Sometimes staring at the trees just yields trees, so here’s a chart, as fragmentary and with some low-confidence data, that might give the reader some thought:
This chart shows, for all incumbent GOP Senators running for reelection for which there's current poll data available, their margin of victory in 2022 2016 in the red bar, and their current lead, according to pollsters, in the blue bar.
Yes, Johnson's lead is currently 0.
The most doubtful data is Indiana ("Internet poll" of the challenger) and Iowa ("commissioned by the challenger").
But what this small, but significant data sample indicates is that the independent voters are abhorring the Republicans. No doubt there are moderate Republicans who finally cannot vote for their own people, too, as those candidates are either too extreme, or are exhibiting unacceptable behaviors, such as Grassley of Iowa or Johnson of Wisconsin. But I suspect that mostly its the independents who find Republican philosophy and behaviors repellent.
And this leaning away from what passes for Republicans indicates a repudiation of the politics that, in many case, these political newcomers have brought with them: rank anti-abortionism, election-denying, already exhibited in the primaries, and a thirst for conspiracy rumors that support their most desperate wishes - rather than the ability to digest reality as it presents itself.
In some ways, this is a repudiation of their philosophy, which is a collage of anti-science, anti-experts, and a preference for irrationality, whether it be for that of Biblical literalism that often seems conveniently discarded, or the QAnon litany of nuttiness that appeals to those who find social media addictive and bizarre theories appealing.
Lee may be the most terrifying case for Republicans. A lead in excess of forty points has evaporated to two, and there's still more than a month left for Utah voters to learn what has disgusted their fellow voters about Senator Lee (R).
But any of the samples in this graph could suffer Lee's fate, because, not displayed here, none of the incumbents have reached the 50% level of support. They're still vulnerable if enough of the undecided voters decide to break to the left.
This may be one of the most important results of the upcoming election. Not that these incumbents lose or win, but that these GOPers lost this much support, even in Republican safe states such as Utah, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. It really makes me wonder about those states that are unpolled, such as the Dakotas and Alabama.
