherwise, you're down double digits, at least...

I dont see how Edwards was going survive long term in a district that Republican anyway.  Had Republicans put up a half decent candidate in 2008, he probably would have lost then. 

I assume Vorlon's use of the word "gone" means "behind."  Is that a correct assumption? I agree with him that a massive number of seats seem to be in play. This is a national issues oriented election, and so the individual personalities, and prior electoral track records mean a lot less, than in most elections. And nobody is interested in what goodies you can bring to the district, because voters sense the the "goodies era" is just so over.

There will be a lot of quite tight elections to track in House seats come this November if the current client still obtains then.

And we are flying somewhat blind with all these poll snippets, some used for disinformation purposes. So we rely on Charlie Cook and the like who have more access to quality internal polls. So we play the inference game, with money watches, and so forth. The one who calls the number of seats won by the GOP in this game will have won the guess game primarily due to one factor it seems - luck.

Gallup released it's Generic ballot data:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143330/Midterms-Dems-Gain-Young-Voters-Slip-Hispanics.aspx#1

Basically, Democrats are ahead 19 points with the Youth vote, roughly even with middle-aged voters, and are 12 points behind with the elderly.  This represents roughly a 6-point swing from August in all groups but the elderly, and the highest margin millennials have given the Democrats since the HC bill passed.

Also, Democrats are ahead 81 points with the Black vote, 13 points with the Hispanic vote, and behind 14 points with the White vote.  Hispanics here have shown the biggest swing, with Democrats going from plus 32 in June and July to plus 13 now.  Throw in the turnout gap and you would probably see this number drop into the low single digits.  This represents the best GOP congressional showing with them, ever.

Finally, Democrats are ahead a whopping 18 points in the East, but lose the West, Midwest and South by 3,4, and 9 respectively.

This all correlates to a 46-46 even electorate with registered voters, and probably a 51-46 Popular vote if you factor in turnout.

Republicans are now even on the Illinois Generic ballot, and are up 50-37 outside of Chicago according to PPP.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_IL_101.pdf

This actually says alot about Kirk, as he's actually 4 points below the statewide generic R level (which is terrible considering his opponent).  Also, since the not-Chicago IL congressional seats are relatively even in their CPVI, it's fair to say that the GOP is leading the generic ballot is almost every non-Cook county-based Congressional District (the 3rd and 9th are still safely Democratic).  That doesn't mean they'll win the 8th, 10th, 11th, 14th, and 17th necessarily, but it does not look good for the Democrats in the Midwest.

Republican lead is down to +3% on Rasmussen's generic ballot. This is the smallest gap he's shown in a year.

Republicans 45%
Democrats 42%

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

Which means it's actually starting to make sense when reconciled against the polls of individual districts.

Idaho-1 is gone.

For Labrador.

Things seem to be regressing back towards a tie between the two parties.  It is vaguely reminescent of the UK elections last spring.

This was always the problem with disregarding the gap between RV and LV polls in August because only the LV polls were significant. That's true to a point, but it meant there was the potential for change as the pool of LV grew larger given that Republican enthusiasm maxed out about 16 months ago and has stayed there.

Which still means massive losses for the Dems from 2006/2008 numbers, of course.

Hahah, wow. I usually don't read the Rasmussen press releases, but what a gigantic hack that guy is. And then he plugs his book about how great the Tea Party is at the end.

PSRA ‘jumps the shark’

In a recent poll for Newsweek, Princeton Survey Research Associates really outdoes itself.

Long know as one of the most left-leaning pollsters, in its 10/1/10 release, PSRA would have us believe that 96% of Democrat Registered Voters indicate that they are supporting or leaning to supporting the Democrat candidate for Congress, with only 2% supporting or leaning to support the Republican candidate!

In 2008 (according to Edison exit polls), 92% of Democrat voters supported the Democrat and 7% the Republican candidate.  That’s pretty much the same as 2006, when 93% supported the Democrat candidate (again, according to Edison).  In 2004, it was 90%.

Both for adults and registered voters, PSRA gives the Democrats an eight point lead, whereas Pollster’s aggregation of polls gives then a five point lead among adults, and a one point lead among ‘registered and likely voters.’

These ‘quirks’ in PSRA’s methodology probably explain, (at least in part) why it gives a generic Democrat advantage of 5 points while Opinion Dynamics and Rasmussen indicate a 6 point Republican advantage.

When checking RealClearPolitics generic ballot page, the last time any of the polls they use came up with a Democrat advantage of more than 2 points, was back in July!

Yeah, I did find that bit disturbing.

Do the moderators update the title of the thread, or is it up to the original poster? We have three Ras numbers in there and I think Gallup has changed...

Absolute tightening with Obama's approval numbers also improving.  Tight one this fall.

Gallup

Registered Voters: 46-43 GOP
"High" Turnout: 53-40 GOP
"Low" Turnout: 56-38 GOP

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143363/GOP-Positioned-Among-Likely-Midterm-Voters.aspx

That's one hell of a crazy Gallup poll.

Yep, and now you know why I don't particularly like Gallup.  Since 2008, they have been giving really strange numbers.

I update it, adding the new poll on the left side of the headline, and dropping the oldest poll the farthest to the left when I run into space limitations. I will add the Gallup poll now.

Fixed.

Well, those "low" turnout numbers will keep the hope that some have of another 1894 alive.

Hmmmmm.......

Gonna wanna look real close at these numbers.....

