It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. Starting about 3-4 weeks ago, there were lots of stories floating about in the media about the ebbing of the blue wave. However, for most of those weeks, it wasn’t reflected in any polling or the 538 forecast, which was highly stable…. until this past week, when it seems there has been a shift in the reported generic ballot polls, and a corresponding rise in Biden’s unfavorables (about two points in the wrong direction). It started with the NYT poll that dropped in the beginning, and all sorts of other bad results have followed.
So…. what, exactly is going on?
Here’s what we know:
* There haven’t been any major scandals to sandbag the Biden Administration, or any key Dem office-holders or candidates of national prominence. Indeed, it’s the other side that is mired in scandal, as more revelations about Trump’s involvement in 1/6 and the classified documents in Mar-a-lago leak out. In addition, scandals have plagued key GOP candidates such as Herschel Walker.
* Economic news has been… meh. Things haven’t been getting better as fast as we have liked, but they haven’t really gotten worse AFAICT. Your mileage may vary, of course.
* The news media seems to have a giant thumb on the scale, and seem to be downplaying Dobbs, 1/6, and the Mar-a-lago raid, and playing up the economy and crime. Open GOP threats to shutdown the government in an attempt to force concessions on popular programs such as Social Security haven’t gotten much media coverage.
* There has been a massive wave of “dark money” ads on the TV from GOP-aligned sources, generally unmatched by Dem responses (why is an interesting question), painting a picture of doom. Many of these ads are flagrantly racist and offensive, not to mention outright dishonest. What the correct response to this should be, and how it should be funded, is also an interesting question. Democratic candidates have been busy running ads for themselves, but generic “the Republicans are a menace” advertising seems to be missing.
* Turnout is expected to be high on both sides; this may be more of a “who pisses off the middle” election than a “base turnout” election. Early turnout for Dems has been encouraging, and votes banked are an advantage, but most voters vote closer to Election Day, so it would be wrong to suggest that Team Blue has anything in the bag.
* Dems greatly outperformed during summer special elections. What that means for the fall, I’ve no idea.
* A few recent polls have shown Dem improvement in key races. Here in Oregon, for instance, indepenent Betsy Johnson is losing support, and almost all of her lost support is going to Tina Kotek, not to GOP loon Christine Drazan. Drazan is the sort of Republican who normally gets squashed in OR, and she only has a chance of winning because of Johnson splitting the liberal vote. But if the Dem voters come home, Drazan is toast.
Here’s what we don’t know:
* Whether the demographic models used by pollsters matches the likely electorate. We won’t know this until after the election is over. There’s a good chance that many of the polling models, based on 2018 and 2020, don’t reflect a bunch of pissed-off women post-Dobbs… or maybe the pissed-off women have gotten over it, or decided that white privilege, cheap gas, or not running into panhandlers in the park are more important than the right to choose.
* Quite a bit of media sources have been promoting the “blue wave ebbing” theory; but there’s not much data demonstrating that non-typical Dem voters who were planning on voting Dem to defend abortion rights, now are planning on staying home or voting GOP. A lot of this seems to come from the NYT poll—but if its sample is based on a pre-Dobbs model of the electorate, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about the behavior of voters that aren’t asked.
* What events between now and Election Day (an indictment of Trump? Unlikely before the election, but he’s gotten mostly bad news on the legal front) might further shake up the race, I don’t know.
Thoughts?