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Tag: fivethirtyeight
Republicans Flood Media With GOP Polls, Slanting Averages In Midterm

Republicans Flood Media With GOP Polls, Slanting Averages In Midterm

As former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway once suggested, if you don't like the facts, just create alternative facts.

That's exactly what Republicans and their pollsters are doing in several of this cycle's most hotly contested races.

Take Georgia, for instance—until about October 21 or 22, Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock had been holding a pretty steady three to four-point lead during October over his GOP rival Herschel Walker in FiveThirtyEight's aggregate. Then the gap suddenly narrowed to about one point in the final week of October, Warnock 46.7 percent - Walker 45.4 percent.

FiveThirtyEight.com/screenshot


What exactly happened to nudge Walker into contention to take the lead? A whole bunch of GOP-slanted polls, that's what.

Of the seven aggregate polls taken since October 21, five of them were conducted by either GOP-aligned groups or pollsters that use friendly GOP modeling: Trafalgar Group, Rasmussen Reports, Moore Information (Walker poll), co/efficient, and InsiderAdvantage. All of them put Walker in the lead by anywhere from two to five points.

The two other polls—one conducted by The New York Times/Siena College and the other for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution—found that Warnock had a three-point advantage and the two candidates were tied, respectively.

Perhaps the most deceptive polling outfit is InsiderAdvantage, which polls for Fox affiliates across the country, giving the surveys the veneer of being even-handed media-sponsored polls. But a quick google search of the pollster finds their handiwork generating GOP-friendly headlines in several of the key contests they have polled:

  • FOX 5 Atlanta: Kemp, Walker hold leads in major Georgia races in new InsiderAdvantage/Fox 5 poll
  • FOX 29 Philadelphia: InsiderAdvantage/FOX 29 poll: Fetterman, Oz neck and neck as Shapiro’s lead over Mastriano narrows
  • FOX 10 Phoenix: 2022 Arizona Election Poll: Lake leads governor's race, Senate race tightens

Wow, Republican prospects are really improving across the board. Amazing.

The red mirage, as it were, is also evident in Pennsylvania's Senate race: Three of the five aggregate polls taken since October 20 are from GOP-friendly groups, all of which give Republican nominee Mehmet Oz a two to three-point advantage over Democratic nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.

The other two surveys show Fetterman maintaining a lead. NewYork Times/Siena put Fetterman up 5 points, 49 percent -- 44 percent, and CBS News/YouGov gave Fetterman a slimmer 2-point edge, 51 percent -- 49 percent.

As TargetSmart CEO and data analyst Tom Bonier, noted, "After a flood of GOP outlier polls in all of these races designed to create stories about an impending red wave and digging into why Dems are losing ("is it crime/inflation?"), New York Times/Siena suggests not much has changed in these races in the past two weeks."

Here are the top lines of the New York Times/Siena polling from four key Senate contests released Monday:

Arizona: D+6
Sen. Mark Kelly (D), 51 percent
Blake Masters 45 percent

Georgia: D+3
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D), 49 percent
Herschel Walker, 46 percent

Nevada: Even
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D), 47 percent
Adam Laxalt, 47 percent

Pennsylvania: D+6
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), 49 percent
Mehmet Oz, 44 percent

Pro-GOP polls have also made their mark on FiveThirtyEight's congressional generic ballot aggregate, as I noted last week.

As demonstrated above by the FOX affiliate coverage, the GOP-aligned polls have become part of a Republican feedback loop that is inspiring a disproportional amount of pro-Republican horse-race stories both locally and at the national level.

And yet, the latest round of New York Times/Siena surveys in individual races suggests Democrats are very much both holding their own and even beating expectations in some cases in both the House and the Senate.

The coverage hyping a GOP surge this cycle isn’t only misleading, it’s dangerous—particularly since it exists in an amped-up environment where most MAGA Republicans already believe they were cheated in the last cycle. Sure, Republicans might have a good night next week—that’s completely plausible. But most surveys taken by legitimate outfits suggest a very competitive landscape where Democrats could just as easily outperform expectations.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

President Joe Biden

Is Joe Biden’s Approval Rating In ‘Free Fall’? Nope

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

Amid breathless reports of a political "free fall" and reeling from the White House's "summer from hell," the Beltway press has leaned into the idea that Joe Biden's presidency is unraveling — that his approval rating is in a state of collapse.

Except it's not true. Instead, it's the media falling in love with their favorite Dems In Disarray storyline. The same media that shrugged at Trump's chronically awful approval rating.

In a typical, overheated dispatch, a CNBC report recently announced, "Biden's Approval Ratings Have Plummeted, and That Could Spell trouble for Democrats in Congress." First off, the idea that Biden's approval rating in September 2021, is going to impact the outcome of November 2022 midterms makes no sense. Secondly, Biden's approval rating has fallen a grand total of four points in the past month, according to the polling average tabulated at FiveThirtyEight. So much for the "plummet."

