2018 Congressional Recruitment/Fundraising/Ratings Megathread v2

[Gustaf]

PPP has more numbers in Senate races.

-Sinema up 5 over McSally.
-Casey up 18 over Barletta lol
-Baldwin up 12 over Nicholson
-Rosen up 5 over Heller
-Bredesen up 5 over Blackum.

https://www.protectourcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PPP-Battleground-Health-Care-Memo.pdf

Great numbers, but this is specifically a non-poll thread right?

[Gustaf]

Not sure if this is the right place but 538 analyzed the races so far and looked at whether suburban districts have swung more Democrat than other areas, compared to 2016. They find a weak negative correlation. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/be-skeptical-of-anyone-who-tells-you-they-know-how-democrats-can-win-in-november/

[Gustaf]

This is a seat predominantly populated by country club Republicans.
Moreover, many of the seats that flipped in 2010 were areas like VA-09 and MS-04 that flipped on presidential level years or even decades ago. I don't think it's really a good comparison since TX-32 is not as far along that process. The area covering TX-32 probably went Democratic on presidential level for the first time since the 60s just two years ago.
Sessions can obviously lose but this is probably 1) among the places the Republican congress is relatively the most popular, tax cuts etc; and 2) a seat that, if it flips by a truly significant margin, it's a sign the bottom has really fell out for the GOP.

That's a good point, but I still don't think it's the same deal today. There are very notable differences between the political environment of the 80s/90s and even 2000s vs the 2010s. The high degree of political polarization and the virtual extinction of split ticket voting means that people are more often choosing a party to support rather than a candidate. I know there are some states that do have more split ticket voting than most, but like I've said before, I think there is enough evidence to at least believe that it is possible for this kind of seat to open up to downballot Democrats much faster than it did for Republicans decades ago. I don't necessarily think Democrats need to win it either to prove that point. Just coming close, like 5% or 6%, maybe be good enough, because it suggests a lot of former Republican-supporting voters switching over.

I willing to believe that one year of shifting back then isn't equivalent to one year today. But the fact that the last Democrat to win this area in this district was LBJ (and even then, he won it by a smaller margin than the state at large), I think that fact really says something. It was R+9 prior to 2016 for a reason.
I don't think we can label all Clinton districts, by default, as inherently Dem favored at this point. If we are to put such sheer much weight on 2016 results alone and not on prior results, demographics, or incumbency, we may as well say that Trump winning MN-08 by 15 points makes it Lean or possibly Likely R by default.

That's not equivalent though because we have data from special and local elections suggesting that Trump has lost a lot of the new voters he gained without winning back any of the ones he lost.

[Gustaf]

By Cook Democrats are getting pretty close then. They have a net of 7 in the Lean+ categories and if they win half the tossups that's another 9.

[Gustaf]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/986585994878169088

Back of the envelope calculation: as I recall, the bigger fundraiser wins in about 95% of House races. Of course, this skews to safe races. But 5% of the house seats is only about 22 seats. So if you take that as the ceiling this would still predict Democrats picking up about 40 seats. So it seems like a strong indication.

[Gustaf]

I'm working on a master ratings spreadsheet and I currently have: Crystal Ball, Cook, Insider Elections, CNN and The Crosstab. Does anyone know of any others that I could be missing?

What about 270?

IIRC, they use either Sabato or Cook, I forget which.

[Gustaf]

So - Democrats must win all 7 tossup races for a majority? Not an easy task...

They should try again 2020. It ain't happening.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/itw2010052701/

This is a funny quote:

"Republicans would have every reason to boast about a 32-seat gain. But it may appear diminished if GOP leaders continue to project that the party will pick up 60, 70, even 100 seats or more, as some Republicans have done in the past couple of months. Barring a massive GOP wave, these predictions appear to be unrealistic daydreams."

[Gustaf]

It's weird to me that the 538 forecast changes a bit everyday even though no new polls have been entered since Friday.

It is a Bayesian model that uses Monte Carlo simulation. This means that even if the data stays exactly the same, each time you re-run the model, the simulations will turn out slightly differently.

But do they re-run it without any new input? It would have to be time I Think.

[Gustaf]

So Rep Erik Paulson of Minnesota had a debate today and when talking about how “accessible” he was got a laugh from the audience http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/404109-debate-crowd-laughs-after-gop-lawmaker-says-hes-been-accessible#.W4cWuvwoxI0.twitter

He’s one of many GOPers who have never had to run in a hostile environment and are wholly unprepared

Eh, he first ran in 2008 and won MN-03 as an open seat then. Not exactly the most favorable environment for winning an open seat as Republican, in 2008.

Yeah and he outperformed McCain by 14 Points. Not too shabby.

[Gustaf]

They're a bit less afraid of putting seats as lean/likely compared to other raters (is my impression at a Quick glance at least).

[Gustaf]

If anyone wants the cringiest and most barf inducing hot takes of the day, look no further than here

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/02/opinions/2018-midterm-campaign-watch-roundup-opinion/index.html

The worst one is TX-23. Second paragraph: "If the Democrats don't win this district, it's hard to imagine a path to majority Control in the House of Representatives."

Last paragraph: "In short, if TX-23 goes blue, then it's likely that the wave is nothing sort of a tsunami"

Do they not read these Before publishing?