Posted on 10/31/2018 10:12:16 PM PDT by Teacher317
I use RCP as my polling resource. It's a bit left-leaning, but it tends to have more polls that most other sites, and makes trends a bit easier to see.
Anyway, last week, they had the House as 205-198 with 32 "tossups". As of today, it is 203-198, with 34 tossups. Clearly, the MSM isn't going to share this change, so it is up to us to notice and spread the word... thus, this vanity.
Among the 34 tossups, 30 are current GOP seats. The two that just shifted rightward are MN7 and NV4, both current Dem seats. Curiously, the other 2 tossups that are current Dem seats are also in NV and MN (NV3 and MN1).
RCP still has only 2 Dem seats officially flipping (MN8 and PA14), and they list 14 GOP seats getting flipped (PA 5, 6, 7, 17... NJ 2, 11... MN 2, 3... AZ2, CA49, CO6, IA1, KS3, VA10).
The 34 House seats in the "tossup" category...
Current Dem seats: MN 1 and 7, NV 3 and 4
Current GOP seats: CA 10, 25, 39, 45, and 48... FL 15 and 26.... IA3... IL6... KS2... KY6... ME2... MI 8 and 11... MT... NC9... NJ 3 and 7... NM2... NY 19 and 22... PA 1 and 16... TX 7 and 32... UT4... VA 5 and 7... WA8
The Dems need 15 of those 34. This is the battle for the next 5 days.
I'll try to list out the 34 races in a thread this weekend to make the "Race to 218" more visible for us.
Thank you.
What is your prediction on how the House turns out?
I say we hold it.
THANK YOU I can’t tell those of you working on this for us how much we appreciate it!!! There are a few here on FR working on these numbers vigorously to keep the rest of us off the ledges!!! LS was the ONLY one in 2016 and WE ALL were driving him crazy, I am so happy to see that this election there will be a few of you helping to keep us away from the Valium bottles!!!! THANK YOU AGAIN!!!
Thanks for the post - very good news!
Turn out the vote!!! MAGA!!!
Do we know out of those 30 current GOP “toss up seats” are located in Red districts or Blue?
Thanks! It’s very hard to believe people could vote for D after obammy HilLIARy and Feinstein. And with pelousy and mad maxine waters shooting their mouths off.
Quit using polls
Our own Ravi and LS give analysis based on real voting data
That’s the first time I’ve heard the statistic that ‘30 of the 34 vacant seats leaning left are currently GOP held’. I know the numbers shift, and I know the GOP has a lot more vacancies in the House than the Dems, but I didn’t put it together that the ‘balance of power’ rests on nearly all of the GOP vacancies.
It’s not that credible, on its face, to believe that 90% of the GOP vacancies will flip. But clearly the polls indicate it.
So what’s missing? Could be that the district maps changed, slight demographic shifts, local issues and local personalities at play, or... like in 2016 possibly many people are not willing to tell pollsters the truth.
Of the polls where I checked the numbers, there are roughly 7% refuse to say or do not know, and some of them are ridiculously small. NV4 for example has a MoE of 8.1! Many if not all of the others have a MoE around 5. That’s a big margin.
I don’t want to be overly optimistic but think there is a sleeping unmeasured element - people who are not going to tell strangers on the phone that they support “a racist, sexist, xenophobe, stoker-of-violence” that are not measured in these polls and that in the final tally GOP is going to do much better than the pollsters and MSM think.
Right. I don't trust any poll unless I see 1) The questions asked and 2) The raw data before any "adjustments" are made. They often make adjustments to the data with has no justifiable reason, as in 2016 when they assumed the black turnout for Hillary was going to be the same as that for Obama and adjusted the data for that.
RCP is polluted with a lot of polls from biased outlets like CNN, so consider anything you see there to be the floor performance for the GOP in a worst-case scenario. All real possibilities are to the upside of RCP predictions.
I think its by definition, if they are currently held by GOP they are red. I think a more interesting but very difficult for a web sleuth to pull off would be to see which districts went to Trump, and how many of them are being called for Dems now. Frankly I don’t believe the polls, I think there is an element they can no longer measure.
Personally I don’t see that the Dems will get the same voter turnout enthusiasm they had in 2016. And in 2016 HRC got about 2% fewer votes than Obama did in 2012. Meanwhile I gotta think Trump voters have no reason to abandon him, if anything they should be quite pleased with what he has done.
