This is juat a nod to all our friends who have been touting various polls which show Biden/Trump tied or even Trump ahead by a couple of points, which according to Trump is a massive lead. I really don't think polls are that accurate this far out in the first place, and at this point last year "polls" were showing all indications of a "red wave". We know how that turned out, and how many people on the board made themselves look pretty silly.
And since some of the usual suspects have apparently not learned from their mistakes and are still over estimating polls from Twitter pundits (who were embarrisingly wrong before), I wanted to briefly post this newest poll. Not only is Biden ahead by 12 points in a state in the midst of a GOP Primary, but he is at 52% above that magical 50% threshold...
Again that poll isn't particularly newsworthy and may even be an outlier, although I suspect not. But there was already significant news earlier this week which further extended a much more consequential set of developments that explains why polls were so wrong regarding the midterms. On Tues Special State Legislative district elections were held in both PA and (coincidentally enough) NH. While the Dem candidate won both elections, both continued the ongoing trend of Dems overperforming, which has been a regular occurrance basically since the Dobbs decision came down.
PA was an expected Dem win, it was to fill the seat of a Dem who retired in July from a seat in a distirct that has a +17 Dem lean. However the Dem candidate won by 31 pts, which means she overperformed by 13%. Since on average Dems are overperforming in special elections by 8 points more than they did in runups to 2020 when they swept the House,Senate and Presidency this PA election is significant.
And what happened in NH is what makes this newest CNN/UNH poll (released a couple of days after the Special election on Tues) very interesting. Unlike the PA race, the NH race was to fill a Pub seat in a district Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, which has an overall lean of +6. The Dem won by 12 points (the same lead Biden has in the poll) which means the Ds overperformed in a twice Trump distirict by 18 points on a Tues night in Sept in an off year.
Both GOP candidates were MAGA crazies. The woman in PA had actually been in DC for Jan 6, and the nutjob in NH is a "pastor" who among other conspiracy theories claimed Dems favored abortion to provide sacrifices to Molech. I suspect most of the GOP candidates in the races analyzed in the table below of all the Special Elections this year are also MAGA types, though I don't honestly know for sure.
But these races illustrate the difference between polls where you are asked who you WILL vote for a year or so in the future, compared to who you actually VOTED FOR at that point in time. This same pattern was on display in Special elections from last summer dating from the Dobbs decision, where pro-choice voters turned out in historical numbers and turned a Kansas attempt to block abortion on it's rear, and an Aug 2022 Special election in New York resulted in a pretty huge upset in a House race in a 2020 Trump district. All at a time when the "polls" were predicting a Red Tsunami...
Even the slim GOP majority in the current House is due to moderate Republicans who won seats in 2020 Biden districts primarily in CA and NY by visibly rejecting connections to Trump/MAGA. Which of course is the reason that not only will the disastrous GOP Impeachment of Biden be dead on arrival in the Senate, but why they might not even be able to actually have enough votes to formally pass articles of Impeachment, or to possibly even authroize an "official Inquiry" if Kevin actually brings it to a full House vote.
Incidentally, Trump's own DOJ issued an OLC directive which requires that a full House vote is necessary to launch a Legitimate Impeachment Inquiry. Which is still in place after Garland succeeded Barr, and will basically limit Comer/Jordan's powers to subpeona witnesses and documents until Kevin can rustle up enough votes to legitimize his "Inquiry"...
All of this is relevant because the presumption is that we are looking at a Biden/Trump rematch, and Chris Sununu is on record saying that Trump heading the GOP ticket will be a disaster for the party all down the ballot.Since all of these elections basically occurred while Trump was leading among GOP primary voters, it would be hard to dispute Sununu's assertion...And how about CS nailing the fact that Trump would be selling his mug shot on t-shirts within hours of it being taken...
Here's a video from Ben Meiselas which goes into more depth...I personally think that at times Ben goes a little overboard on the "anti-Fascist" rhetoric. But in this video he specifically mentions Simon Rosenberg as basically the only analyst who was arguing against polls showing a "red wave" in 2022. Some may recall that I started a thread specifically about Rosenberg's analysis 2 or 3 days before the midterms...
And since some of the usual suspects have apparently not learned from their mistakes and are still over estimating polls from Twitter pundits (who were embarrisingly wrong before), I wanted to briefly post this newest poll. Not only is Biden ahead by 12 points in a state in the midst of a GOP Primary, but he is at 52% above that magical 50% threshold...
Again that poll isn't particularly newsworthy and may even be an outlier, although I suspect not. But there was already significant news earlier this week which further extended a much more consequential set of developments that explains why polls were so wrong regarding the midterms. On Tues Special State Legislative district elections were held in both PA and (coincidentally enough) NH. While the Dem candidate won both elections, both continued the ongoing trend of Dems overperforming, which has been a regular occurrance basically since the Dobbs decision came down.
PA was an expected Dem win, it was to fill the seat of a Dem who retired in July from a seat in a distirct that has a +17 Dem lean. However the Dem candidate won by 31 pts, which means she overperformed by 13%. Since on average Dems are overperforming in special elections by 8 points more than they did in runups to 2020 when they swept the House,Senate and Presidency this PA election is significant.
