The updates are thick and fast. Like mud off a bicycle tire.
- Wisconsin has had a couple of polls of late. Marquette Law School Poll, A/B rated, gives Senator Johnson (R) a 52% – 46% advantage over Lt. Governor and challenger Mandela Barnes (D), a quite large six point gap. B/C rated Clarity Campaign Labs has a substantially different finding of a one point lead for challenger Barnes, 48% – 47%, with a margin of error of ± 3.3 points, aka a statistical dead heat. On the news front, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the largest newspaper in Wisconsin, has condemned the incumbent, Senator Johnson (R), in no uncertain terms: He’s an election falsifier who recklessly promoted lies about the 2020 presidential race long after it was clear Donald Trump lost. He’s a science fabulist who suggested, without evidence, that the COVID-19 vaccines could make the pandemic worse and who repeatedly touted unproven remedies for the disease — from Ivermectin to mouthwash. They want to see the back of Johnson’s head, the sooner the better, and for the same reasons everyone would like to see him gone. To my mind, he doesn’t know how to conduct himself as a Senator and responsible adult. Who can possibly vote for him?
- Along with polls, Nevada gets to have, well, what is it called? Scandal? Gossip? Whatever it is, this intro paragraph in The Nevada Independent summarizes it nicely: Fourteen members of Republican Senate candidate and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s family announced Wednesday that they would collectively endorse his Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, in the heated race for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat. … “We believe that Catherine possesses a set of qualities that clearly speak of what we like to call ‘Nevada grit,’” the letter said, adding that “no further comments will be made, as we believe this letter speaks for itself.” They won’t actually spit on his shoes, since he is family, but if your own relations would rather see your opponent win than you, perhaps it’s time to reconsider your life philosophy. But this is not an unique event; six of current Arizona Representative Paul Gosar’s (R) siblings have recommended against votes for him. Gosar is among the most extremist of the Republicans in Congress.But there’s more! Kerry Eleveld on Daily Kos comments on, inter alia, Nevada’s polling difficulties:
But Nevada is also notoriously difficult to poll, partially due to the concentration of Latino voters who are just as notoriously difficult to poll. In fact, during the 2010 midterms, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was famously left for dead by pollsters, who anticipated little to no Latino participation would lead to a drubbing by GOP insurgent candidate Sharron Angle. Instead, Latino voters turned out at a record rate of 16% (despite accounting for just 12% of the state’s registered voters at the time), propelling Reid to a 6-point victory.
The mention of the late Senator Reid (D) makes this a bit dated, but possibly still relevant. Eleveld is convinced that a recent Trump rally in Nevada will rekindle Senator Masto’s supporters’ willingness to vote, and may well be the reason she wins in November, if that does happen. She only has a little time left.
- Emerson College gives Ohio Republican J. D. Vance a 1 point advantage over Rep Ryan (D). Notable: Men are breaking for the Republican candidate and women are breaking for the Democratic candidate in the US Senate Election; men for Vance over Ryan 53% to 40%, while women for Ryan over Vance 49% to 39%. A higher share of women are undecided at 11%, compared to 6% of men. Gonna be close, it sounds, but if the undecided counts are to be believed, Ryan may pull this one out.
- The former President will have to remain unhappy with South Dakota, as the latest SDSU Poll shows Senator Thune (R) now across the 50% threshold with a 53% – 28% lead. Challenger Brian Bengs (D) backslides three points, just to add to the injury – I think those three points were attached to separate toes on his left foot when they departed for Senator Thune. It’d be the upset of the election cycle if Bengs pulls this one out of witches’ pot. On another note, for those of us interested in the gubernatorial contest, Governor Noem’s (R) reelection lead has improved a point to 45% – 41% over Jamie Smith (D). As the margin of error is ± 4 points, technically it’s still a dead heat, but it appears that Noem is the way to bet. But it’s hard to ignore the voter dissatisfaction in conservative South Dakota with the governor.
