2020 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[Virginiá]

I'd much rather have a couple high-quality pollsters showing D+10 than a pollster with a dubious track record and methodology showing D+17, but you've gotta take what you can.

And, granted that I have never been alive for a D+17 let alone D+15 electorate, but individual polling and each party's strategic investments (hinting at their private polls) do not suggest such an environment. I seriously doubt Democrats would be falling behind in the Senate if it electorate was that anti-Republican, nor do I think someone like Hurd or Valadao would look like favorites for reelection.

[Virginiá]

Maybe it just wishful thinking, but this election feels like a larger scale of what happened here in VA last November.

tbf, if that is the case, this result would be unthinkable. Virginia 2017's results basically amounted to a cleansing of Republicans in Clinton districts only, with one or two marginal Trump seat wins.

[Virginiá]

^^ fair point!

[Virginiá]

The 538 GCB tracker, updated to today:


Lots of weird zig-zagging this week, with a dearth of high-quality polls and an unfortunate sensitivity to massive outliers like the USC poll or questionable trackers like Harris and Ipsos. Overall it ends up a wash, but I'm a lot less confident in today's 8.5 than I was in the 8.6 from a week ago.

Here's hoping some good poll comes out soon to give us a new baseline.

Didn't they change their model to make it less swingy like midway through that graph? Just curious what it would look like without those changes.

[Virginiá]

PA GCB: D+15 (53-38)

https://www.fandm.edu/uploads/files/499165642819184003-f-m-poll-release-october-2018-draft-1.pdf

Ouch.  Bye-bye Rothfus, Fitzpatrick, Kelly, and Perry.

I'm more curious what that will do to the state legislature. That kind of margin (or something similar) is unlike anything seen since at least 2008, and it would probably obliterate the PAGOP's majorities. At least in the state House anyway.

[Virginiá]

Other states have their own issues, but the NCGOP is by far the worst in terms of an out-of-control majority party.

[Virginiá]

Mayor I can understand, but county commissioner? Chairman, even. That seems like a relatively invisible job. I'm much more politically involved than most but I couldn't tell you what commissioners I've voted for before. Granted, it's a safe R county and so I don't care all that much, but still.

[Virginiá]

ABC/WaPo seems to have a pretty good track record, but their last 2010 and 2014 GCB polls go in different directions, and I don't think they did one close to the end in 2016 or 2012. So you could + / - 2 points to this and feel good about that being the end result. Unless this is the year they completely blow it, anyway.

Only issue is that -/+ 2 points is a huge deal and would produce a large range of pickups or losses.

[Virginiá]

NBC/WSJ Final poll is D+7

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/democrats-hold-7-point-edge-final-national-nbc-wsj-poll-n931001

-2 since last poll (D+9)

All these polls are converging on that DailyKos venture "Civiqs" too:

https://civiqs.com/results/vote_house_generic_2018?annotations=true&net=false&uncertainty=true

I was curious if that was any good, so at the very least it won't be any worse than most of the other last-minute pollsters.

[Virginiá]

Hmm, the quality pollsters come out, and just like 2006/2010, looking like the lead collapsed at the end. With gerrymandering being what it is, I'm betting the House isn't gonna go the Dems' way 

Of course you are.

Prove me wrong with data and numbers instead of insults. All I see are former double digit leads collapsing to mid-single digits.

Ah yes, the ABC poll that has historically gone from high digit lead to single digit lead is a sign of a collapse. This is weak stuff from you. Try to troll better.

And if he wants to reference 2006/2010 & ABC/WaPo's poll, then he should acknowledge that the out party over-performed that poll by 2.8 and 1.9 points, respectively. The average of those two would be pretty significant in this case.

[Virginiá]

I define the "incumbent party" as the party that controls the House on Election Day. In examining the history of the GCB compared to the final results, using that definition of incumbency results in a very clear correlation of overperformance compared to defining "incumbency" as controlling the White House. Everyone thinks of midterms as being about the White House, but in reality whoever controls the House of Representatives has a much stronger connection with GCB overperformance than who controls the White House.

