Washington Post Poll: Dems up 10 nationally, 12 in battleground states.

[Sub Level]

Don't vote by yourself.

Bring at least one other person, friend or family. Maybe they were already going to vote anyway, but our chances increase as our numbers do.

If you vote by mail this still applies. Fill out your shit and drop it off at the mail box together.

 

[HStallion]

How can you be so rude?

This is really poor political outreach on your part.

Think of interactions like this as an opportunity to help others and not as an opportunity to flaunt how above them you are and you will do more good.

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I'm not the person you were responding to but its incredibly tiring after nearly 2 years since the election we have people making the same simple blanket statement about polls.

 

[Briarios]

Holy shit you are out of your mind. It is not “literally” impossible for Dems to take the House, they are in fact heavily favored to do so as things stand right now. Gerrymandering make it’s more difficult, not impossible. If Dems win the vote by 5 they have an even chance of winning the House. If they win by 10 they have like a 95% chance of winning the House and it’ll be by a massive margin. Those are just the facts.

Like, these are objective facts that are pointing to the Dems winning big in November. How about follow any one of two dozen electoral anaylists who know a shit ton more about things going on now than a 2 year old article.

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You're setting yourself up for serious disappointment and possibly a stroke if you don't pay a bit more attention to history. The fact is, it shouldn't even be close - if the House was truly representative, Democrats should hold it by a strong majority. That's unfortunately not the case.

The really important elections are local -- controlling state legislatures and governor's offices is actually more important than the federal stuff. There GOP figured this out, made a plan, and executed it while the Democrats did nothing.

 

[PrimeBeef]

I'm ignoring polls. Not because I'm suspect of their accuracy, but because they can promote complacency dear God we don't need that again.

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But if you plan to vote how does this effect you? I would continue monitoring polls and remind people I know that get complacent to get out and vote even if margins are large. Remember 2016 is what I'll say.

 

[PrimeBeef]

Also so much of the reason why the Russian interference was able to work was that very few were even aware of it back then. And even then it only affected the results on the margins, which only helped Trump win because the results were so close.

Too many people misunderstand exactly what the Russians did and did not do in 2016.

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Similarly like how many misunderstand the Mueller investigation thinking it is only about collusion and Trump.

 

[Luminish]

At least until 2020, the House has been "engineered" to go GOP. That's why Holder and Obama are focusing on that so much. They know it's rigged. I'm not using that as an excuse to not vote -- voting stays just as important to just show how bad the system is and force change.

Unless there is something that significantly depresses the GOP vote, it's a near impossibility. However, I think we all know that Trump will create a situation - a military action, some sort of scare - to keep his base engaged.

We'll definitely see higher Democratic turnout, but we've seen that for several elections.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-its-impossible-for-democrats-to-win-the-house

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It's not impossible at all. I personally think democrats only need to win the national popular vote by 7% to flip enough seats for a majority, though I know others have calculated it up to 12%. I think there's plenty of evidence that swing districts swing the hardest when national opinion changes that the pessimists aren't accounting for.

 

[Gaf Zombie]

No one is asking for unbridled optimism, just an attempt at objectively evaluating the data.

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An objective evaluation of the data tells us that if the election were held today, Dems would be in great shape. But the shift between now and November is unknown. That unknown variable (shifts due to late surprises) resulted in DJT as 45. So yes, assuming that current numbers hold or improve is optimistic, even if justifiably so.

Look, I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. By all means enjoy the numbers. But subtly insulting those worried because it makes you feel smarter or superior is pretty lame imo.

 

[Parch]

When Trump won, was there a state where Republican voters outnumbered non-voters?

Next election, slap anybody who doesn't vote. They're your problem.

 

[Kirblar]

You're setting yourself up for serious disappointment and possibly a stroke if you don't pay a bit more attention to history. The fact is, it shouldn't even be close - if the House was truly representative, Democrats should hold it by a strong majority. That's unfortunately not the case.

