I think we all know by now that there ain’t gonna be no red wave, and there ain’t gonna be no blue wave either. Almost every reputable poll shows the control of congress on a razors edge. But when you look at the polling, there is one category that is totally misleading, Voter Enthusiasm. It’s inaccurate and misleading for 2 simple reasons.
In the latest NBC News poll, released over the weekend, progressive commentators are having cardiac kittens and looking for a fainting couch over the Voter Enthusiasm category. In the poll, the GOP enjoys a 78% high enthusiasm rating for the midterms, as opposed to the Democrats coming in at 69%. My question is, Who cares? It’s not like it’s double digits or anything, and while numbers don’t lie, they sure as hell can be misleading.
Here’s reason numero uno. The goal of a reputable pollster is to have a fair blend of poll respondents. There are 3 categories of voters, Democratic, Republican, and Independent. Ideally, an equitable poll pool would have about 33% from each party in order to give equal representation. There’s just one problem. The parties are not equally represented!
Depending on which national poll you look at, the Democrats and the Independents are duking it out for which one is the largest party in the country. The GOP is already the smallest political category in the country, and is shrinking. As such, having a blended pool of 33% for each party is underrepresenting the Democrats and Independents, and is over representing the GOP.
Let’s just say for comparison purposes that there are 36% Democratic voters, 33% Independent voters, ands 31% GOP voters. Giving everybody a 33% split is underrepresenting the Democrats by 3%, and over representing the GOP by 2%. That’s a 5% swing. Now extrapolate that against the total number of registered voters. The GOP may claim a higher enthusiasm rating, but there are 5% fewer of them than there are Democrats, and 2% less than Independents. See the difference?
Here’s the 2nd difference. Voter Enthusiasm is a fine leading indicator of who is more motivated to vote, but it’s not the end all. The secret sauce, especially in the last 3 weeks before the election, when early voting starts, is to Get them out to vote! And in the last month, the golden key to turning enthusiasm into actual votes is a Well run ground game. And a well run ground game means one thing, money.
And there’s the Democrat’s advantage, the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, and most of the Democratic incumbents and challengers have it, and thanks to Traitor Tot, the GOP doesn’t. If you want to turn enthusiasm into votes, you knock on a door, you send a text, you make a phone call, you motivate people into getting off of the couch, and off to the high school gym.
On Saturday in North Carolina, where the Democratic candidate is 1.5% behind the GOP candidate for retiring GOP Senator Richard Burr’s seat, they held a Souls to the polls day. It had nothing to do with churches. Instead it was held to register and inform the 58,000 former non violent convicts that a state judge had restored voting rights to. In a state like North Carolina, you think motivating and turning out 58,000 brand spanking new voters, none of whom would have been polled, can have an impact on a 1.5% Senate race?
Saturday was the first day of early voting in Nevada. And in Las Vegas, the vaunted Democratic vote machine, the Culinary Workers Union came out and flexed its muscles. They held a rally, and then split off into groups to knock on doors. Other CWA workers, in banks, phoned or texted other CWA workers to remind them of the importance of this election, and to get out and vote.
This will show you how powerful the CWU is in Clark County and beyond in Nevada. On the Strip, hotel casinos have a ballroom set aside during early voting as an employee polling place, and employees get paid time off to go and vote at work. In my personal experience, after 19 years in Nevada, we’ll know the NV results by late on election night. Simply because, As goes Clark County, so goes Nevada. If the CWU and the SEIU can whip out large Democratic voter numbers in Clark County, and in Reno, then there aren’t enough outstanding GOP votes in the cow counties to offset the deficit.
In closing, I pay attention to the Voter Enthusiasm segment of reputable polls. But if I can’t find a pool crosstab to check, I don’t take them as gospel. Simply because blended pools tend to underrepresent Democrats and overrepresent Republicans. That’s fine for a state race, but think what the differential means in a national race. Here endeth the lesson.
Thank you, Professor Murph. Excellent lesson.
UTexas poll went from a registered voter screen to a likely voter screen, put abbot up 11 in Texas over o’rourke. That likely voter screen sounded really suspicious to me. I know they want do their best to get things right, but there is no way Beto is down 11 in Texas. He may be behind, but that is rediculous.
Well hell, Abbott could have bottomed out and they would still have him up by 5%. Texas news knows which side the butter is on. I personally think that Beto has made some serious enroads into the establishment down there. That time he got thrown outa that press conference and all those nice hillbilly aholes that were telling him how awful he was would have done well to take a break about then. That was probably in the top fives of screwups. I think Beto has a good chance to stomp Abbott since he can’t stop lying about all the stuff he’s not doing. Yep, can’t understand how the hell the minority group keeps winning. One thing for sure. Voter turnout is the key. And what needs to be hammered in is that republicans want to destroy our country. They are convinced trump was a great president. In reality he was the worst president we ever had. That’s all you need to know. Oh yeah, that and exactly where your polling station is.
That does indeed sound suspicious. Nobody I know in Texas has a favorable opinion of Abbott. Particularly woman. For some reason we don’t want a strange man all up in our lady parts.