The link between approval of the president and midterm elections goes back generations. This is widely acknowledged. The fact that there is a correlation with the House is basically a coincidence. Is it any surprise that unpopular presidents cost their parties downballot? Or how Obama is in office for 8 years, Democrats get decimated downballot, and then the White House switches hands and suddenly Democrats are rebounding? I mean the correlation there is as a plain as day. Further, you don't even need spreadsheets and copious amounts of data to know this country is obsessed with the president. They are either too stupid, too lazy or too indifferent to care about anything else. The only difference is when a candidate manages to break through this presidential obsession and gain a foothold in the minds of the voters, and that doesn't happen that often, and when it does, it's usually with statewide candidates.

You should shop this around to the major prognosticators or something, because I've never seen anyone try to argue that the House majority party is driving these elections.  I think you're reading into it too much.

Edit: This also doesn't really seem to hold up earlier than 1994 either. Democrats were absurdly dominant in the House for that time and yet the midterms still seemed to operate like clockwork against the president's party.

[Virginiá]

Oh, yes, that makes more sense. Wouldn't the effect you are hinting at being at least partially incumbency? Regardless of current memes on Atlas, the incumbency effect is a real thing and it's also something that generic ballot polls wouldn't capture. People talk about generic party pols one way but often can have different opinions about their representative.

A good way to test this would be to hold a few consecutive House elections with all 435 seats up. If only... 

[Virginiá]

Should I just change 2018 to 2020 in the thread title and have this one rollover for 2020's GCBs? Thread seems small enough to keep it going tbh.

[Virginiá]

Officially designating this thread as the go-to megathread for 2020 generic ballot polls

God bless you 2018. You served us well

[Virginiá]

If one is to go try and adjust the results to account for uncontested seats, it only makes sense to adjust all other elections as well, at least if you're making comparisons. I posted a TargetSmart analysis tweet the other day that shows if you factor in uncontested seats, basically every party that got a wave sees their total House popular vote margin reduced. So there is no point in bothering with this.

eg, you can't be like, "oh, 2018 w/ uncontesteds factored in is barely more than 2010," because 2010 itself w/ uncontesteds ends up like 2 points lower as well. I think that says something too, because if we want to do this, then 2010 and 2014 look really weak wrt to the popular vote:

Midterms with uncontested races factored into result:

2010: R+4.6
2014: R+3.2
2018: D+7.3

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=306940.msg6574826#msg6574826


It also goes to show that Democrats consistently earn more support from the people in America, but Republicans have a smaller but more reliable base of voters and more importantly, a system that is structurally biased towards their coalition, allowing smaller wins to reap bigger rewards.

[Virginiá]

In retrospect, it makes more sense to broaden this thread's scope at least until the 2020 cycle begins in earnest, so this megathread will now revert back to what it was in 2017.

[Virginiá]

Whew

That Twitter pic is leaving me a bit weak in the knees

[Virginiá]

lol @ Valadao mounting a comeback in a presidential year whose party's very best possible outcome so far is a neutral election.

[Virginiá]

Not surprising. We'll probably see a lot more as numerous Republicans realize that being in the minority sucks and others who have never run actual campaigns conclude that they can't cut it in their newly-competitive districts.

[Virginiá]

New Texas Republican Voter Registration Pac raises almost $10 million in first quarter to keep Texas red. Ross Perot Jr. is among a handful of million dollar donors.

https://t.co/wuFTm5opEB

I can’t imagine this will be the magic bullet that will save them that they seem to think it is

It is just another piece of evidence that the Texas GOP is taking nothing for granted... and 10 million to register new Republicans will net them a lot of voters.

Ironically, registering the same number of voters as in, say, California, would be more expensive in Texas because of onerous registration rules maintained by Republicans specifically to keep Democrats from fully maximizing their base:

www.statesman.com/news/20130124/us-supreme-court-allows-texas-voter-registration-laws-to-remain-in-effect

The provisions at issue include those that:

prohibit completed voter applications from being mailed to county offices
prohibit deputy voter registrars from registering voters in counties in which they aren’t registered;
prohibit the photocopying of voter registration cards;
require deputy voter registrars to be Texas residents;
and prohibit a person engaged in third-party registration from being compensated based upon a quota.

Many of those restrictions do not serve any worthwhile purpose, save for maybe the last, if you believe fraud is a big enough issue.

[Virginiá]

RRH thinks Democrats will holds the house and their current range is a GOP again of 16 to a democratic gain of 4. That makes sense to me. Does anyone actually think democrats are going to hold all their Trump seats in a presidential year? Come on. Atlas it the one in denial.

Not really, but that doesn't mean some of these ratings aren't overly optimistic or downright confusing.