+18.......................... ?

The kindest thing I can think of saying is that this far out Gallup's likely voter model is... over sensitive.... and that it performs better as we get closer to the election....

(rubs eyes, checks his vision, takes drugs....)

PSRA....  almost as amusing as Zogby... not quite, but they are trying hard.

I got your email, I have made afew inquiries :)

Latest ABC/Wash Post poll out today has the GOP +6, which is down from the previous survey.  But the sampling seems to be odd.  There was a 31/25/39 D/R/I split in September in the general sample and 31/26/37 among registered voters.  This October poll changed to 33/23/29 in the general sample and 34/25/37 among registered voters.  Does anyone really think the Dems will have a 9pt turnout advantage?

Mydouchefish! Have you come back for your accolades?

Actually in 2000, they were within 1-2 points.


Well, this year you are correct.  PPP seems to have the most pro-Republican sample.

Usually, when WaPo is involved, either by itself or in association with ABC, they numbers list heavily to the Democrats.

Thanks.

I really find PSRA to be one of the most unreliable polling organizations.

If you check their numbers against others, they pretty consistently lean pretty heavily to the Democrats for years.

Interestingly enough, a couple of Democrat pollsters (Greenberg and PPP) seem pretty good, and even CBS is better than PSRA.

At the end, yes. Their closing numbers are usually reasonable. But they had crazy numbers in October - like Gore up 12 points one day, and Bush +10 two days later.

Gallup have a very, very sensitive "likely voter" model.

It works pretty well with a week to go.

It doesn't work when it is more than a week to go.

We are more than a week to go => It does not work

QED

A followup to the Gallup Generic Bombshell:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143468/Likely-Voters-Demographically-Typical-Skew-Conservative.aspx

Basically, the Gallup "Low" turnout model has the 2010 Electorate at 54% Conservative, 27% Moderate, and 18% Liberal.  Also comes down to 39% Republican, 18% Lean Republican, 3% Pure Independent, 9% Lean Democrat, and 30% Democrat, for a total 57-39 spread (which fits their 56-38 Generic Ballot edge).

Needless to say, if these numbers are anything close to the actual electorate, Democrats are in for probably the worst drubbing since 1894.  For Comparison, the numbers in 1994 were 40% Conservative, 48% Moderate, 12% Liberal, along with 38% Republican, 11% Lean Republican, 7% Pure Independent, 11% Lean Democrat, and 33% Democrat, for a total 49-44 spread, which matched their generic ballot edge of 3 points.

So compared to 1994, Conservatives have gained 14 Points, Liberals have gained 6 points, and Moderates have lost 21 points.  Republicans/leaning Republicans have gained 8 points, Democrats/leaning Democrats have lost 5 points, and pure Independents have lost 3 points.

As for the other demographics, not much is changed from 2006.  Older voters make up 3 points more of the electorate, and 34-49 year-old voters make up 3 points less.  Of note is the fact that the electorate is actually 5 points less white (79% compared to 84%) than 2006, but this is not significantly different from 2008's 76% White electorate, though it does suggest most of the drop is from Black voters rather than Hispanics.

I'd be opening the champagne, if I believed Gallup. 

It will be a dry weekend.

I believe Gallup more than Rasmussen. They have more of a track record. Rasmussen is like the Fox News of polling. Some of their stuff is accurate to maintain their reputation, but they shouldn't be the go-to place.

As for Gallup, this number is horrific. The entire basis of the New Democratic party built up by Bill Clinton was moderates. That's now collapsed, with almost all the shift moving towards the conservative side. I don't think Obama can possibly recover from this. He's likely a one term President.


Yeah but is there any reason why it would narrow significantly in the next few weeks?

Remember, this is their low-turnout model.  I.e., this is as bad as it could possibly get (which isn't saying much though).  The US isn't actually 54% Conservative (though I'd like it to be), that's just the turnout model they're using.  The Republicans can still totally F this up (which they've shown themselves very capable of doing), but Obama is going to have to really work for his re-election.  If you notice on the Gallup page, between 1994 and 1998 the percentage of Conservatives grew from 40 to 46, yet the number of self-described Republicans actually fell from 49 to 45, as Clinton successfully courted the middle.

However, the Clinton "New Democrats" were basically snuffed out in 2008 when Liberals calculated that they didn't really need them anymore.  It's just a matter of getting them back.

Actually, if you compare this Gallup poll with their earlier, registered-voter one, the GOP could be on parity with Hispanic voters.  They were down 13 points with registered Hispanics, and Gallup's low turnout model has the GOP 10 points above the registered voter levels.  Combine that with Liberal Hispanics being less likely than most to vote in the midterms, and you might see an even or better

This is all speculation of course.  I really wish Gallup would release their generic ballot crosstabs like they do for presidential approval ratings.

The die is more or less cast.

I expect the RV to LV gap to tone down to about 7 or 8 points, a slight drift back, but not a sea change.

Rasmussen out today showing the GOP +8 in the generic ballot (47-39), which is a 5 pt gain since last week.

Last weeks might have been an outlier.

I think it will be a health GOP year, but not the 70+ seats some are suggesting.

Democrats, just pull the blade away from your wrists.  :)

Gallup is now out.  Very similar numbers to last week.  It is at political wire but I don't have the access for links yet.  High turnout is 53%-41% for Republicans while low turnout is 56% to 39% for Republicans.

