Predicting Democratic win: making us complacent, predicting loss: trying to discourage us
This is a sadly predictable pattern of responses around here.
It's actually possible for someone to make a prediction based on their own perception of, you know, THE ODDS, and not have a nefarious motivation to manipulate voters one way or the other by what they're saying.
It's actually possible for a pollster to simply apply the same polling techniques they always apply and then the numbers they report go up and down over time when they do that, without anyone behind the scenes twirling a villainous mustache and manipulating the results in a way that's meant to hurt Democrats.
Of course, some people's predictions are better supported and argued than others. Some pollsters methodologies are more accurate and reliable than others.
But it's silly to constantly leap to conclusions about motivations behind predictions and poll numbers. Sure, it can happen that someone is just making up predictions or inventing numbers with an agenda in mind. But it's hardly even clear whether supposed complacency caused by predictions in our favor or alleged discouragement caused by odds against us are very significant effects, and not largely cancelled out by increased motivation to fight against loss, or encouragement to be part of a victory.
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