Is Biden's' approval rating down this summer? It is, to 46 percent. Is he in some sort of manic freefall as the press suggests, fueled by the troop pullout from Afghanistan and the Delta surge? He is not.

A true ratings collapse would be like when President Ronald Reagan's approval dropped nine points in five days when the Iran Contra scandal broke. Or when George W. Bush's cratered 16 points in three months following the launch of the disastrous Iraq War.

Here are the Biden approval ratings from last 15 polls posted at FiveThirtyEight, minus the Rasmussen surveys, which are notoriously pro-Republican: 46, 44, 47, 47, 49, 47, 48, 42, 48, 49, 47, 44, 47, 50, 48.

If you take out the high (50) and the low (42) data points, the results have been markedly consistent this month. Where's the plummet?

When a recent Quinnipiac poll showed Biden's approval at 42 percent, Newsweek announced, "Joe Biden's Approval Rating Continues to Sink, Shows No Signs of Improving." Newsweek then ignored the fact that the next seven polls released after Quinnipiac all showed him improving.

The cherry picking seems intentional. When a NPR/PBS voter survey in early September showed Biden's approval at 43 percent, CNN's Chris Cillizza pounced: "This Poll Number Will Send Democrats Into a Panic." A week later though, Cillizza was silent when CNN's own poll found Biden's approval climbing to 52 percent.

CNN seemed to struggle with how to cover its good-news-for-Biden poll when the Beltway's preferred narrative was his "summer from hell." This was CNN's online headline for a story that showed Biden with a strong approval rating: "Americans Turn Pessimistic Amid Concerns Over Economy and Coronavirus." Later in a news segment, when a CNN anchor suggested the network's latest showing had Biden's rating at 43 percent, she had to be corrected by a guest who pointed out CNN's survey showed a 52 percent mark.

Biden's summertime slide has been fueled by Afghanistan and Covid, two unique and pressing challenges. But it also represents a natural progression for first term presidents as the so-called "honeymoon" with voters slowly wears off. Between being sworn in January 2009, and September 1 of that year, President Barack Obama, a successful two-term president, lost seven points on his approval rating, which is exactly how many points Biden has dipped since his inauguration.

Note that as with Biden, the press often obsessed over minor downward movements in Obama's approval in order to concoct a narrative about a president "sinking" and "plunging." At one point, a New York Times editorial was so anxious to push a narrative about Obama's supposedly broken presidency, it fabricated his approval rating, claiming it was 40 percent in a new poll, when it was actually 50 percent in that new survey.

The contrast with how the press has treated the popularity of the last two Democratic presidents with how they treated Trump's unpopularity couldn't be more startling.

When Biden's approval rating first fell below 50 percent this summer, it was considered newsworthy, as pundits weigh in on the approval "slide" and wondered if the Afghanistan story was going to doom his presidency. Rarely included in that heavy-handed analysis was the fact that at the same point in his presidency, Trump was sitting at a woeful 37 percent approval rating.

While Trump wallowed in abysmal ratings for most of his presidency (he never cracked 50 percent), the press mostly looked away, treating his poor standing as being usual. It was normalized.

Here's a quick example. In October, 2018 Politico published a piece about Trump's fire hose, "new media strategy," where he appeared on TV without pause and constantly answered reporters' shouted questions at the White House. In the eyes of Politico, it was a novel and winning strategy — it "worked" for Trump. And Politico even singled out Trump's top aide who was responsible for the approach.

Of course, what Politico never mentioned, and what the D.C. press didn't really think mattered in October 2018, was that Trump's approval stood at a lowly 41 percent.

Can you imagine today if Biden's approval fell five more points, to 41 percent, and the Beltway press started writing stories about how smart his communications strategy was? It's inconceivable because Democrats are held to a tougher media standard.

Polling Experts Say Democrats Will Keep House Majority -- And May Expand It

Polling Experts Say Democrats Will Keep House Majority -- And May Expand It

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

President Donald Trump, during one of his MAGA events in September, predicted that Republicans will retake the U.S. House of Representatives this year. But according to a new analysis by polling expert Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, that possibility is most unlikely. Released on October 7, "FiveThirtyEight's 2020 House of Representatives Election Forecast" says that Democrats have a 92-97 percewnt chance of maintaining their House majority in November — and it is possible that they will even expand it slightly.

FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich explains, "While Democrats are slight favorites to flip the Senate and Joe Biden is a solid-but-not-overwhelming frontrunner for the presidency, Democrats have between a 92 and 97 percent chance of keeping control of the House."

Rakich goes on to say that there are "three versions" of FiveThirtyEight's House model: a "lite version," a "classic version" and a "deluxe version." The "lite version," according to Rakich, "relies primarily on polling" and "gives Democrats a 97 in 100 chance of" keeping their House majority — while the "classic version…. blends polls with fundamentals like partisanship, incumbency advantages and candidates' fundraising" and "gives Democrats a 93 in 100 chance" of doing that. And the "deluxe version," Rakich adds, "incorporates polls, fundamentals and expert ratings from the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato's Crystal Ball" and "gives Democrats a 93 in 100 chance of" maintaining control of the House.