Basically identical, Democrats are up a point in all categories, and Republicans are up a point in registered voters.

An internal reading of these types of polls has suggested for a while that in the final instance, the generic ballot should be about +5-8% GOP, unless there are great turnout discrepancies (which is what, in part, is driving my House predictions for a while)

I am the only one who doesn't put a lot of stock in the generic ballot question? I prefer to look at the individual races and try to determine what's happening from there.

Gop wins 100 seats in the house.

Rasmussen: "the data projects that 35% of voters this year will be Republicans, while 33% will be Democrats. In the previous midterm election of 2006, the Democrats had a two-percentage point advantage. Unaffiliated voters strongly favored Democrats in 2006 and strongly favor Republicans this year. "

Zogby (I know) has the GOP now +9, which is a 9 pt swing since his last poll.

According the RCP, the Democrats were starting to gain in the second half of September, however, it seems Republicans regained the momentum. RCP currently has it at R +6.8, practically tied for the highest Republican margin this cycle.

Well, the Gallup polls certainly helped that out a lot.

Today's will say... 48-39.

New Gallup:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143777/GOP-Holds-Solid-Leads-Voter-Preferences-Week.aspx

RV
GOP 48-43 (was GOP 47-44)

LV (1)
GOP 53-42 (was GOP 53-41)

LV (2)
GOP 56-39 (was GOP 56-39)

Gallup has shown pretty much the same result three weeks in a row now.

The Gallup turnout model/likely voter screen starts to stabilize more or less now, so I don't expect any huge swings from Gallup any more. (Next week's result? - Dem +13 or something....)

GOP moved two at the registered level, dems picked up 1 in the LV models....

Ras has the GOP up by 9% (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot).

The theory is that if there is electoral movement than that electoral movement will be at least partly uniform. Some places will swing more and some won't budge, but a general pattern will exist. Though the power of incumbency and the tendency to run dead (even in winnable districts!) makes it less useful in the U.S than most countries with single member districts.

Here (http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-special-gallup-versus-world-edition_509221.html) is an interesting discussion of the gap between Gallup, and in particular its low turnout model, and the average of the pack. Could it be that most polls are overestimating turnout, and thus underestimating the percentage of the voters who will be Pubbies?

Gallup can hardly be correct as shown in my thread there:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=125997.msg2685829#msg2685829

If the Republicans sweep the Senate elections with ridiculously huge margins (see second chart), then it is GOP+12, but I don´t see GOP+17 ...

Based on current polls it`s about R+6 ...

You are just reverse engineering the poll numbers, which will not assist you in dealing with the matter of whether there will be disproportionate partisan turnout models, which get more disproportionate as the turnout declines. Using a 76% figure, translates into a 43.2% turnout (.76*.568 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html).  Per my link, most polls seem to be assuming a higher turnout than that; well at least Gallup's low turnout number is 40%, and high turnout number is 55%, and 43% is a lot closer to 40%.  What turnout level other polls are assuming, I don't know. 

Nope, it´s not 43% turnout like you said. You cannot calculate it that way.

For example in 2006 the turnout was 80.6 Mio. out of 220.6 Mio. people aged 18+, according to your link.

My prediction of 76% is relative to absolute numbers, not relative to relative numbers - that´s the big difference.

My turnout model predicts 79.053 Mio. voters, which would be roughly 34% of the estimated 235 Mio. people aged 18 or older this year.

It should come out the same, if the turnout percentage numbers on my link are accurate, whether you use percentages of absolute numbers that are in the form of two numbers, one in the numerator, and one in the denominator, which fraction converts to a percentage. The percentages are derived from absolute numbers.

In any event, based on any paradigm of the past, the high turnout percentage of Gallup of 55% is well - just ludicrous. It probably will be below 45% - maybe well below, unless Obama succeeds in his mission to get his hardcore base out to vote, rather than remain too depressed to bestir themselves.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303550904575562493014465942.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEADNewsCollection

Well I agree that this election is all about Obama, his policies, and more importantly, particularly in zip codes like mine, confidence or lack thereof in his judgment. In the end, in this complex world, with relatively few real options as to which ideology has much relevance, it all comes down to judgment.

WSJ/NBC poll (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43880.html), GOP +7% (50-43).

Pew says GOP +10 (+4 in RV, but that's becoming less relevant by the day)

http://people-press.org/report/666/

It seems rather difficult for me to see how the GOP could beat the Dems by 10%, but not win at least 60 seats. And that is the thing. Nobody knows what the real turnout model should be in all of these polls, particularly for the House.

I have enough trouble with turnout models for the Senate, much less the House.

FWIW, I think pollsters are over estimating turnout.  I think the GOP is under-polling by about 3% across the board.

If the GOP was really +10 in the generic ballot, they would not be struggling so badly in these Senate races.  They would win CA and WA and be up a heck of a lot more than 5 in KY, for example.  And McMahon would not be getting annihilated in CT, either.

That is my sense of it, after wading through the Gallup high and low turnout models, and their numbers, vis a vis history.

Is it possible that the Republicans will do much better on the congressional 2 way vote total as opposed to for the Senate? I ask this because I don't see how Republicans are +10 and losing Washington, Connecticut, California and are close in Colorado, Kentucky or Pennsylvania.

Also I found an interesting nugget in the pew poll. 12% of Democrats (the fifth highest response) would be "okay" with a GOP takeover of the house and 5% would be satisfied.

Senate races are potentially more personality specific for obvious reasons, although that affect is obviously muted this time. You have a point that if the the Dem Senate candidates are winning big in NY, with no Texas race, and for Florida and NC, not that big a margin for the GOP, and California and Illinois a wash, it is hard to see how big GOP margins in small states generate an overall 10%. GOP lead. Ohio can't do it alone. :)

Rasmussen will say 49-40 GOP

Battleground/POLITICO says 48-42 GOP (the article says 47-42, but the guts say 48-42 - its your choose).

Among those "extremely likely" voters, GOP is ahead by 12 according to the article (can't find it in the guts.

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM170_101022_bg42questionnaire.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44092.html

It took a lot of work to deduce that 47-42 spread!  :)

The broad consensus seems to be a 5 or 6 point spread in favour of the GOP, from what I can see. That's discounting the more outlandish polling.

Here is a chart of the gains RCP projects the GOP will make in the House. The trajectory is not pretty for the Dems.

()

Part of that is probably the overall switch to Likely Voter models, which probably pushed their average up considerably.

But still, the 2nd cardinal sin of politics is to believe that just because a trend exists, it will continue.  Just because the Republicans have made major gains in the last few weeks doesn't mean they'll make even more gains later on.

Yes, of course, there may be momentum, or maybe not. The line might have a memory, or be a random walk.

Gallup - 48/44
52/43
55/41

See their website

I see Gallup is looking a little less crazy.

This is what is sitting in the current RCP average.

Rasmussen Reports: - Republicans +9
Gallup (LV Lower Turnout): - Republicans +14
Gallup (LV Higher Turnout)*: - Republicans +9
Newsweek   10/20 - 10/21   773 LV   45   48   Democrats +3
Politico/GWU/Battleground: - Republicans +5
Pew Research: - Republicans +10
Associated Press/GfK: - Republicans +7
FOX News: - Republicans +9

To quote that old Sesame Street song.. "One of these things, is not like the others...."

So let's just toss Mr. Newsweek into the bottom of the birdcage where it belongs....

Gallup's much maligned "low turnout" model is probably the outside worst case for the Dems, basically assumes no re-energizing of the Dem bass, which seems unlikely, although I would point out Rassmussen finds an 18% GOP lead among those most closely following the election which "kinda" validates the Gallup number as a worst case scenario.

Rasmussen Reports: - Republicans +9
Gallup (LV Lower Turnout): - Republicans +14
Gallup (LV Higher Turnout)*: - Republicans +9
Politico/GWU/Battleground: - Republicans +5
Pew Research: - Republicans +10
Associated Press/GfK: - Republicans +7
FOX News: - Republicans +9

Using the time honored tradition of tossing out the high and the low, and averaging the rest, this leaves us with:

PEW => GOP +10
Rasmussen, Gallup, Fox at GOP +9
Associated Press at +7

So GOP up upper single digits seems about right, assuming no "structural" flaw in all this polling, like assuming an improbably large turnouts in certain demographics based upon 2008 voting patterns......

Gallup's low turnout model assumes a 43% turnout. So, that poll is either wrong because the turnout will be higher than 43%, or wrong even though the turnout assumption is correct, or it is right. Which is it, Vorlon?  I myself strongly doubt the turnout will be above 43%, and I suspect it will be lower.

I am on record as saying I think the GOP, broadly speaking, is being under polled by about 3% or so.

I's not so much the 43% or so I quibble with, it's the composition of that 43%.  Baking into the cake turnout demographics from 2008 seems incorrect to me in 2010.

I could be very wrong, we will know in 8 days. 

It will vary from race to race naturally, but I just don't think modeling in the 2008 turnout among young people, minorities, etc makes sense in any midterm, and certainly not 2010.

Clearly Gallup was not baking into the cake turnout composition models given a given turnout percentage from 2008! I suspect it is  more like 2004, even though that was a presidential year.

To be honest, I suspect if the election were held today, it would be a huge GOP blowout, with all of us shocked as Angle's margin, and Toomey's and Raese's, and the Connecticut race skin tight (the West coast does it differently). The issue is how many Dems drift home and get out to vote between now and election day. I suspect the Dems will make some progress. If they don't, Vepres has it right. :)

let me rephrase, upon re-reading I don't think what I was trying to say got said correctly.

Most "likely" voter screens rely, at least in part, upon past voting behavior.

In 2008 Obama was able to bring substantial numbers of "occasional" voters to the polls, by contrast, many typically pretty reliable GOP voters stayed home.

The next effect of this is that I believe 2010 "likely" screens are being tainted by an unusual 2008.  The net effect is to bump some normally "likely" GOP voters out of the pool, and promote some atypical Dem voters into the pool.

For these reasons, I think a lot of "likely" screens are a tad off this year.

I am going to be the odd one out here and predict based on the MA special election that turnout will be quite bit higher than 2006 and 2002 levels. Evidence from Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada has both Democrats and Republicans easily beating 2006 numbers. Quite frankly I suspect its mostly going to be independents and young voters who crater this year.

The thing is, most predictions of low turnout, other than in Virginia last year, failed to pan out. Both the MA special election and the Maine Gay Marriage vote turned in about normal midterm turnout, and with early voting there is no excuse for less.

I added 3 new generic ballot polls in the heading which I picked up off the RCP website, from Bloomberg, McClatchy/Marist, and CBS New York Times.

So do you think we are likely to see the Republicans win the house with a 12 point margin? Then we would likely see the Republicans gain close to 70 seats and your prediction would be way off. :)

Fox News released their last generic ballot result...

Republican 50%
Democrat 37%

I haven't updated my numbers for quite a while. -

Things are very fluid  in the House, so I will post something late Monday as a "final" prediction. -

I am thinking 52ish in the house right now, There are about 20 races I want to have an actual look at before I come to a final number.

As I posted maybe 2 or 3 months ago "the House is gone" so I really have not been following things on a race by race level in the House.

I am also taking a very careful and hard look at the Washington State Senate race, it's very close, and I am going over the polls to try and figure out which way that one will go. - I am probably at 50+2/48 in the senate, but I want to double check Illinois, Colorado, and Washington - also, I hope we get a few more senate polls over the weekend.

Washington is certainly a tough one to call. I have a feeling that will be going down to the wire. Colorado could be interesting as well, and that came out of nowhere.

I went through the House seat by seat, and I get to GOP +69 in the House actually, not sure I really believe it, I will look again after all the weakend polls drop.

The Senate is pretty stable, the House is collapsing for the Dems.

Fox is showing GOP +13 on the Generic now.

I am going to put this post I put up elsewhere here as well:

I am putting up the chart below to confuse everyone. Suffice it to say, if the GOP wins the House by 15% (57.5-42.5), which is reflected by the blue line, and every CD held by a Dem swings in a uniform manner from its PVI baseline (bearing in mind that a CD needs a PVI to GOP +2.5 to break even  (Bush +2.5%, Obama -7.5%, sum the two, and divide by two, for the PVI break even point), then the GOP wins 114 Dem seats (the red line). In other words, per this metric, if the Dems lose every seat they hold with a Dem PVI of +5 or less, they lose 114 seats. If the GOP just breaks even in the generic vote, the Dems lose about 50 seats if the Dem can't beat the the PVI baseline for the CD after deducting 2.5%, to get the CD down to even. So based on the PVI thing, as adjusted, if the GOP margin goes from -5% to 0%, and all CD's follow the PVI model, the GOP gets 50 seats. If there is no swing at all from the PVI, and the GOP loses the Generic vote by 5%, it still picks up about 42 Dem seats.

So, as a very crude cut, the Dems are holding a lot of seats they should not be holding based on 2004 and 2008 POTUS results, and thus a nationalized election, with the GOP in the lead, where incumbency is of marginal value, is one reason for the impending blowout. And sure some Dems will survive the PVI game, vis a vis the generic ballot swing, a substantial number of them. How many?  A lot fewer than we thought a month ago.

And yes, between 50 and 70 Dem seats, a lot are in play as compared to the PVI differential (i.e, the red line gets relatively steep between 50 and 70, and particularly 50 and 60), so as the GOP moves into positive territory, it hits a lot of Dem seats, against which the Dems have to play their incumbency card, etc.

And oh yes, you subtract GOP losses, be it 2 or 5 or whatever, from these totals.

()

New CNN/Opinion Research generic ballot...

Republican 52%
Democrat 42%

The Dems win back Louisiana 2nd District - Cao beat "William Jefferson Cold Hard Cash" (as in $90K in the freezer) in 2008, and even then he only won by 3% - This is a almost a Dem lock to take back.

Delaware At Large, the seat of incoming Delaware Senator  tea-partied historic foot note Mike Castle will go back to the Dems, though it might be semi-close. (not as in gotta watch it, but a respectable loss)

Hawaii 1 is actually very close, I think Djou holds on given how good a GOP year it will be.

Kirks old seat in Illinois should be quite close - the polling has been so erratic as to be useless in that one, but Obama carried it by 23%, so it's pretty uphill for the GOP.

The Dems winning 3 seats seems ~~about~~ right.

To put the same idea in a slightly different form, in 2008 the Dems won the House by about 11% in the total vote.

if we take the generic ballot as being +9 to the GOP side (this is an example, pick your own number to use) that is a shift in the general environment of about 20% or so.

if we assume (a huge assumption, but go with the flow here) that every seat shifts by about 20%, any democrat who won by less than 20% is, at least conceptually, vulnerable.

This is the list of seats the Dems won by under 20%

Ohio - 18th district
Iowa - 2d district
Pennsylvinia - 7th district
Kentucky - 3d district
Ohio - 10th district
Kansas - 3d district
Arizona - 1st district
New York - 1st district
Oregon - 5th district
Florida - 24th district

New York - 25th district
Pennsylvinia - 12th district
Conneticutt - 5th district
Illinois - 14th district
Pennsylvinia - 8th district
New Hampshire - 2d district
New York - 19th district
Georgia - 8th district
Iowa - 3d district
Texas - 23d district

Pennsylvinia - 10th district
Colorado - 4th district
Arizona - 8th district
New mexico - 2d district
Virginia - 11th district
Pennsylvinia - 4th district
New mexico - 1st district
North Carolina - 8th district
Mississippi - 1st district
Ohio - 16th district

California - 11th district
Michigan - 9th district
Arizona - 5th district
Maine - 1st district
Florida - 22d district
Wisconsin - 8th district
New York - 24th district
Texas - 17th district
New York - 29th district
New Hampshire - 1st district
Nevada - 3d district

Ohio - 1st district
Virginia - 2d district
New Jersey - 3d district
Florida - 8th district
Alabama - 5th district
Pennsylvinia - 11th district
Pennsylvinia - 3d district
Michigan - 7th district
Idaho - 1st district
Conneticutt - 4th district

Ohio - 15th district
Maryland - 1st district
Alabama - 2d district
Virginia - 5th district

Now obviously this is a very, very, rough and crude tool.

Incumbents retiring is an obvious adjustment.

Also somebody who won by say 25% against a sacrificial lamb might, at least conceptually, be vulnerable against a well funded opponent who ran an actual campaign....

If you're a Dem, I'd rather be in California than Ohio, and the list of adjustments goes on and on...

but at a macro level 50-70 is not an insane value....

Actually it may help the Dems that the election is Tuesday. Their numbers keep getting worse, lol.

Yes, my chart is a mindless PVI thing. But it shows in a nationalized election, with the GOP having a healthy generic lead, just why so many Dem seats must fall, if the PVI thing has any meaning, and it clearly does. One can see that in my prediction chart, where I include the PVI, and one can see the steep fall off in the GOP harvest, as the the Dem PVI hits about +3% or so.

I was surprised frankly, the the Dems hold so many seats that they have no business holding.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/144125/Republicans-Appear-Poised-Win-Big-Tuesday.aspx

Based on 45% adult turnout.  

Higher turnout LV poll is GOP 52-DEM 42
RV poll is GOP 48-DEM 44

Wow, just wow.  I had about GOP 10-12% in the back of my mind, when I did my projections, trying to fit local poll stuff within it, and if it did not, ask why, not the 15% spread that Gallup now uses, having made up its mind about the turnout (and 45% is still amazingly high), rather than bifurcate, and leave it at that. If the 15% margin really happens, GOP +60 seats is a floor. The math otherwise just doesn't work, particularly if minority turnout is down in some places.

In 1994, the GOP won with a 7% margin. In 2008, the Dems won by a 10.5%, so if the Dems now lose by 15%, that is a 24.5% swing, sinking all those Dems who won last time by less than 63% or so in 2008, as a starting point. Obviously that won't happen, but it is not as if in safe GOP seats, the GOP will run up massive margins of wasted votes. If that were the case, state races would be in the bag which are not.

It's a 25.5% swing and your observation makes more sense than you think it does.

Anyway, Gallup has been wrong in the past, so we'll see.  However, I may really give the 70-seat prediction a call now, if anything b/c it might be the most likely answer.

Based on the 55% figure, the Butler swing would be 12.7 which is normally the point at which you lose about half your seats if lucky. Not that the 52% would be much better; 10.2. Basically Gallup is predicting a landslide.

It'll probably be around 100 seats.

Another little oddity come to think of it. The Dems won 256 seats with a 10.5% margin. If the GOP wins with a 15% margin, how many seats should they get, after dealing with the incumbency factor and the surprise the seat would have fallen if only we could imagine the moon, but we are not stoners, headwinds?  Without the headwinds, the GOP should get about 270 seats, no (a 91 seat gain), with some remote symmetry to it all?  

BTW, I am sticking with my 63 seat net gain for the moment. :)

I respect your caution but I fear you underestimate how pissed folks are.

Half your seats meaning the Dems lose 128 seats (256/2)?  If so, American politics doesn't work that way, in part because of extreme polarization. A 15% margin means a 57.5% figure by they way, not 55%, by my math.

Just remember, generic polling can show you one thing, but as the Australian election showed, it's all about the state/regional/local swings... when you have a lot of close seats, you can get a big swag of seats with a tiny swing, and the reverse can be true too, a significant swing but if the margins are big enough it'll deliver only a few seats.

I'm generally VERY hesitant about 'generic' polling where there are 535 congressional seats up for grabs...

When swings get over a certain strength, it's basically impossible to predict accurate numbers. In the 97 election here, no one had a clue how big the landslide would be until the results were declared.

Of course it's quite likely that Gallup are overestimating things, but maybe that doesn't matter so much; that a pollster is showing a double-digit swing days before the election is enough.

 

I don't know; it's more an observation than a prediction.


With certain very significant exceptions, America is observably less polarised than many other industrialised countries :) The key difference is gerrymandering and the extraordinary - by the standards of everywhere else in the first world - powers of incumbency.


It would but I just played with % changes.

I was deemed a GOP hack on testosterone, when I put up 50-60 a month or more ago, and the GOP would take the House 3 months ago. How things change. :)  (Yes, most are too polite to say such things to me, but I am a sensitive chap, and just know :P.)

Yes, I don't really believe the margin for starters. It just does not show up in enough local polls. Unless of course, the Dems are taking yet another hit in the last few days. I guess that is possible.

I personally believe that the great majority of Dems who are tied or within the MOE are going to lose, guess we don't have much longer to wait and find out.

Both good points Al. America does have extreme gerrymandering, and well, it isn't a parliamentary system, so every chap in Congress is an independent entrepreneur to a fair extent. And then of course there is all the money ... and on and on it goes. America just isn't a British colony anymore is it?  :P  Sad in some ways, when it comes to these matters - along with our disgusting legal system as compared to yours.

WSJ says GOP 49, DEM 43

Among "high-interest voters", it's GOP 53, DEM 41.

Among RV it's GOP 46, DEM 44.

Full text of poll can be found after the link.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39940472/ns/politics-decision_08/

Rather large gap from Gallup, from WSJ (which can hardly be considered a Dem dysinformation basement operation :)). Somebody is going to have some explaining to do.