- I may have been premature believing voters’ worries over Pennsylvania Lt Governor and Senate candidate Fetterman’s (D) health, by which I mean the stroke he suffered just a day or two before PA Primary Day, were and are minor, or the far-right is desperate to change a few minds. Erick Erickson’s post here illustrates the general conservative tactic of spreading worries, necessary or not, concerning Fetterman’s recovery from his stroke; it also contains a clip of the NBC News interview with Fetterman, illustrating his problems processing sounds. Erickson also, not so subtly, strokes the fires of tribalism by framing the entire issue as Us vs Them, rather than an honest analysis of the issue. Catch it? On the other side, WaPo contributes an article on the characteristics of recovering from a stroke, and how Fetterman’s recovery is typical and does not involve damage to his judgment, only to auditory processing; the latter can be circumvented using closed captioning by a specialist in such things. Erickson is adamant that “the left” is furious that “the right” knows about Fetterman’s problems, a fury that hasn’t washed over me, yet. Maybe I don’t read the right rags[1]. Then there’s the tribalism, Erickson’s forever trying to keep his side together.But this is an honest conundrum for the Fetterman-leaning, responsible voter, because we’re supposed to select the person we believe will best represent our State, whether it’s in the House or the Senate. To that voter, I would say the following. First, his main opponent, Dr. Oz Mehmet (R), is utterly unacceptable. Any long-term member of the skeptics’ community can give you a number of examples of his snake-oil practices as a TV celebrity who happens to be a medical doctor, illustrating his inferior ethics and general unsuitability for a seat in the highest elective body in the land. But electing Fetterman carries a significant risk that he’ll become incapacitated, rather than recover; the timing of his stroke was exceptionally unfortunate for him and the Democrats. So what happens in the event of incapacity? Dr. Oz, by virtue of coming in second in this contest, does not automatically become Senator if Fetterman becomes cognitively disabled. Instead, and I’ll grant that I’m no lawyer, but the general pattern is that the Governor will appoint a replacement Senator and schedule a special election. Some States require the appointed replacement come from the same Party as the one who cannot serve, and, if so, then there’s your answer. If that’s not true, then who’ll be the Governor? At the moment, that’s up in the air, but the election is leaning quite heavily to the Democrat, Josh Shapiro. You’ll have to trust that he wins in November, and that his judgment is good, but that’s not nearly an impossible argument to make. I’d say that if you’d vote Fetterman if his health was good, vote Fetterman now. If he needs to be replaced, the odds are good that his replacement will be someone who shares his ideology, if not his charisma.
In other Pennsylvania news, Trafalgar’s latest poll gives Fetterman a 47.1% – 44.8% lead over Dr. Oz. Recall that Trafalgar tends to lean conservative, so this lead may be larger than it appears. Or not. It’s hard to say, what with conservative firms doing better in 2020 than neutrals and liberal firms, but the candidate list is positively littered with extremists on the conservative side which may not deserve, in the end, the same compensation as was awarded in 2020 and prior elections, as well as issues that lean towards the liberals on the balance.
- In the expected comedown from the OH Predictive Insights poll, pollster InsiderAdvantage, B rated, gives Arizona Senator Kelly (D) a 46% – 41.6% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R), with Marc Victor (L) at 5%. The margin of error is projected to be ± 4.2 points. The OH Predictive Insights poll had Kelly up by 13 points. In other news, something stronger than rumor has it that Trump minion Peter Thiel will be contributing to the Masters’ campaign soon.
- A new poll from A rated Marist Poll in New York gives Senator and Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D) a 54% – 34% lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R) among registered voters, and a 52% – 39% lead among those voters who are definitely going to vote. Pinion isn’t showing signs of traction.
- GOP-linked pollster Trafalgar, A- rated, has a new poll out on the Georgia Senate race, giving Senator Warnock (D) a 46.3% – 44.8% lead over challenger Herschel Walker (R). With a margin of error of ± 2.9 points, this is a statistical dead heat, and a far smaller Warnock advantage than that measured by the last poll, a Quinnipiac University Poll effort giving Senator Warnock a 7 point lead with the same margin of error. The differing results reflect, I think, adjustments made by the pollsters for factors they cannot otherwise rid themselves of. Think of the problems NASA had with the Hubble Space Telescope mirror. It’s the same thing, but different.
- Finally, A- rated Public Policy Polling finds a 14 point lead for Senator Duckworth (D) of Illinois, 50% – 36%, over challenger Kathy “only I can beat Duckworth!” Salvi (R). The latter is not making progress and might be best served by preparing an apology letter for her intemperate claim, because she’s not going anywhere.
The last snow squall of news is here.
1 Some younger readers may not be aware that “rags” is old jargon for newspapers, most of which are fading out as they lose the competition with the Web, with a few notable exceptions such as WaPo, The New York Times, The StarTribune, and a few others. Our societal losses due to this phenomenon is not comprehended by most people who are not journalists, and I’m not a journalist, so I’m not qualified to really tell you what you’ve inadvertently lost, but I’ve talked about it before. And it makes me sad to lose such an apropos bit of jargon, as newspapers often physically incorporate rags in their final form. Another bit of jargon is Ink-stained wretch, which is even more enjoyable.