The really important elections are local -- controlling state legislatures and governor's offices is actually more important than the federal stuff. There GOP figured this out, made a plan, and executed it while the Democrats did nothing.

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The GOP was able to gerrymander everything because they lucked out with 2010 being a midterm wave + redistricting was done in 2011 after the census.

That you blame this on the "Dems doing nothing" rather than what actually happened is telling. The President's party suffers downballot while they're in office. This has happened to literally every president ever in the 20th and 21st century.'

You don't actually understand the history you're telling other people to pay attention to.

 

[KHarvey16]

An objective evaluation of the data tells us that if the election were held today, Dems would be in great shape. But the shift between now and November is unknown. That unknown variable (shifts due to late surprises) resulted in DJT as 45. So yes, assuming that current numbers hold or improve is optimistic, even if justifiably so.

Look, I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. By all means enjoy the numbers. But subtly insulting those worried because it makes you feel smarter or superior is pretty lame imo.

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Historical patterns are data too. Saying it’s optimistic to not assume some event will turn everything on its head is ridiculous.

 

[Jeremy]

I think there's plenty of evidence that swing districts swing the hardest when national opinion changes that the pessimists aren't accounting for.

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This is obvious. The tweet in the OP indicates that very thing. No one is overlooking this.

That being said, trying to extrapolate these national, generic polls to a system that relies on results in individual Congressional districts is the very thing that makes reading too much into them dangerous. Any individual district or state can buck the trend. If enough do, we don't take the House or Senate.

 

[Luminish]

This is obvious. The tweet in the OP indicates that very thing. No one is overlooking this.

That being said, trying to extrapolate these national, generic polls to a system that relies on results in individual Congressional districts is the very thing that makes reading too much into them dangerous. Any individual district or state can buck the trend. If enough do, we don't take the House or Senate.

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And there's an equal chance that noise ends up working out for Democrats, which is why you cancel it out and ignore it to make your prediction.

I'm not saying anything is 100% certain, just that there's good reason to have hope.

Also the ones that say democrats need a 11 point national vote to win the house are the pessimists I'm talking about who apparently don't account for that. I don't know how they come up with such a big gap otherwise.

 

[KHarvey16]

This is obvious. The tweet in the OP indicates that very thing. No one is overlooking this.

That being said, trying to extrapolate these national, generic polls to a system that relies on results in individual Congressional districts is the very thing that makes reading too much into them dangerous. Any individual district or state can buck the trend. If enough do, we don't take the House or Senate.

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Once again you ignore the context surrounding the data and how it’s best used to formulate a useful picture of the state of these elections.

“We just can’t know” is what you have to believe to maintain a pessimistic outlook.

 

[Jeremy]

And there's an equal chance that noise ends up working out for Democrats, which is why you cancel it out and ignore it to make your prediction.

I'm not saying anything is 100% certain, just that there's good reason to have hope.

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Fair enough.

If the energized voters turn out in the "wrong" districts, though, the swing in turnout could lead to a number of Ossoff-style near losses or something.

It's definitely a "don't count your chickens" situation.

 

[ChryZ]

Don't mind the polls. Don't see this as a done deal. You go vote. You go mobilize as many people to vote.

IF you don't vote, then you don't deserve democracy and/or freedom.

 

[Luminish]

Fair enough.

If the energized voters turn out in the "wrong" districts, though, the swing in turnout could lead to a number of Ossoff-style near losses or something.

It's definitely a "don't count your chickens" situation.

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Well yes, but historically speaking from the data they're more likely to turn out in the "right" districts, probably because of the makeup of those districts and how people in those districts engage with politics.

And again it's probably worth emphasising that my optimistic view is democrats have to win by at least 7% to have a 1 seat majority, which is still depressing.

 

[GrooveCommand]

I mean what is the point of polls anyways though? I guess they could be useful for the politicians themselves to decide where to campaign and spend money, but for the general public they are basically entertainment.

