It appears both sides are certain of victory in November, albeit the the right comes from before the special election in New York, while the left comes after. First, the right is represented by my old favorite, Erick Erickson, in a post helpfully entitled Seasonal Polling Disorder is About to Run the Democrats Off a Cliff:
In 2014, Democrats took a lead in the generic ballot in the summer and surged in August. Breathless Washington reporters claimed the GOP was suffering with bad candidates like in 2010 when a GOP wave failed to grab the Senate. Obama had the wind at his back and the ship of state was sailing forward.
In November of 2014, the GOP had a polling average of about 2.4% and the actual election result gave the GOP over a 5% win.
If you go to Real Clear Politics and seek out their generic ballot archive, you’ll see that in August, the Democrats always get a noticeable bump in the polling average at this time of year. There are lots of theories why. My personal theory is that in August, Republicans — the demographic most likely to have large families — are either heading out on last minute vacations before school starts or they are already (as in my family’s case) going back to school and getting into the new school year’s routine. They aren’t talking to pollsters.
And this all means:
In Georgia, in 2014 and 2018, at this time of year, the Republicans were losing to the Democrats in both the gubernatorial and senatorial polling. That makes Kemp’s lead against Abrams right now even more remarkable and suggests a blow out for him in November and suggests a Walker win, despite a media narrative that Walker is too bad a candidate to beat Warnock.
In Pennsylvania, that means Dr. Oz still has a very good chance of winning and it makes J. D. Vance a shoo-in in Ohio and Adam Laxalt the most likely winner in Nevada.
That Erickson thinks – or at least is willing to say – that Walker is facing a malicious narrative rather than what anyone who cares to take the time to check can verify – that he’s badly misinformed at best, and speaks gibberish at worst, speaks to how much of this may be just propaganda to keep the conservatives together for November.
On the left, here’s Rule of Claw on Daily Kos: talking about polls after the special election in New York:
These polls add up to an average of R 7.6. Pat Ryan has won by about four. That is a, gasp, 11.6 miss. Take a look at the DCCC poll. Even that poll had it by 3 for Molinaro, although it showed the race within reach. If we assess this as the most accurate poll, it still missed by 7 points. Point of fact, were we to win seats Trump won by less than five, we would gain 30 in the House. By 7?
Seven is a Blue Tsunami. Now, this was a Biden plus 1.5 district, and an R PVI of 2 overall according to Cook Political Report. But this would still suggest the environment is 6 points more favorable to Democrats than neutral.
I don’t have time to check his or her sources or calculations, but the special election does speak for itself. I’ve been guessing a 10 seat gain for the Democrats in the House this November, but that’s a bit of blind guess based on the special elections in Nebraska and Minnesota, taking the unexpectedly narrow victories for Republicans to mean the independents have recognized extremists in office are a danger to their rights, and possibly even an existential danger.
But it’s interesting to see the clash in interpretations. So far I’d have to say that Erickson’s interpretation, based as it is on his understanding of behavior patterns, is inferior to Rule of Claw’s, which is based more on facts, but can’t account for unseen data.
So we’ll see.