Meanwhile RCP is moving (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/2010_elections_house_map_race_changes.html) again this evening, now up to 66.5 GOP seats net, with CO-7  going into tossup status (that is that charismatic black guy GOP guy, Mr. Frazier), and AZ-8 into lean GOP status, among other things. So now RCP's projection is that the GOP will elect 2.5 blacks to Congress, all of whom have been generating a lot of buzz, and if elected, will be national figures.

Not so much among the "high interest" numbers, fwiw, which makes sense.

Btw, someone should be noting that, no matter what LV formula being used, Dems can't seem to break 43% or so (yes I know there are 44/45 on a couple of them, but remember to toss) on any of these generic ballot polls.  That may be more important than the margin on these polls.  We shall see.

Why should we expect those who are still undecided at this point to show up at the polls?

Because there is a group of terminally undecided voters who tell pollsters they are undecided, but do still show up to vote, being their civic duty and all.  Some of them are ashamed of their vote, for whatever reason, and tell pollsters that they are undecided, instead.  Others are truly undecided until they get into the voting booth.

You're right that most of them probably won't show up to vote, though.

Hey, cheer up man, I believed you... I just thought that it would be on the lower end of that spectrum, around 51 or 52 or so. It could still very well be like that, but with all of this movement, I think the GOP gets around sixty, as a cautious estimate.

It seems like the floor for the GOP, in terms of the generic ballot, is about +8. Some are showing less, but I expect the GOP to outperform those polls. Then there is Gallup. I don't expect a 15 point GOP win, but a 10-12 win isn't out of the question. A 10 point margin would mean Republicans win about 60-65 seats and if the margin creeps up towards 12-13 then 70-75 is possible. And considering that there are just so many tossup districts this time around, even greater losses could occur than we think possible. One thing is for sure though, if Republicans win this sort of majority they can't just keep being the party of no. Looks like they might actually have to govern. Sucks for them.

For congressional elections and at national level, Gallup has a very good history concerning their last poll.


http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-special-bruce-banner-versus-incredible-hulk-edition_511945.html

Gallup - GOP + 15
Fox - GOP + 13
Rasmussen - GOP + 12
CNN - GOP +10
PEW - GOP + 6
CBS NY Times - GOP + 6
McClatchy/Marist - GOP + 6
ABC - GOP + 4
Bloomburg - GOP + 3

The "Good Citizen" vote is breaking heavy to the GOP (except on the left Coast, looks like Murray "barely" survives)

In reference, Rasmussen's last poll has GOP51, DEM 39.

it's not a wave, it's a tsunami !

And bad for dems, the best pollsters (for this subject) are those who give republicans the most.

Obama was too slow to respond to the tsunami, he should been on top of this before the inevitable was gonna happen. Instead he waited and now it may be too late.

Please enlighten us as to what Obama could have and should have done to stop this.

He was always adding the census jobs into the mix of net jobs gain. And when it left there were no new jobs and that's when his polls  began to tumble plus focusing on HCR instead of the economy and the oil spill.

A jobs/stimulus bill that focused on, well, jobs and stimulus instead of mostly being a massive payoff to core democratic voter groups.

Not wasting 18 months on a healthcare plan that they ended up stuffing down people's throats in some pretty undemocratic ways.

Making a few concessions to get at least a few token Republicans onside for major bills. (When you can't pick off any of Collins, Snowe, Graham, Lugar, Murkowski, etc... you know it's a pretty far out there bill)

The unemployment graph, you know, the one where unemployment never tops 8% if we pass the stimulus...?

Recovery Summer...?

The filibuster is pretty much the antithesis of a democratic procedure. That doesn't make it a bad thing, mind you, but if we had applied democratic principles, the health care plan would have passed easily and probably done more. Giving a reduced minority a veto that prevents the majority from debating an issue or voting on it is not democratic. Again, that is different from saying it's a bad thing or good thing; clearly everyone whose party is in the minority thinks it is awesome, while those in the majority fulminate against it. But you can hardly blame the large Democratic majority from using the rules of the Congress to accomplish what Republicans, using the rules of the Congress, strove to prevent. 

Who do you think is responsible for the health care bill taking about 12 months? Was it the Democrats 100%, 90%, 80%?

Because Bob Dole's health care bill is so far left!

Or they're voting on what they believe is in the best interests of their party. The times when Republicans not only voted against, but voted to sustain filibusters against bills they once supported because of political calculations is quite disheartening. But it's a natural outcome of rules that allow for this kind of political strategy.

I can't come around to your view that the Republicans were purely reactive and not taking politics into account when they chose to reject Obama's policies and follow their base's initiatives to not cooperate on everything.

Being an advocate of limited government, I like the intent of the filibuster actually.  The filibuster just about forces everybody, including the majority party, to make some compromises.

In politics, intensity counts - the "pro life" movement is a great example - Polling fairly solidly shows that a majority of the nation is "pro choice" (in many of it's swishy forms) but the sheer intensity of the feelings on the "pro-life" side means they do win some concesions from the system.

Collins, Snowe, etc...  at least one or two of them could have been brought on board fairly easy and fairly early if the Democrats had been willing to make a few minor concessions.  The final Health Care bill was 2000 pages long, if you had let Collins write 4 pages of it, Snowe 6 pages, and Lindsay Graham another 5 pages it would have been 99% the same as the final product, and it would have passed in the fall of 2009.

