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An Interesting Poll
The midterms are coming and there have been lots of discussions of polling. Generic Congressional ballots, individual races, and Nate Silver’s model all create discussion. I came across an interesting poll.
According to Gallup, the Republican party has its highest approval rating since 2011. This is only the second time in the last decade that the Republicans scored better than the Democrats.
What does this mean? Maybe nothing.
Or maybe there are some things that are starting to look up before the midterms.
Published in General
i can’t tell anything anymore
They were polling Republicans? I could see Democratic approval of these ‘Washington Generals’ but Republicans and conservatives?
It was all adults. The increases became because Republicans and Men have a much higher view of the party then they did a year ago. There were modest improvements with women and there were improvements across income levels.
Maybe the Dems are overplaying some of their #resistance?
You’re late to the party. I’ve been befuddled for a long time.
RCP published this tool several months ago. It seems to have been either ignored or abandoned since it was published. In fact I don’t think there is even a published link to it anymore. I bookmarked it so I can still get to it. It clearly used Monte Carlo simulations a technique that I am generally familiar with for project estimations. I’ve found it to be reasonably accurate.
Adjusting for the current races I set the user parameters as follows:
And using Trumps approval at the current 43% I got the following results.
Take this with a grain of salt. No one knows what is going to happen.
I’d say the same thing as with the polls that have shown the Democrats with a 50-gazillion point lead over the Republicans in the generic Congressional favorability ratings — at best it’s a snapshot, but things are so volatile now it has little to no meaning at least for another 3-4 weeks, when the first early voting begins around the country.
The poll may be a sign the Democrats have pushed too far on the Kavanugh thing, and swing voters are not happy about the Politics of Personal Destruction (to borrow a phrase). But if other polls in the near future back that up, what you’d likely see is the Democrats drop the whole thing like a hot potato by the first week of October, leaving anywhere from 15 to 30 days for something new to come up as the latest source of outrage to shift the generic poll numbers.
It being a midterm election, unlike a presidential election where people start to take interest 1-3 weeks prior to polling, the mid-term voters will never take an interest prior to voting and claim they voted against any winners to avoid responsibility for the catastrophic results. Even if they never bothered to vote.
I say this as someone who cannot name his congressional representatives. The pain is too great. Oh, the trauma.
I should never comment while listening to a Trump speech.
Predicting elections is a lot like predicting how the Jacksonville Jaguars offense is going to perform on a given Sunday. One Sunday they beat the New England Patriots with lots of scoring. The next Sunday they are only able to kick two field goals against the Tennessee Titans.
For months I’ve been reading story after story about how horrible the political landscape is for the Republicans. And I have believed much of it simply because it’s a mid-term election with a Republican in the White House and most such elections turn out badly for the President’s party.
But then this poll comes out and it reminds me a little of the 2002 mid-term election. It was the first mid-term election after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the GOP took back control over the US Senate after Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords handed it to the Democrats in May 2001 with his party switch.
You just never know.
I am right there with you. I have no clue what is happening. I would not be surprised if Republicans take large losses. Then again I would not be surprised if Republicans exceed the current expectations ( I am not talking about Red Wave stuff, just a solid showing)
Not much of a mystery, fellas.
When you have a leader who is a leader, who fights for his positions and people, and who is unafraid of the opposition and the media — especially the media — people are going to be attracted to him and will be happy to be on an Alpha male’s team.
Maybe you’ve forgotten:
Here’s what you don’t want to remember — 95% of Republican voters are white.
The background, subconscious reason for the results of the poll is that, as the Democrats become more and more the party of people of color and the Republicans finally understand that they are, like it or not, the party of whites, the white people are coming home. They are becoming happier with their party.
I apologize for making your heads explode.