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You're right, to the average person the polls don't really inform any real-world decisions they make. Primarily the only people who use polls to inform real-world decisions are Politicians and the Media.

As an average person, I find that polls can be helpful for me to get an idea of how people are thinking and how their sentiments are changing. With polls like this where dems are leading by a large margin, it gives me hope because it's definitely a good sign for democrats. Whether or not that translates into wins is another thing, but it gives me hope nonetheless.

They key is just to temper your expectations.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

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47% to fucking 37%.

 

[Titik]

The GOP was able to gerrymander everything because they lucked out with 2010 being a midterm wave + redistricting was done in 2011 after the census.

That you blame this on the "Dems doing nothing" rather than what actually happened is telling. The President's party suffers downballot while they're in office. This has happened to literally every president ever in the 20th and 21st century.'

You don't actually understand the history you're telling other people to pay attention to.

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They didn't luck out. It was a coordinated effort by a start up backed by the Republican party. Read or listen about project REDMAP.

They focused on flipping state legislative seats and governorships because they knew that they had the power to draw federal districts at the state level. It was also cost effective because these seats only cost a couple hundred thousands at most. It hasn't been down at this scale before.

They won about 700 state legislative seats in 2010 an outsized win even by wave standards. They were the able to hold these wins in 2012 despite the gains the Democrats made since 2010. Obama has been quoted in saying that letting this unchallenged was one of his and his DNC apparatus' biggest mistakes.

Here is an episode of Planet Money about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/06/01/616216560/episode-845-redmap

 

[Kasumin]

Just got a license renewal in my state which required updating my voter registration. Keeping track of efforts in my state to fight gerrymandering. I wasn't fucking around in 2016 and I'm definitely not fucking around now.

 

[Officer Big Mac]

I'm not the person you were responding to but its incredibly tiring after nearly 2 years since the election we have people making the same simple blanket statement about polls.

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Maybe it's time to step away from the computer if you're so riled by those posts. Help or hold your tongue and move along.

 

[HStallion]

Maybe it's time to step away from the computer if you're so riled by those posts. Help or hold your tongue and move along.

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I could say the same exact thing about those random polling comments.

 

[Steel]

there are certain people who just can't be reached because all they take in is conservative media, and they're essentially being presented with an alternate version of reality

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Then there are people who don't pay attention at all and say "meh, things aren't so bad for me personally at this instant, so what do I care".

 

[Officer Big Mac]

I could say the same exact thing about those random polling comments.

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Good grief.

 

[HStallion]

Good grief.

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My thoughts exactly.

 

[Kirblar]

They didn't luck out. It was a coordinateD effort by a start up. Read or listen about project REDMAP.

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Yes, the GOP has a lot of this shit going on with the judiciary/gerrymandering/ALEC/etc. But the specific thing that let them accumulate massive amounts of power so quickly was the 2010 midterms lining up exactly with redistricting. It's the entire reason the cold-blooded "you don't want Hillary to win 2016 because it'll devastate the Dems political power when redistricting lines up with Dem losses in 2018/2020" thesis is a thing.

 

[Pwnz]

My excitement for the midterms is like Christmas as a kid. With Dems controlling both houses it will immediately neuter Trump and within weeks get the process to remove him and much of the executive office and subsequently jail them...the thought of justice and putting the Nazis down is exhilarating.

Vote in November. Even my right leaning libertarian wife is voting Dem party ticket. Let's get a Texas Democrat senator.

 

[Titik]

Yes, the GOP has a lot of this shit going on with the judiciary/gerrymandering/ALEC/etc. But the specific thing that let them accumulate massive amounts of power so quickly was the 2010 midterms lining up exactly with redistricting. It's the entire reason the cold-blooded "you don't want Hillary to win 2016 because it'll devastate the Dems political power when redistricting lines up with Dem losses in 2018/2020" thesis is a thing.

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They knew redistricting was coming and they did something about it.

