Some Clarifications about the TargetSmart TargetEarly Interactive Poll

[ProgRocknProgPol]

In the twittersphere I'm starting to see some glee among Republicans and some despair among Democrats about the early vote thanks to TargetSmart's TargetEarly interactive website (I will not link it here unless someone asks me to). For those of you here inclined to despair, here are some reassurances:

- The website lists what days information was last collected. For most states, it is no later than Tuesday (10/23) so far.
- Almost all of the battleground states have significantly higher returned absentee ballot totals accounted for than in-person early votes. From what I remember, absentee ballots almost always skew towards older Republicans (Someone please tell me if I am incorrect on this).
- Either most or least importantly, most of the battleground states I've seen do not have totals of registered voters by party, but instead have modeled voters by party. What this means is not something I can elucidate clearly so I will link the page explaining it here: https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/modeling.html Basically, though, I can say that TargetSmart is using its best guess (which admittedly would be much better than mine) about how many voters of a certain party have voted so far based on data acquired as explained in the linked page.

So do not despair, my friends, but as you cannot hear enough, please vote and volunteer as much as you can!

[beachbum bob]

1. The flaw in any model is the amount of guesswork, difficult to factor

The overwhelming " MAD" factor that flowing thru all democrats. No Election in decades has any such component. All we can do is look at past 2 years of special elections. Then when you look at contributions....democrats are vastly outraising their GOP incumbent opponent by 3-1 in the top 100 competitive races, 90% GOP incumbents or open race because GOP incumbent retired. Of the monies raised, the democrats are rising the bulk from the constituents of the district while GOP it's money outside the district. When you have supporters not willing to contribute what does that say about the support?

None of this a factor in the model, nor any poll...

We have zero reason to despair and every reason to get up and vote.

Call them out, vote them out

[Stallion]

2. TargetSmart's Own President Disagreed with the Conclusions Reached by their Subscriber NBC

he said they were making projections based on assumptions TargetSmart Hasn't Endorsed

(I read on the TargetSmart website yesterday I believe)