Talk Elections

Senate
Cruz 51%
O'Rourke 42%

https://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/07/09/exclusive-texas-poll-ted-cruz-greg-abbott-smoking-democrat-opponents/

This is about in line with what I've been expecting. A high single-digit lead for Cruz seems very reasonable. But why are we not getting more polls from places like Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, and West Virginia?

Only a single-digit lead for Cruz from Sad-vis? Wow!

Texas is a high population state probably.

Another thing to see 51%-36% are supporting Trump in being able to put a Supreme Court Justice into consideration. This margin is a key indicator that despite the undecideds Cruz could play up the issue.

This is, odd. Cruz has the same margin as Abbott, while Beto has the same margin as Valdez. Also, first poll to show Cruz with more than 50%. Also, now that I think about it, this poll was commissioned by Breitbart, and Gravis is famous for making "adjustments" to suit their payer (AUSTIN PETERSON). Would rather it independent, and we have better quality polls of this race.

Was it commissioned by Breitbart? It'd say Breitbart/Gravis or something like YouGov/Economist wouldn't it?

The fact that Breitbart seems to have gotten the poll before its official announcement is what leads me to believe this. Breitbart has used Gravis in the past, they commissioned a poll in WV, which showed Manchin in the lead.

Likely R, I’d say. TN is a much better pickup opportunity for Democrats.

Stop worrying about Cruz.  He leads by 9 in an alleged Democrat waive year.  Looks pretty good to me. He will win by double digits.

You folks say Manchin is in good shape at +7 in a Democrat year.  But you say Cruz is weak at +9. Give me a break.

You need to start worrying about Nelson.

Looking at the Civiqs poll and Gravis, Ive started to notice terrible problems in this Gravis's methodology(what else is new).

Looking at how things are broken down by race

Gravis:D/R
Whites-40/54
AA- 66/33
Latinos-31/59
Asians-63/36

Civiqs: D/R
Whites-29/65
AA-78/14
Latinos-70/25
Asians not shown

The fact that Gravis shows Latinos as lean R, African Americans as a 2/3s group, and Whites as almost even makes me lose hope that this poll really is good.
Civiqs however has pretty believable demographic numbers, though I wish that they showed Asians.

Yep, Safe R.

Good analysis of Gravis poll.  The poll is sort of odd.

Civiqs seems an outlier.  But maybe it is on to a revolution.

Before I judge any more polls I want to see how Ohio 12 plays out in August.

The Marist and YoUGove polls in Florida at about the same date with such different results is disturbing.

Are there realignments going on that are hard to poll?

It's Likely R in my opinion, given that Cruz's victory will be somewhere in the mid to upper single digits. Abbott is Safe R though, as he has been leading by double digits.

This poll was a disappointment to say the least. The AZ poll had great crosstabs and made sense, it was good quality. This poll is anything but, and reminds me of that Peterson poll that the candidate is still pedaling.

Ohio 12 will be interesting to watch, and it will be interesting to see if the burbs here will swing in any way. Its usually good, however, to wait until around September to start looking at every poll and GB shift. Thats the time when most undecideds make up their mind, and can shift elections into waves.

The Marist and YouGov differences are probably due to methodology. You can see it here with the Civiqs poll and Gravis poll. Both had different results per demographic and polled different amounts of them.

Polling's usual weakness is new voters and dropoff voters. Polling relies on taking the previous electorate and using it to predict elections. The problem is, however, that new voters keep getting added in, and old voters/apathetic voters dont vote. This can lead to polls not figuring out about waves until they crash. That was the case in 2010 and 2014. Will they miss a demographic swing? No. Will they miss what percentage of the electorate is which demographic? Yes. But as time has gone on, we have gotten better at polling, so mistakes are becoming smaller and smaller.

Gravis sucks, but this sounds about right.

Say what?!?

Its true. Polling errors are much smaller than they have been in the past. Most of the 2017 special elections have been within the margin of error or really close to the exact result. You may bring up 2016, but even then, polling was correct on a nationwide level. In fact, it was also correct statewide, except for two states, WI, and NV. Dont buy into the "never trust the polls", they are rather reliable when you take the average.