So based on my gut and my reasoning, I think GOP keeps the house and gains big in the Senate. But there is no reason to be complacent. We’re going out to vote on Tuesday even though I live in dark blue waters, there is a chance California governor could go GOP if Dem enthusiasm wanes. And frankly while the media is in hysterics, it is phony hyperbole by a dying media. I think that’s got to translate into a small % of disgust among Dem voters, which means apathy, which means lower turnout. Meanwhile Trump voters are angry at the Dems and pretty much happy with Trump - even some non-Trump GOP voters have got to admire his accomplishments - which imo means relatively higher turnout as compared to Dem turnout. And that’s what it takes for GOP to win, they have about a 4% gap in overall in party affiliation.
I won’t go so far as to say this could be like 2010, but I wouldn’t rule it out resembling 2010. In 2010 the voters came out to stop Obamacare. The Dems had it all in 2008 and blew it by 2010. I just don’t see any reason for Dem enthusiasm, at least nothing that wasn’t there before 2016 - which wasn’t enough then, and thus imo won’t be enough in 2018 either.
I just developed a sheet that copied the RCP categorizations so I can monitor the election. I appreciate your effort and I think it will be a good tool.
A few comments:
- You missed FL 27 in your list of the 30 R toss ups.
- Even though it appears that the actual EV is important to review and the polls are somewhat questionable, the RCP list is good to use as that should be a reasonable guide to monitor. From that list we can see easily see movement in any of the races under each of the categories listed under RCP. The RCP combines Likely and Lean in one category - it lists the Likely first and the lean directly underneath in alphabetic by state and numeric within state order. I made separate columns for Likely and Leans. I think your sharing this info would be a great tool to use. The 34 may change as there are generally a few races that move each day. I plan on modifying my list daily for the few movements.
- Your comment that the Ds need 15 of the 34 for 218 assumes no movement from the leans and likely categories to the other side. There is far more exposure for Rs to lose.
The D count of 203 is comprised of:
Safe: 173
Likely D 15 - 4 of which are R held
Lean D 15 - 10 of which are R held
The R count of 198 is comprised of:
Safe: 152
Likely R 26 - only 1 of which is D held
Lean R 20 - only 1 of which is D held
Of the 34 toss ups there are 12 open seats (3 of the 4 D held seats and 9 of the 30 R held seats)
Your effort will be very helpful for monitoring the election.
I’m in #48, CA.
The Rat Harley Rouda is spending money like it’s water. His commercials make him sound like a Moderate Republican.
Harley Rouda Signs everywhere. They are stealing Dana Rohrabacher Signs as soon as someone puts one up.
Not sure of Dana can survive this one. OC went Hillary against Trump. Very sad to see what “conservative” OC has become.
They also assumed that “Independents” would break about 10% more for the Dems, based on made up theories when all the evidence shows that Indies break about the same as the general population does; apx 44% R to 48% D. So when they over-represent Independents in their polls, I get suspicious. It could be an excuse to hide bias towards the Dems without overtly over-sampling Dems. The only reasons I can think for cheating in a poll is that you hope it will influence the outcome; they think people will want to vote for the winner so they try to tell you who the winner will be in advance.
But it doesn’t work anymore. Their entire program is failing them. What used to work for them no longer does and in response they are in a panic. They have bungled everything in the last several years; from accusing Trump of collusion that they themselves were far more guilty and involved cooperation and cover from the intelligence agencies to dragging Kavanaugh through a vicious smear campaign. From Hillary calling half the people irredeemable deplorables to the media smearing him and his supporters as racist. They are so afraid that Trump might peel off another 10% of the Black and Hispanic vote that they call Kanye crazy and mentally ill, blame Trump for the crazy actions of deranged people, and firmly support the caravan thinking these will frighten people from straying from their party.
They think these tactics energize their base, but it failed miserably as an election strategy in 2016 and they doubled down on it without any reason to suggest it will work in 2018. They end up biasing their own polls further with a climate that causes many GOP voters to refuse to admit they support the “crazy, violent, sexist, racist”, while turning off a small % of their natural voters who are sickened by the process. So not only are they polls slanted by their methodology, the polls might have an additional 3% GOP under-representation by those who won’t admit or don’t want to play the game and a 2% over-representation of Dem voters who ultimately won’t go out to vote. I think GOP will win bigger than most expect in 2018.
I'm with you. Polls are bogus in this atmosphere. They DO NOT reflect voter sentiment, they are intended to SHAPE voter sentiment. Don't get sucked into their propaganda.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.