 

[Citizencope]

Has anyone here ever been polled?

 

[Citizencope]

Whoops my bad

 

[Kirblar]

They knew redistricting was coming and they did something about it.

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No, they benefited fro the inevitable wave election that occurs whenever a party has control of the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate. They did not "plan" to lose Congress in '06 and the White House in '08. Just like Dems didn't plan to have Hillary lose in '16.

On an aggregate, national level, voter behavior and trends are incredibly predictable as it related to control of the Presidency and especially control of a political Trifecta.

 

[Luminish]

Has anyone here ever been polled?

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Yes, but not much to say about it. I asked who it was for and they wouldn't answer that.

 

[Piggus]

I'm ignoring polls. Not because I'm suspect of their accuracy, but because they can promote complacency dear God we don't need that again.

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So true. But on the other hand seeing the opposite can have a similar effect. These polls make me hopeful and excited to vote in what I hope will be the beginning of the end of this nightmare.

 

[Luminish]

Traditional wisdom has been that polls showing a big gap helps the leader because it depresses the vote of the loser more than the winner, but I guess the voters for the loser have to believe the polls for that to work out.

 

[Titik]

No, they benefited fro the inevitable wave election that occurs whenever a party has control of the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate. They did not "plan" to lose Congress in '06 and the White House in '08. Just like Dems didn't plan to have Hillary lose in '16.

On an aggregate, national level, voter behavior and trends are incredibly predictable as it related to control of the Presidency and especially control of a political Trifecta.

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Yes I agree with you for the most part but you can't deny the gains made by Republicans at the state level. Many swing states have solidly republican legislative bodies despite their voters being 50/50.

 

[SaviourMK2]

Sure as fuck wish people called me to ask me about my opinion on social matters so I can have a litle faith in these polls.

Regardless, vote blue people. Checks n Balances are at stake.

 

[Kirblar]

Yes I agree with you for the most part but you can't deny the gains Ave by Republicans at the state level. Many swing states have solidly republican legislative bodies despite their voters being 50/50.

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Dems got a 10% margin and 49.5 house seats in VA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House_of_Delegates_election,_2017

The gains in 2018/2020 are going to be absurdly important at the state/local level.

 

[rjinaz]

So true. But on the other hand seeing the opposite can have a similar effect. These polls make me hopeful and excited to vote in what I hope will be the beginning of the end of this nightmare.

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Yep. It's quite enthralling. I'm way more excited just because I know we can actually get them all out if we get our asses out there. Opposite effect for me. I want more polls like this.

 

[hodayathink]

The funny this is that while gerrymandering does greatly benefit the party in power in a relatively normal election, it can completely fuck them over if a big enough wave hits, because part of how you make those gerrymandered districts is to take areas that were solidly for one party and divide them up into other districts that were less solid to increase your vote share there (so, for example, if you have a district that's 70-30R surrounded by districts that are 55-45D, you move things so that the first district is now 55-45R but the others around it are now 53-47R). But in that situation, if a 12 point wave hits, not only do you lose the districts you gerrymandered, you lose your original district, too. So the gerrymander can help Republicans in a year where Dems have a 2 or 3 point lead, but if that lead gets to be something like 9 or 10, then things can get really bad quickly.

 

[Autodidact]

The funny this is that while gerrymandering does greatly benefit the party in power in a relatively normal election, it can completely fuck them over if a big enough wave hits, because part of how you make those gerrymandered districts is to take areas that were solidly for one party and divide them up into other districts that were less solid to increase your vote share there (so, for example, if you have a district that's 70-30R surrounded by districts that are 55-45D, you move things so that the first district is now 55-45R but the others around it are now 53-47R). But in that situation, if a 12 point wave hits, not only do you lose the districts you gerrymandered, you lose your original district, too. So the gerrymander can help Republicans in a year where Dems have a 2 or 3 point lead, but if that lead gets to be something like 9 or 10, then things can get really bad quickly.

