2018 Congressional Recruitment/Fundraising/Ratings Megathread

[Gustaf]

I'm curious how the polls will develop in October 2018. I never really understood why some analysts have said that waves usually tend to break late, then cite 2006 as an example. '06, if you went by the generic polls, was clear as day as far back as January 2006, maybe more. Are they talking about the polls for individual candidates?

I vaguely recall that it escalated quickly at the end and became a lot worse than expected. For example, I seem to recall the conventional wisdom for a long time was that the Democrats had no chance of taking Congress in 2006 because there were too many seats that were too hard to win.

[Gustaf]

I think there's an issue with your second chart Mondale - the swings are not consistent in terms of which number is being subtracted from the other. From looking at it it looks to me like Republicans gained on average 2.5 points though from special election performance to midterm performance, if I'm reading that correctly? So saying that specials 'predict' house margin is a bit overstated - the margin of error on that is fairly large (standard deviation of 2.9 points, if I'm calculating it correctly), which would make the 95% confidence interval on the swing from special elections to national midterm house vote range from (-3.1,+8.1), where negative indicates a swing towards Democrats.

Of course the normal approximation to such a data set is not likely to be particularly accurate, and in fact the larger special margins tended to normalize (+9 for Republicans shifted left 2 points, +15 for Democrats shifted right 7 points), rather than shift with the average. I guess Dems basically hope that 2018 will mimic 2006, but I'm having a hard time seeing anything beyond the 30-seat pickup of 2006 based on the data (and there are good arguments why even a 2006 comparison is overstating things a bit).

I think the point of that table isn't the direction, just stating that the GE margin is strongly anchored by the special election margin.

You're right it's a small dataset and I assume it'd be sensitive to where the elections are held since swings aren't uniform. In 2002, one of the bigger deviations in the table, I guess there was a shift because of 9/11 in favour of the GOP.

[Gustaf]

CNN, Oct 12-15

Among adults: 51 D, 37 R

Among RV: 54 D, 38 R

I was going to post this. Sucks for them...

Let's say undecideds 2:4:1 ish R:I:D. That would be like 56-42-2. What would that give us?

Speaker Pelosi.

Tied Senate.

I'm not sure much can be meaningfully inferred for the Senate from the GCB though. That's all down to individual races. Though I guess a landslide like this would suggest a general D wave.

[Gustaf]

Kansas Dem Andrea Ramsey, accused of sexual harassment, will drop out of US House race

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's too bad, if only male candidates/elected officials were more willing to step aside like her. Looking at you, Kihuen..

Why must he if he doesn't feel guilty? Try to primary him - that's your right, but you can't DEMAND his resignation. It all becomes more and more idiotic...

Finally someone agrees with me, why is their no more “innocent until proven guilty” in this country. Whenever people feel they can get a political hit on someone they make up crap and throw it at them and everyone is Spose to believe them. Well I for one refuse to believe anyone’s Outlandish claims unless their backed up by irrefutable evidence because that’s how Democratic society’s are spose to function. Their are not spose to be any god damn Salem which trials or Mccarthyist red scares anymore that crap is spose to be relagated to history books and third world countries today.

Yeah all those inappropriate text messages are totally crap and faked

Present them in COURT. Only court may decide who is guilty and who is not. Not "public opinion". As i said above - primary him if you wish. But you have NO right to DEMAND his resignation and so on. Detailed inquiry must be first, decision - later. After all - why must i belive ALL these accusations as "bona fide truth"? Women not lie? They do, and frequently - better then men. They can't slander? They can, and frequently - better then men. They don't hold grudges, don't seek vengeance? They do, and more frequently then men. And so on. Let court (or, at least, commission of the House)  study accusations, and, if neccessary - establishes his guilt and metes proper punishment. Until THEN - person is not guilty, and everything else may be termed as witchhunt and McCarthy tactics.

You have no right to DEMAND someone not make DEMANDS of resignation.

I demand that you prove that women sometimes lie in a court of law. Until you do, you have no right to make such slanderous statements.

See how silly you are?

[Gustaf]

For someone with a sense of humour you surely weren't able to handle me making fun of you. You also didn't seem to understand my point, in spite of all your genius. 

Voter: Congressman X shouldn't be in Congress
Smoltchanov: You cannot dictate who should be in Congress, only voters can decide that!

Like, if you don't understand how dumb your point is I'm not sure I could explain it to you.

(And I have a PhD too, well I have a PhD, let's put it that way. And I didn't curse you out like a 14-year old trying to look cool either so I must be the biggest genius in human history by your standards. You should probably sit down and listen to me)

[Gustaf]

Someone with time on their hands should make a model based on a few characteristics and the results in the specials+VA+NJ and run it on the Congressional districts.

[Gustaf]

It would help if those even the Mods identify as trolls were simply banned.

People I identify as acting as trolls on boards I moderate may not meet the standard set by the overall Forum terms for being banned as trolls. That said, there may be room for further debate on this in general and with regard to specific posters and I encourage people to raise this on one of the forums dedicated to moderation for discussion.

It also helps if people report posts as troll posts, creating a record.

Most people don't bother doing so anymore, Brittain, because no one believes that last sentence.

The people who tend to oppose bans typically cite a lack of reported posts as a reason. So I'd say it definitely helps shift moderators.