"All three versions more or less agree, though, that Democrats will essentially stand pat in the House or pick up a few extra seats," Rakich explains. "That's an impressive achievement considering the heights they reached in the 2018 midterms, when they scored a 235-199 majority despite a congressional map that favored the GOP."

Rakich doesn't use the word "gerrymandering" in his FiveThirtyEight article, but it's a word that is certainly applicable when it comes to the House. Democrats enjoyed a major blue wave when they retook the House in 2018 and enjoyed a net gain of 40 seats, but many pundits have argued that the blue wave would have been even bigger had the GOP not gerrymandered so many House districts.

No, Hillary Clinton Isn’t Going Anywhere

No, Hillary Clinton Isn’t Going Anywhere

If Hillary Clinton did not have a problem, it would be necessary for the chattering classes to invent one.

Nature abhors a vacuum, journalists hate a “sure thing,” and besides, nobody wanted the Democratic nomination to be a coronation in the first place. Even so, the handwringing from Democrats that Clinton’s “sure thing” status is under threat from forces both inside and outside her camp seems at odds with the fact that she is running a very solid, effective campaign: She is leading the endorsement game by a huge margin, made a strong showing in Iowa last weekend, where she won the ringing endorsement of former senator Tom Harkin, and was reported to be “stealing the show” and “swaying doubters.”

But when you’re the frontrunner, you have nowhere to go but down. And so a dip in the polls becomes a national headline, and a narrative begins to form that Clinton could be headed for another defeat — and what’s more humiliating, a defeat that will happen for the same reasons as it did in 2008.

The Washington Post reports that the “New Hillary is hobbled by old weaknesses,” and that her campaign is exhibiting “worrisome patterns,” such as “insularity, rigidity and a sense that the operation is tone-deaf to changes happening around it.” The article continues:

Once again, worried supporters see signs of a bunker mentality in response to bad news about her email server and other controversies, and they see a candidate who can seem strangely blinkered to the threat posed by a lesser-known challenger.

Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing huge crowds with his populist message and a brazen, anti-establishment rhetoric that pundits say Clinton could never pull off. He’s built a grassroots campaign that’s riding an unlikely surge, recalling a certain other candidate who threw a wrench into Clinton’s last “sure-thing” presidential run.

The terror of Clinton’s forthcoming defeat is compounded by Dems’ predicament that her doom is the party’s too, and they live or die next November entirely on her shoulders.

“Dear Democrats: It’s too late to start over,” Chris Cilliza writes, suggesting that Democrats may be experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse, and that whether or not they believe Hillary Clinton is the candidate they deserve, she is the one they’re stuck with. “If Democrats wanted a serious primary fight between Clinton and someone else — it’s hard to imagine who — that decision needed to have happened a year ago.”

Vice President Joe Biden might have stood a chance, but he is in no place financially to compete with Clinton, the story goes, having dithered so long that the money and talent he would need to mount a credible campaign have been siphoned off by her. Furthermore, Politico reports, the Democratic establishment would really rather the veep quietly step out of the race before he’s even entered it.

Everyone, calm down.

In the gap between press coverage of her actual campaign performance and concerns voiced about her diminishing chances lies a simple truth, which David Horsey, writing in the Los Angeles Times, put rather succinctly: “Hillary is probable, but no longer inevitable.”

Nate Silver, in a post published Monday on FiveThirtyEight, lays out how Clinton’s dip in popularity was a guaranteed thing, and that “everything that’s happened to Clinton so far in the campaign is pretty much par for the course.”

Silver observes that if weren’t for “emailgate,” there would have been another scandal; if it weren’t for Sanders, there would have been another challenger, or at least a candidate who could credibly play the challenger for a time before backing down.

Political media, he says, are guilty of “a certain type of bias: rooting for the story. Inevitability makes for a really boring story, especially when it involves a figure like Clinton who has been in public life for so long.”

“Being ‘inevitable,'” Silver writes, “doesn’t mean you’ll sweep through all 50 states with no opposition.” Furthermore, Clinton is far more “inevitable” now than she was in the 2008 election.

Clinton would rather have stronger favorability ratings than weaker ones, no email scandal, and Sanders behind her in every poll rather than all but one of them. If Joe Biden actually enters the race, I’d lower Clinton’s chances a bit; then again, I’d raise them if Biden doesn’t.

Rather, it’s that the challenges Clinton’s campaign has faced — and the media narrative about an “unexpectedly” competitive race — is exactly what you’d expect relative to the historical experience of campaigns like hers.

As one of the lowlives in David Mamet’s 1975 play American Buffalo said, “God forbid, something inevitable occurs…”

Photo: United States Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton poses for a photo with a woman at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, August 15, 2015. REUTERS/Joshua Lott