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Exactly. They've spread their voters fairly thinly in some areas to create districts that just lean Republican. A large enough wave will cause the gerrymanders to backfire.

One of Republicans' favorite gerrymandering tricks in red and purple states is to attach a small portion of a deep-blue urban area to a red suburb and/or rural area. Problem is, many suburbs swung toward Hillary in 2016 and have continued to move our way. If these suburbs even turn people, the gerrymander breaks in a lot of areas.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Not feeling very optimistic as polls have been wrong so hopefully.......there is some light in the tunnel

 

[VectorPrime]

Not feeling very optimistic as polls have been wrong so hopefully.......there is some light in the tunnel

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At this point I refuse to believe that this isn’t straight up concern trolling.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

At this point I refuse to believe that this isn’t straight up concern trolling.

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This is my first real post in threads like these when it comes to polls, so yeah, I'm concerned....but I'm definitely not trolling. And what's wrong with being skeptical? The election polls really fucked things up and I just feel like i have to be very cautious now because I really don't have time for false positives. It also doesn't help how much this board sometimes dismisses polls that shows the Right are up some points, but we take these ones as more factual. It's too much....as I said...I'm not very optimistic but I'm hoping something good finally comes out of this.

 

[Skelepuzzle]

This is my first real post in threads like these when it comes to polls, so yeah, I'm concerned....but I'm definitely not trolling. And what's wrong with being skeptical? The election polls really fucked things up and I just feel like i have to be very cautious now because I really don't have time for false positives. It also doesn't help how much this board sometimes dismisses polls that shows the Right are up some points, but we take these ones as more factual. It's too much....as I said...I'm not very optimistic but I'm hoping something good finally comes out of this.

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Look at recent elections, things are going well! You're right to be concerned, but if you're so concerned that you're worried that we're doomed you should contribute in some way. I promise that surrounding yourself with committed people will make you feel better. March, donate, do anything you can.

 

[Luminish]

This is my first real post in threads like these when it comes to polls, so yeah, I'm concerned....but I'm definitely not trolling. And what's wrong with being skeptical? The election polls really fucked things up and I just feel like i have to be very cautious now because I really don't have time for false positives. It also doesn't help how much this board sometimes dismisses polls that shows the Right are up some points, but we take these ones as more factual. It's too much....as I said...I'm not very optimistic but I'm hoping something good finally comes out of this.

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It was addressed earlier when someone else brought up the same concerns, but national polls were pretty good, and it was more the move in public opinion from the comey letter that made the polls before that event outdated, not wrong. However, statewide polls have a lot more potential to be wrong, and even more so as you get to the states that swing less often and are thus polled less often.

The poll this topic is about is maybe a couple points more democrat than usual, but the polls that show republicans up are extremely rare.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo

 

[Ithil]

Wtf? It's absolutely not - gerrymandering is the greatest political problem facing America.

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It is bullshit, yes, but it's not invulnerable. A large enough wave actually turns it back on the GOP and makes them lose more than they would have without gerrymandering.

 

[Earthstrike]

It is bullshit, yes, but it's not invulnerable. A large enough wave actually turns it back on the GOP and makes them lose more than they would have without gerrymandering.

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This doesn't sound right. For any specific differential or wave, the results of an even distribution of voters would always be equal to or greater than that of the gerrymandered situation. Can you show how a wave would work better in a gerrymandered situation versus a non gerrymandered situation? I would be curious to see it.

 

[Helot_Azure]

I want the Dems to take the House just so Maxine Waters can subpoena Trump for his tax returns and make his presidency a nightmare.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

the best part will be Trump losing his mind. It will be amazing. "Republicans didn't want to make America great again so the people voted them out. Sad!"

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Breaking the back of the kleptocratic, incompetant, inhuman Trumpism once and for all (the redass beatdowns during the Specials seem to have been handwaved away) is the real crown jewel. The knives will come out then, and the rare backtalk and checks will explode.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

not enough.