And what happened in NH is what makes this newest CNN/UNH poll (released a couple of days after the Special election on Tues) very interesting. Unlike the PA race, the NH race was to fill a Pub seat in a district Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, which has an overall lean of +6. The Dem won by 12 points (the same lead Biden has in the poll) which means the Ds overperformed in a twice Trump distirict by 18 points on a Tues night in Sept in an off year.
Both GOP candidates were MAGA crazies. The woman in PA had actually been in DC for Jan 6, and the nutjob in NH is a "pastor" who among other conspiracy theories claimed Dems favored abortion to provide sacrifices to Molech. I suspect most of the GOP candidates in the races analyzed in the table below of all the Special Elections this year are also MAGA types, though I don't honestly know for sure.
But these races illustrate the difference between polls where you are asked who you WILL vote for a year or so in the future, compared to who you actually VOTED FOR at that point in time. This same pattern was on display in Special elections from last summer dating from the Dobbs decision, where pro-choice voters turned out in historical numbers and turned a Kansas attempt to block abortion on it's rear, and an Aug 2022 Special election in New York resulted in a pretty huge upset in a House race in a 2020 Trump district. All at a time when the "polls" were predicting a Red Tsunami...
Even the slim GOP majority in the current House is due to moderate Republicans who won seats in 2020 Biden districts primarily in CA and NY by visibly rejecting connections to Trump/MAGA. Which of course is the reason that not only will the disastrous GOP Impeachment of Biden be dead on arrival in the Senate, but why they might not even be able to actually have enough votes to formally pass articles of Impeachment, or to possibly even authroize an "official Inquiry" if Kevin actually brings it to a full House vote.
Incidentally, Trump's own DOJ issued an OLC directive which requires that a full House vote is necessary to launch a Legitimate Impeachment Inquiry. Which is still in place after Garland succeeded Barr, and will basically limit Comer/Jordan's powers to subpeona witnesses and documents until Kevin can rustle up enough votes to legitimize his "Inquiry"...
All of this is relevant because the presumption is that we are looking at a Biden/Trump rematch, and Chris Sununu is on record saying that Trump heading the GOP ticket will be a disaster for the party all down the ballot.Since all of these elections basically occurred while Trump was leading among GOP primary voters, it would be hard to dispute Sununu's assertion...And how about CS nailing the fact that Trump would be selling his mug shot on t-shirts within hours of it being taken...
Democrats are overperforming in special elections
How the final vote-share margins in congressional and state legislative special elections in 2023 compare with the seats’ base partisanship, as of Sept. 20, 2023| DATE | SEAT | PARTISANSHIP | VOTE MARGIN | MARGIN SWING |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 10 | Virginia SD-07 | D+3 | D+2 | R+2 |
| Jan. 10 | Virginia HD-24 | R+39 | R+25 | D+14 |
| Jan. 10 | Virginia HD-35 | D+39 | D+35 | R+4 |
| Jan. 31 | Georgia SD-11 | R+33 | R+53 | R+20 |
| Jan. 31 | Georgia HD-119* | R+50 | R+77 | R+26 |
| Jan. 31 | Pennsylvania SD-27 | R+41 | R+37 | D+3 |
| Feb. 7 | Pennsylvania HD-32 | D+21 | D+50 | D+29 |
| Feb. 7 | Pennsylvania HD-34 | D+57 | D+76 | D+19 |
| Feb. 7 | Pennsylvania HD-35 | D+13 | D+49 | D+37 |
| Feb. 18 | Louisiana HD-93* | D+73 | D+86 | D+13 |
| Feb. 21 | Kentucky SD-19 | D+25 | D+54 | D+29 |
| Feb. 21 | N.H. Strafford HD-08 | R+2 | D+11 | D+13 |
| Feb. 21 | Virginia CD-04 | D+31 | D+49 | D+18 |
| Feb. 28 | Connecticut HD-100 | D+27 | D+38 | D+11 |
| Feb. 28 | Connecticut HD-148 | D+36 | D+22 | R+14 |
| March 21 | Georgia HD-75* | D+68 | D+77 | D+9 |
| March 28 | Virginia SD-09 | D+48 | D+80 | D+32 |
| April 4 | Wisconsin SD-08 | R+11 | R+2 | D+9 |
| May 16 | N.H. Hillsborough HD-03 | D+23 | D+43 | D+20 |
| May 16 | Pennsylvania HD-108 | R+37 | R+20 | D+17 |
| May 16 | Pennsylvania HD-163 | D+19 | D+22 | D+3 |
| June 13 | Maine HD-45 | R+12 | R+4 | D+7 |
| July 18 | Wisconsin AD-24 | R+22 | R+7 | D+15 |
| Aug. 3 | Tennessee HD-03 | R+67 | R+49 | D+18 |
| Aug. 3 | Tennessee HD-52 | D+36 | D+56 | D+19 |
| Aug. 22 | N.H. Grafton HD-16 | D+24 | D+44 | D+20 |
| Sept. 12 | New York AD-27 | D+13 | D+11 | R+2 |
| Sept. 14 | Tennessee HD-51 | D+39 | D+54 | D+15 |
| Sept. 19 | Pennsylvania HD-21 | D+17 | D+31 | D+13 |
| Sept. 19 | N.H. Rockingham HD-01 | R+6 | D+12 | D+18 |
| Average | D+10 | D+21 | D+11 |
Last edited:
