Or a
Category 5 storm. Pick your metaphor.
Up front, the generic House ballot shows a building surge in support of Democrats. Currently, the polls show an estimated Democratic support of 53%, with 38% for Republicans, for a Democratic margin of 15 points. The change in the Democratic margin is shown below - after a dip following the September Security Scare, voters have dramatically increased their support for Democrats.
Click to enlarge. Indicates the Democratic margin - zero means a tie.
Below the fold, the generic becomes specific, plus momentum in the Senate. Come join and see the happy results! And of course I have more graphs... cross-posted at MyDD.
The Generic House Ballot
The shift towards Democrats has two components: a slight decrease in support for Republicans, but also an increase in support for Democrats. The lines shown (Loess lines) were calculated without the numbers for Cook's most likely voters
Click to enlarge.
The Likely Voters
Is this shift due to a shift from registered voters to likely voter models? Partially. But even among likely voters, there is still an increase in the Democratic margin:
Click to enlarge.
There is evidence that this increase in the Democratic margin is from an intensification of Democrats' motivation. Those likely model voters that are more focused on enthusiasm would pick up on this; likely model voters that are based more heavily on past voting behavior would stay near the 10-11 point advantage for Dems, similar to the advantage among registered voters. On average, though, we see the line going up. As an example, the Cook numbers among registered voters in the last survey give a Democratic advantage of +13, +23 among likely voters, and the much discussed +26 among most likely voters. Where will the true numbers lie? Probably somewhere between 11 and 26 - an excellent prospect!
Real House Races
This is about hundreds of individual races in the end. So what do we see? Pollster shows among the thirty districts polled twice by Majority Watch in October, the average results changed from 46R 48D to 46R 49D. I've calculated that for the ten districts polled three times, starting in August, the numbers change from 47R 47D to 46R 48D in early October and 46R 50D in late October. Real momentum in real races, folks. No caveats about generic ballots needed.
Who's Ahead?
That's what we really want to know. Based on the polls alone, Pollster is calling for 221 Democratic seats, with 26 toss-ups. Electoral Vote is saying 239 Democrats win as of today. It's just polls, and of course there's only one poll that counts, but still - sure looks good!
Conventional Wisdom
The professionals keep upgrading Democrats chances in the House as well. Looking at not just polls, but also money and other factors, they keep increasing the outlook in favor of Democrats.
For example, this graph shows how Charlie Cook keeps increasing the number of Republican seats in jeopardy over the past 18 months or so:
Click to enlarge.
The Senate
It's not just the House races that have momentum either. Pollster shows that the 12 Senate races they're tracking (excluding CT) just keep improving relentlessly, on average, for Democrats.
Click to enlarge.
This doesn't mean all individual races are improving, of course - there looks to be a downward trend in recent days in Missouri and Tennessee. A diary today by plf515 shows the smoothed trends in the most competitive races; they can be seen together in the figure below. The best momentum that I can see is in Virginia and New Jersey.
Click to enlarge.
The Parties
As mentioned on the front page, Republican party ID is still sinking. This is part of the underlying shift resulting in the poor poll numbers for Republicans:
Click to enlarge.
So What?
The only poll that matters is next week, but the good news and the conventional wisdom help create a feedback loop that benefits Democrats. We get excited, the excitement shows up in polls, the talking heads talk about how excited we are, and more of us get even more excited. So spread the word: excite your friends and neighbors, and let's get rid of these miscreants for good!
Related Diaries
Republican Nightmare: Country Lines up for Demorats Moderates and Independents are now part of the Democratic Base, and other good news from Pew
America the Beautiful: The Democratic Wave The state of the election in graphs, enough to make a diehard pessimist cheer up.
Maps: Values Voters Ditch Bush & Republicans God, guns and gays just doesn't work very well anymore.
The Republicans and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month A summary of the unrelenting news coverage recently, in story form.
Hurricane Bush Devastates Republican Chances Analysis of 235 House polls shows why Bush's approval ratings do matter.
Graphs: Republican Brand Near Record Low Favorability It's not just Bush who has low approval...