Talk Elections

Lol

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But Emerson

Zaybay's poll prediction wasn't too far off, lol

>e m e r s o n, but I expect this to be very close on election night.

It’s Emerson with 20% undecideds

Yeah, too many undecideds to be particularly meaningful. Both candidates will definitely get more than 37/38...

Okay Emerson.

I've heard a lot of noise about O'Rourke losing gettable voters by refusing to moderate, while Cruz loses voters due to his opportunism (flipping from opponent to supporter) surrounding Trump.
I wonder whether there's an effective strategy for the O'Rourke camp to spin this;
'Better to have principles that you can disagree rather than no principles at all.'
Play the Election of 1800 defense.

Big if true.

I wouldn't be overstate the poll, though, because there are so many undecided. A good many of them are probably right-leaning and coming home on election day. But Cruz has reason to worry, no question. Polling under 40% with almost 100% name recognition is not a good sign.

Well, I predicted a tie, so not far off. Too bad so many junk pollsters are polling this race.

21% undecided? Lame

A good rule of thumb is to trash any poll that shows 20% or more undecided.

And I guess these undecided are 75% republicans?

I don't know about the poll credibility but the Cruz camp is going be crapping bricks if these figures hold out for another 6 weeks. The fact Cruz is barely eking out leads in titanium solid Republican Texas is showing just how apathetic that base is becoming to him. And with over 20% still undecided in a state THAT big is a damning figure. I can't believe I'm saying this but O'Rourke may just have better than a snowball's chance in hell if these figures hold deep into October. By then it's possible O'Rourke's campaign could see just enough of a surge via undecideds and apathetic Republicans who will not vote his way to put him over. But of course this is more a reflection of Cruz than it is anything else. Should O'Rourke win he and Doug Jones are gonna have the two hottest seats in the Senate. Still a lean/tilt R race at this point but I'll always cheer for new blood in the Senate.

Unless it's Rick Scott. He can heck off

Welp, I was right. God damn it Emerson.

I do find it interesting that in the polling we have so far, Abbott has opened up a large lead. But the senate race has been getting closer for the Ds. It seems like some ticket splitting is occurring.

Beto not cracking the magic 60% Democrats need when the Russians are interfering, sad! Safe R.

Probably. And probably deciding if they should either stay home or write-in. I don't know if O'Rourke has any blessings from other in-office or past candidates that might charge up the voting base but I'm not so sure he's gonna even need it now.

I’ve seen speculation Crux could still be wounded from his non-endorsement at the 2016 RNC... this is more a theory about his diversion from Abbott’s numbers rather than this junk poll, though

Ok, I got some crosstabs, sort of

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18/34 years: 47/28 25% undecided

35/54 years: 45/37 18% undecided

55/74 years: 33/47 20% undecided

75+ years: 17/39  56% undecided

So it seems that the undecideds are rather good for the Dems, based on age alone. The 75 group is both worrying or promising, as they are rather D in the south, and are a split generation as a whole. The 55-74 form the GOP base, and its good that in the poll, Cruz already seems to be milking it, so its unlikely the margin can get bigger.

EDIT: I got the press release, though it doesnt have as much info as I would have liked.
https://www.emerson.edu/sites/default/files/Files/Academics/ecp-tx-aug2018-pr.pdf

^^^ Absolutely 100% this. We've had enough samples (good polls or not) to find out that Cruz is badly underperforming right now when all those samples (good polls or not) reflecting an expected margin for Abbot.

Oh my sweet, merciful Lord and Savior what I would not give to hear what Ann Richards would have say about all this right now. "Poor Ted Cruz.... he's finding the hard way that a true Texan from El Paso doesn't back down to anybody!"

Your theory on a vote split is definitely starting to hold some water here. I'm intrigued what the cross samples for Abbott are

That is true and a good point. TX does not have much recent history of significant ticket splitting, so if there is anything like a 20% difference between the GOV and SEN races, that would be a new thing and may indicate increasing elasticity in the Trump era among voters in the big mega cities.

Other cities, however, have not shown elasticity, and in fact have gotten only more inelastic. I think its more probable that the suburbs are swinging for Beto, but staying for Abbott. It could also point to some cities that are trending D, like Ft. Worth, voting for the D in the senate, but sticking with their roots for governor. I dont see Austin, Houston, Dallas, and El Paso voting R for governor.

New Poll: Texas Senator by Emerson College on 2018-08-25 (https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/SENATE/2018/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=48120180825223)

Summary: D: 37%, R: 38%, U: 25%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details (https://www.emerson.edu/sites/default/files/Files/Academics/ecp-tx-aug2018-pr.pdf)

If Abbott wins by 20 points again, he definitely has a shot on carrying Harris County.

O'Rourke's lead is in large part driven by Cruz, but he's in a very different situation that Doug Jones.
Doug Jones is an incumbent in a Trump+29 state which is not trending towards Democrats.
Beto O'Rourke would be an incumbent in a Trump+8 that is trending towards Democrats. If you look at the crosstabs, you can also see an enormous age gap. In six years, that means that O'Rourke's base will be a lot bigger. Also, it's pretty likely that 2024 is a democratic election nationwide, and incumbency still gives him some advantage. I think that a good R nominee in 2024 might win, but O'Rourke has a much less narrow path to thread for re-election that Jones.

What is with the plethora of bad pollsters polling Florida and Texas, and the lack of quality polling this cycle? Anyway, I want to see a quality poster showing Cruz down by less than 4 (or trailing) before I move this out of Likely R.

That's fair enough. You're right in principle on all affairs when discussing Texas vs Alabama. But I made my statement not assuming anything for 2024 because age gaps and trends can be difficult to predict. O'Rourke's voting base will indeed get bigger just as you said but I do not think that it's going to offset that 15+ point disparity between Cruz and Abbot that's allowing O'Rouke such a fight in this race. Republican voters are not going to bat for Cruz right now but they're still out there. Their base is going to grow as well and come 2024, they're gonna want their seat back. If O'Rourke wins this year and in 2024 it'll be because he won a majority of the 20% of undecideds in this election and went on to retain them 6 years later.

But in other words I can't think of any scenario in which the GOP does not do everything to win its seat back in 2024 if Cruz should lose in November

 

There’s no way Cruz wins by 1 while Abbott wins by 20.

Stranger things have happened. Trump shattered turnout records despite an unfavorable rating across the board

Live footage of the Cruz campaign:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysf5o5xOGYE



Emerson isn't exactly great, but this is good news for O'Rourke. One more poll with Cruz up by less than 3 (from an actual decent pollster) and I'm moving it to Tilt R.

This is obviously a Junk Poll. Because, any poll with 25% undecided is practically useless.

I keep saying that O'Rourke will narrowly pull it off.

Judging from the polling we have seen it is my guess that Cruz is probably behind in Harris County by double digits, doing as poorly in Dallas County as Trump did and probably barely leading in Tarrant County which is the bellwether for the state.

I heard a bunch of chads who I have known for like 3 years, and in that time I have never heard them voluntarily talking about politics. But today I heard them talking about Beto today and how he was so cool with his skateboarding. Another one thought that Beto was the senator and had no idea who Cruz was. Something feels a bit different in the air, obviously Cruz wins, but I would not be surprised if he got Warner’d. #ChadsforBeto

My sis also saw a big F250 with both the gadsden flag and a beto sticker a few weeks ago, on it lol, #goodoleboysforBeto.

That noise is a very outdated view; O’Rourke wouldn’t have raised millions if he’d ran as a moderate who was constantly trying to find the middle view and changing his views.

The big buzzfeed piece on it explained it better than me; but it’s not like if a devout blue dog was running that the race would be any tighter- much like Abrams in Georgia, Beto needs to turn out record numbers of African-Americans and first time voters.

People who politicians who are authentic; the absolute worst thing for a democrat to be is an inauthentic moderate chasing a voter dreamt up by a political consultant.

Latinos are going to be Beto's key.  AAs are important too, but Latinos are to Texas what African-Americans are to Georgia.  Beto will need high turnout in the Mexican border counties just like Abrams needs high turnout in Metro ATL and the Black Belt counties.

This poll is junk. Way too many undecideds to take it seriously at all.

Then again, it IS Emerson.

TX Latinos are very different from Georgia AAs. The difference is that Georgia AA's vote, while Texas Latinos do not vote.

Latinos will not vote in particularly high numbers and are not the key at all. The key is white suburban voters in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.

The question is whether Beto can do what no other TX Democrat has done (or come even vaguely close to doing) before - swing those white suburban voters to his side in big numbers.

I want a Quinnipac poll.... and polls of ND and IN for that matter.

I agree. My head keeps saying I'm crazy but my gut says he'll win.

He gives me major Obama vibes.

Gr8 news for the gop then considering Obama lost Texas by double digits.

But he was in a teenage rock band! That kind of social identification and skateboarding is a threat!

I legitimately wonder if there are Republicans voting for O'Rourke for the sole purpose of giving it to Cruz for not endorsing Trump.

At the risk of derailing This Thread, can anyone explain to me why voter registration and turnout among Texas Hispanic citizens is so abysmal? I don't recall it being nearly so bad in States like Nevada Colorado or New Mexico, for example, though I could be wrong.

There is the demographics, of course, but in South Texas it is also a cultural/historical issue. There is a history of machine politics, elections/votes being bought, and results being rigged (for example, LBJ's extra votes). Over time, this makes people believe that voting doesn't matter, and is not a way in which things can be improved. There is a lack of a perceived reason to vote, or a reason why voting is culturally important.

In addition, statewide general election races have not recently been remotely competitive, so this makes it seem like there is even less reason to vote. In many counties in South Texas, it has actually been the case that turnout in the Democratic primary is higher than General Election turnout. Because whereas the Democratic primary determines who holds local political offices, the General Election has been a foregone conclusion - Republicans will win statewide.

For example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/us/politics/texas-vote-buying-case-casts-glare-on-tradition-of-election-day-goads.html

There is. Trump is like the damn golden child that can do no wrong apparently