Why polls underestimate a wave election
One of the regular events that follow a wave election is a review why the polls underestimated just how big a wave it was.
This is an example of one of those reviews after 2014:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/14/polls-republican_n_6158158.html
Now we have Larry Sabato warning Dems that we shouldn't be "over confident" as posted in highplainsdem thread: https://demu.gr/100210098814
Sabato tries to sound reasonable but I remember when Romney was tanking and almost no donations were coming in Sabato started pimping all of the suspicious polling that showed Romney rebounding, Romney got a rebound in donations and I always suspected Sabato of being compensated for his strong opinions on what was obviously puff polling. His opinions at the time were all wrong.
What Sabato isn't saying is that this next election is "baked" and by that I mean that while, obviously, we shouldn't be over confident there are some key irreversible points in the election cycle that have already passed. The most important of these are incumbents retiring and candidate recruitment.
When you can't find candidates to run in high profile safe Senate seats it is an indicator of a tremendous blast that is coming because there are dozens of good candidates being recruited in Congressional and Gubernatorial and hundreds for down ticket races. That part of the election cycle is almost over and the Republicans are getting skunked. Nine plus months to go and the Republicans can't find a candidate for the Senate seat in North Dakota?
https://www.twincities.com/2018/01/12/republicans-struggle-to-woo-candidates-in-states-where-trump-won/
It’s the latest in a string of complications for Senate Republicans, who are clinging to a paper-thin majority and entering a midterm election year saddled with Trump’s low approval ratings and a history of losses for the party in power.
“The president made a very patriotic case for me to run for the Senate seat, and told me he would be behind me 100 percent and campaign for me and with me,” Cramer said.
His decision came as Republicans in Ohio scrambled to find a replacement on the ballot for Josh Mandel, the favorite in the GOP Senate race who left the race Friday out of concern for his wife’s health. Now the possibility looms of a primary race between four-term Rep. Jim Renacci and investor and author J. D. Vance, a contest that could leave the nominee hobbled.
. . .
“I think everybody’s eyes are wide open about the midterm,” said Josh Holmes, a senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “It is going to be extremely difficult to hold the House and the Senate, but we are doing everything we possibly can do to that.”Cramer’s decision was the second time in recent weeks when Trump had been rebuffed in trying to woo a candidate to run for Senate.
I recently had an extended trip to Eastern Washington where I grew up and stayed until 21 and I was struck that almost everyone, regardless of political affiliation said,
"I don't want to talk about it".
"I don't want to talk about it but Trump is an idiot" would be a typical Democratic response and "I don't want to talk about it but Trump is nuts" was a typical Republican response. A very close friend that I have had who has voted Republican for decades because of his position on abortion said "I don't want to talk about it but if the Democrats don't win in a landslide then the country is finished.
There are no more undecideds in the country. There are a lot of people who hate Trump including all Democrats, most Independents and many Republicans. There are a small number of Trump supporters but they are keeping their head down. The only unknown is how many Republicans who don't like Trump will simply stay home at the election.
The reason that the polls don't register an even larger number for each Congressional district is that most people are not just "baked" they are "burnt", they already have made up their mind and are trying to avoid any more nauseating news until the election, they don't want to talk to pollsters.
The most astonishing finding from my visit to Spokane, not a single person, Democrat or Republican, had a good thing to say about Morris-Rogers.
Everyone thought that the Democrat candidate Dr. Lisa Brown was going to win and here is what Sabato and the others are missing. Democrats aren't just recruiting candidates they are recruiting super stars to run.
Here is her wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Brown_(Washington_politician)
The most impressive new urban redevelopment in Spokane was the join medical facility that brought a large leading age medical facility under WSU to the city. Dr. Brown was Chancellor of WSU. This is the kind of development that the polls for generic candidates don't register.
We still need to finish the job, and it is going to be rewarding this time but we should also be confident that something very big is going to happen in November.
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