The GOP, correctly it appears, felt the "issue" was better to have than the compromise in terms of the politics, which is why, even more so, the Dems should have compromised.  If you make the GOP an "offer they can't refuse" and they refuse it anyway, you win politically..

If Obama had legitimately engaged the moderates in the Senate early in 2009 they could have had a bill by fall.

Clinton did this amazingly well in 1995 - he said "yes" to the GOP welfare reform bill (or at least appeared to, he actually got a lot of changes to the final product) - What was the GOP to do after he said "yes" - stop supporting their own bill?

If Obama had taken the speeches of Collins, Snow, etc all, and said... "yup you've made 15 good points, we've accepted them all, the final bill answers your objections, let's vote.."  the thing would have been done in Oct 2009.



By the time it got to be 2010, certainly the GOP was playing politics, the longer they could make the DEms thrash about on Health Care the better the GOP arguments on  he economy started to work - A president has, maybe, a year to get things done, they need to do what it takes to get them done in that year.

Max Baucus pursued negotiations with Olympia Snowe for at least a month on that basis, along with other Republicans. If Snowe could have promised her support, Obama would have made her the lead author and named it in her honor. But she kept pulling away the football, because that is what the dynamics of her position allowed her to do.

How closely did you follow the discussion in the Senate in summer 2009? Obama had Snowe, Collins, and others in his office regularly for hours of discussion, and as I said, the Senate put the health care bill on hold for at least a month as Max Baucus assembled his group of Republicans and negotiated with them. I don't see how you can acknowledge the tremendous influence these people were given--influence they then rejected, as we saw when Grassley pivoted from supporting an individual mandate and negotiating with Baucus to railing against "pulling the plug on grandma" and suddenly deciding that the mandate was unconstitutional after all--and still claim it was the Democrats' responsibility.

I feel like you have this need, as someone who strongly disagrees with the Democrats, for a "just so" story where Democrats could have gotten what they wanted, if only they hadn't been so pigheaded, stubborn, partisan, etc. I simply can not see how you can come to that conclusion after a close study of the actual behavior of Obama and Baucus and the various Republican senators in 2009, and knowing how human nature and partisan interests determined how Republicans actually would vote. I'm sorry, there's quite a few things I think Democrats did wrong, but I will not accept your spanking on this. :)

Ras poll (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot):  GOP 51%, Dems 39%.  That is a lot of undecideds this late, no?  I wonder how they will break.

I like how Gallup has Obama's approval at a fairly respectable 45-47 while the GOP is winning the generic ballot by ~15 points.

Back to the polls :)

Away from Health Care :)

A lot of it is the Adults versus LV thing for Gallup.

But mostly it is (dare I say it) the sense that a lot of moderates have that divided government is just good to have.

Given the GOP total control for 6 years worked out poorly, and Obama and the Dems have not had a great two years either.

The Clinton/Gingrich years don't look so bad in retrospect :)

I shall now collect my accolades!

Brittain33, it is entirely unclear to me why negotiations with a few GOP senators over HCR broke down. Neither party made it clear what the points of contention were, and who if anyone switched positions (putting aside Grassley perhaps).  I suspect positions were changing all over the place, as this rube goldberg toy was put together desperately trying to round up votes. It won't survive in its present form; its gears mesh so poorly that it is just not operable.

Anyway, it would be great to read a Bob Woodward type book that tells the inside story on this, because the press to date has done a really poor job at it.  The press in general to my mind is getting increasingly superficial.

Based on my House numbers, the final House popular vote will be somewhere around 52-45-3 GOP

Yeah, that would be similar to the Senate Popular Vote, which was 49.5 to 44.9 so far for the Republicans.

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G10/SenateVoteByParty.phtml

Green Papers says the House vote was 52.2 to 44.6 so far.

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G10/HouseVoteByParty.phtml

So, Gallup - like in 2008 - was far off again.

Mine is right now 52.1 to 44.7, but I've been updating the later vote returns more quickly.

As for the Senate, that would make sense.  Cycle III is the cycle that is most even between the parties based on present voting patterns (Cycle I leans Dem and Cycle II leans GOP)

Therefore the Generic Congressional Ballot (Average of Senate and House Ballot) was GOP+6

The best Generic Ballot pollsters were Reuters/Ipsos (R+6), Pew Research (R+6), CBS News/NY Times (R+6) and McClatchy/Marist (R+6).

The worst were Gallup (R+15), FOX News (R+13), Rasmussen (R+12) and Newsweek (D+3).

Just fyi, but Generic ballot polls mean only the generic House ballot for rather obvious reasons.

Technically yes, but some pollsters doesn't seem to get it - like Rasmussen.

They ask: "Are you going to vote for the DEM or GOP candidate in this years congressional elections ?" instead of "In your district, are you going to vote for the DEM or GOP candidate in this years congressional elections ?"

Regardless of the way the question is asked, it has to be that way b/c with the Senate, not all states are up this year (I believe it was 35 of 50 this year) and one state was up twice (NY).  Skews the numbers too much.

I believe in the House this year, 24 GOP CDs were not contested by Dems and 5 Dem CDs were not contested by GOPers (exclusing all third parties, of course).  This does skew the numbers, but nowhere near as much as with the Senate (we're probably talking about tenths of percentage points, considering the safeness of most of these seats, maybe not even).

Here (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45008.html) is a fun article about the pollsters dissing each other. :P