Here's My Take on 2016 Election and Why We Will Have A Blue Wave in 2018

[louis c]

First off, very few people love Hillary as a political figure more than I do. I supported her in the 2008 primaries, was thrilled when she was appointed SOS and supported her again in 2016, both in the primaries and the election.

Having said that, my opinion of the voters in 2016 goes like this. I think as many as 60% of the voters believed Hillary would win. That includes Hillary voters, all third party voters and at least a third of Trump voters. Hillary did receive over 48% of the vote and Trump, just 46%. That means 54% of voters who went to the polls voted against Trump. I'm guessing all of them expected a Hillary victory.

I think there was a lot of negative reaction to both candidates. So, here's my reasoning. Voters thought America was better off with a Republican Congress and Senate because they were convinced Hillary would win, since so many distrusted both candidates.

I believe that same reasoning will be in force in the 2018 mid-terms. Not only did most voters distrust Trump in 2016, but he has proven to be even worse than anyone thought.

The swing voters will come out in force this November, and there will be very few write-ins or third party voters. The anti-Trump base starts at 54%, and will build from there. I think the generic Congressional ballot on election day will be at least Dems plus 16%. My prediction, (and please, registering voters and GOTV is what I do for a living, so don't pummel me with any negativity) is 235 Dem House Seats and a 51-49 Dem Senate.

Let's see how good I do in predicting.

[bearsfootball516]

1. Satistically speaking if the generic congressional ballot on election day is at worst, +16 Dems,

They'll end up with a lot more than 235 seats.

Even having a generic congressional ballot of +10 Dems would likely result in a wipeout.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. And if you are right and you may well be, all the more reason why the GOP and KGB

are hard at work to prevent voting, flip voting, etc.

Or, if Malcolm and I are right, KGB will flip R votes to D and make it look like KGB did it to help D, thus allowing for deplorables to go insane and rump to call the elections null and void.

[Awsi Dooger]

3. 16 point margin would be like a million to one

Literally. I appreciate that you work in registering and GOTV. My specialty is odds. This is hardly linear. Even if every poll indicated a 12 point margin it would still be astronomical odds against reaching 16. The bottom simply doesn't fall out like that. Each party is guaranteed low 40s via base and loyalists alone.

There are 35% self-identified conservatives among American voters. Your scenario basically limits the Republican slice to those voters and virtually locked out among everyone else. Meanwhile, believe it or not there are some liberals who vote Republican, even in this era. I can comfortably assign 6% right there and be much closer to real world than your 16% margin. Trump managed 10% of the self-described liberal vote in 2016.

I think our margin reached slightly over 10% in the House vote in either 2006 or 2008. I forget which one. Republicans have won the vote by 6-8% in their landslide takeovers of 1994 and 2010. Somehow the cheerleader types have no problem differentiating between those margins and the Twilight Zone requirements of +16.

Admittedly it drives me nuts. I don't mind partisanship as long as the burden and parameters are well understood.

And a million to one is farcically low. Ask Nate Silver and I'm sure he'd be much higher than that.

Let me guess, "I'll take a million to one." Sure. I heard that type of cherry picking all the time in Las Vegas. Set up a shop with odds both ways on numerous props and we'll actually gamble and see who comes out ahead.

[louis c]

4. What?

Give Trump his 35% base. That leaves 65%. On election day 2016, 54% voted against Trump. There is no "Hillary" on the ballot in 2018 to vote against. I think we start out at 54%. 58% to 42% is not at all unrealistic, considering the hatred of Trump and the enthusiasm on our side. That's just an increase of 4% among the anti-Hillary, soft Trump votes. There were at least that many in 2018. Starting at 54% and increase that number up to 58% in this past 2 years is quite doable.

That's my calculation. In some specials and in Virginia and New Jersey, we've seen vote flips much greater than 16%.

No, my friend. 16% is not at all unrealistic.

As a matter of fact, in December, CNN had the Dems up by 18% generic. That number narrowed, and is now beginning to grow again. But to say that a poll that had Dems plus 18 points just 7 months ago is now a "million to one" shot, well, I beg to differ.

<snip> The generic ballot is a poll question that asks voters whether they’ll vote for Democrats or Republicans for Congress, and historically it’s been a decent predictor of the House popular vote. Democrats now lead by over 13 points, according to the FiveThirtyEight generic ballot tracker, after a CNN/SSRS poll on Wednesday gave Democrats a staggering 18-point edge, 56 percent to 38 percent. <snip>

Link;
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/upshot/democrats-2018-congressional-elections-polling.html