Getting into the rhythm of the … OUCH. Faceplant! Medic!
Observed While Wilding
Over the last couple of weeks it sure seems like mediocre or worse pollsters are putting out numerous polls compared to highly rated pollsters, which means high-quality information is scarce on the ground relative to low-quality information. It leads to thoughts concerning intellectually despicable attempts to influence the electorate by dispensing polls which do not reflect the information collected as honestly adjusted.
And, while so far it mostly seems to be right-wing pollsters, there’s nothing to stop left-wing pollsters, excepting, of course, concern about their reputations. On the left, they try harder to select for the most vulnerable Republican candidates during primary voting, so nobody’s hands are clean.
And what is the percentage of the electorate paying attention to polls, anyways?
And Then Came The News
- How influential might USA TODAY be? Virginia’s GOP candidate for the Senate, retired Navy Captain Hung Cao (R-VA), may have been caught in a fit of exaggeration, according to the national news source:
The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia, a decorated Navy veteran, has made repeated references to becoming disabled after he was “blown up” in combat, and has stressed that he has scars from his military service while Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine got rich from the safety of Capitol Hill.
Yet the Navy service record for Hung Cao, who won the GOP primary in June, does not show a Purple Heart award, the commendation given to troops who have suffered wounds from “direct or indirect result of enemy action” that required medical attention. Nor does his record indicate that he received the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon, which requires that a sailor “must have rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in ground or surface combat engagement.” USA TODAY obtained Cao’s record from the Navy.
While I can see this excusing the claim as a bit of word play,
The Navy designated him a “special operations explosive ordnance disposal/dive officer.”
… this brings it all back into play, in Cao’s own words.
“I’m 100% disabled, you know, because just from being blown up in combat many times and everything else, you know, knee, shoulders,” Cao said on April 22, 2022. “I’ve got more surgeries than you could possibly imagine.”
Veterans in particular hate exaggeration and outright lying concerning military records, although I suspect the truth is more mundane: unfortunate minor incidents during training and the like, slightly amplified. But how many Virginia voters read USA TODAY? Or will other, more local news reporting sources pick this up?
- Much like Senator Tester (D-MT), Nevada’s Senator Rosen (D-NV) may benefit from a pro-choice initiative on the Nevada ballot:
Supporters collected and submitted more than 200,000 signatures, Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom President Lindsey Harmon told reporters. Proponents need 102,000 valid signatures by June 26 to qualify for the ballot.
This was achieved May 20 and I missed it.
- Torchlight Strategies doesn’t appear to be in FiveThirtyEight’s ratings list, but it has a poll finding Republican Tim Sheehy (R-MT) well ahead of Montana’s Senator Tester (D-MT) at 47%-41%. That the sponsor of the poll is Common Sense for America, which FiveThirtyEight lists as a Republican-aligned PAC, simply reinforces my notion that this poll is not worth considering by serious analysts and concerned citizens. Or, if you prefer, visualize a John Cleese silly walk, performed while the walker holds a placard with the Torchlight results on it, but the ink is dribbling into incoherence, and the walker’s pockets spill dollar bills.
- co/efficient (1.2) is giving Rep Kim (D-NJ) a 7 point lead over Republican Curtis Bashaw (R-NJ), 41%-34%, for Senator Menendez’s (I-NJ) seat in New Jersey. If the Senator is included in the poll then he picks up 3% of the voters, Kim loses 2 points, and Bashaw loses 1. co/efficient has a very low rating, but it remains interesting that Menendez doesn’t score well in this poll. If co/efficient leans Republican then Rep Kim seems a safe bet.
- In Michigan EPIC-MRA (2.0) is giving Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a two point edge over former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI), 44%-42%. With a margin of error of four points, it sounds like a dead heat, and a nail biter. It’s worth noting that in the last Michigan race for the US Senate, Peters (D) vs James (R) in 2020, the incumbent Peters beat the inexperienced James by less than two points. The Michigan non-dormant electorate is polarized, even if in the last election a lot of disgust was shown for the Republicans by electing Democrats to all the state-wide offices. The winner may be the candidate best able to wake up dormant voters, and Dobbs may do just that for Slotkin.
- We may be seeing deception in New Mexico, where 1892 Polling (1.4) is giving Senator Heinrich (D-NM) a mere four point lead, 46%-42%, over poll sponsor and Republican candidate Nella Domenici (R-NM). I report this poll not as an alarm signal, but as an instance of probable deception. Or it’s an example of the observer disturbing the observed to an unacceptable degree. The poll is probably not worth the time.
- Pennsylvania’s Senator Casey (D-PA) has a four point lead over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?), 46%-42%, according to Cygnal (2.1), an alarming measurement for Democrats, but notably out of line with other pollsters. I also notice the Cygnal press release was tootling its own horn: Cygnal, one of the nation’s fastest growing and most accurate private polling firms … I consider that to be a red flag, even if a 2.1 rating isn’t too bad. Another pollster, the unknown Bullfinch Group, gives Senator Casey a substantial 12 point lead, 48%-36%. This poll has a sponsor, Commonwealth Foundation, which may be Republican-aligned (“Defending Pennsylvania from Anti-Energy Policies” seems Republican to me), although I find that a bit puzzling, given the poll finding. Without a rating it’s not clear that any weight should be given to the Bullfinch Group’s poll.
