GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot

[Crazy Guggenheim]

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What say you?




PRINCETON, NJ -- Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.

[Mac McFadden]

And watch those numbers change the minute you put actual NAMES on the ballots.
"The only poll that counts is the one on Election Day."


Mac

[Crazy Guggenheim]

And watch those numbers change the minute you put actual NAMES on the ballots.
"The only poll that counts is the one on Election Day."


Mac

Here's something by Nate Silver:

Read the rest at:

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How Stable is the Generic Ballot? ([Only registered and activated users can see links])

I'm fairly deep in the weeds of building our House forecasting model, which we hope to debut for you at some point late next week. We're basically taking a "kitchen sink" approach -- that is, looking at five or six different sources of information (polls, ratings by professional forecasters like Cook and CQ, fundraising data, etc.), and seeing what has had the most predictive power over the past six election cycles. This is not an easy thing to do -- the data-collection efforts alone are formidable.

One of the challenges I've faced is in coming to grips with the generic ballot, which is the primary indicator of the nationwide standing of the two major parties. The basic question is to what extent the generic ballot ought to take precednece over local-level indicators: for instance, if the generic ballot looks really bad for one party (as it does for the Democrats this year), but the local polls are more favorable, which indicator tends to prevail? I don't have an answer to that yet -- you'll have to tune in next week, I suppose. Still, there are some questions about the generic ballot that I'm now in a better position to address.

For instance: how stable is the generic ballot? I don't mean individual polls of the generic ballot, which in the case of Gallup and some other organizations, ([Only registered and activated users can see links])can be quite "bouncy" ([Only registered and activated users can see links]) from week to week. Rather, suppose that you're able to remove most of this noise: how quickly can the underlying, macro-level dynamics change when it comes to elections to the Congress?

The way that I've evaluated this is to collect all generic ballot polls since 1998 and looked at what they would have told us at certain intervals before each election. Specifically, I built ([Only registered and activated users can see links])Pollster.com ([Only registered and activated users can see links])-style ([Only registered and activated users can see links])LOESS regression ([Only registered and activated users can see links]) curves around the generic ballot polls, and evaluated the result they would have projected on the morning of the election, and then at 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 150, 200, 300 and (where there is sufficient early polling) 400 days beforehand. There is no "cheating" allowed: for instance, if a poll came out 199 days before the election, it isn't used in the 200-day forecast, since it wouldn't have been available to us at that time.
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[Mac McFadden]

I find Nate Silver the most credible of all the pollsters.
But even he can't overcome the possibility of respondents LYING about who they'll vote for.
Or lying about the likelihood that they will vote at all.


Mac

[old mark]

Whether the poll is accurate or not, I STRONGLY URGE Every Democrat to vote for Democrats in November. Please just look at the people who are running for the GOP and read what they are saying and what they believe.

If you have to hold your nose to vote for a Dem, please try to do so - we really need to keep whatever we can this year.

Thank you.

(I posted a similar post on GU several days ago, and I have been vilified for being evil, egotistical and controling for SUGGESTING Liberals/Progressives should vote for Democrats. Many there agreed with me, but I was amazed at the number who did not - they seem to be young people waiting for the Right Wingers, who they see as all "old farts" to die off, so ushering in a new era with no rightwingers in the future America, where everyone is progressive, happy, post racial, free, and always young.)

Personally, I think they smoke too much pot and hate us Boomers too much, but, hey we were stupid when we were young, too...

Democrats. Liberals, Progressives - Please vote for Democrats in November - we WILL NEED EVERY VOTE!!!

Thank you for your tollerance.

OLD mark
Thanks again to Mac and CG.

[zatoichi1]

From where I sit, this is most unfortunate. Like it or not this is a sign of weakness.

That said, most polls are going to oscillate all over the map.

But there are more problems with polls than in most years and will continue to be the case moving forward.

One, I do not believe the pollsters know how to deal with cell phones. My guess is that there are few studies on how those cell phone users behave and it is hard to get a handle on how accurate they might be in the scheme of things.

Two, there is a blindside in the mindset of the campaign consultants. They do not always automatically respond appropriately to a changing campaign background. Translating any poll advantage into votes is harder to do than ever.

Three, although voter turnout is more crucial than ever it is hard to gauge the asymmetrical element in the two campaigns. The fear based Republican campaigns might not have the same bite as they did in 2002 and 2004. The substance oriented Democratic campaign might actually get traction. Like it or not we are still getting hurt badly by years of Republican misrule. The Republicans have not yet been held accountable for the many of their omissions and commissions. At the very least we still have two months for a good camaign to actually sink in.

And four what are they advocating and whom are they pushing as candidates? A lot of nuts in their bowl. And their proposals are really bad and self serving.

[101Scout]

There's 2 fantasy worlds included into this equation. The political bubble world (bs lies) .... and the plastic sheeple world (ignorant, complacent, dumb and dumber). When those two worlds collide during an election cycle, what happens at the polls? Rebellion! Go figure. All I know is, when jobs and our failing economy speaks the loudest 24/7..... and there's lots of daily pain felt by individual voters when it's time to vote .... who knows what really goes on inside heads. Rationale should normally take precedence but after media propaganda warps air headed sheeple's vulnerable minds so much, anything can happen with these coming Nov results. I think that the Dems can still provide trusting reasons for capturing the majority of the votes but..... we are still in upside down silly season post Goober World and this mid term election just might go to the Repukes. That's the reality of this crazy ass shit world we're now in. Like I've said before... after 2 terms of GooberCo and these guys are still walking free today ..... still blathering away ...... anything... and I mean anything can happen!!