Chewing Up Some Recent Polls, Getting a Bit of Indigestion
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Morning Jolt October 7, 2014 Chewing Up Some Recent Polls, Getting a Bit of Indigestion I’m not saying that the pollster Survey USA is wrong. As far as pollsters go, I like them — they provide a terrifically detailed breakdown of their survey sample. I’m just saying they’ve had some outliers lately. On Monday Survey USA released a poll of Kentucky voters showing Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes up by 2 in the Senate race. Not only is that the first poll to show Grimes ahead since June, every other poll since July had Mitch McConnell ahead by at least 4. The previous most recent poll, by CBS News/New York Times, had McConnell up by 6. On Wednesday SurveyUSA had Charlie Crist up by 6; two weeks earlier, they had Rick Scott ahead by 1, and two weeks before that they had Scott ahead by 5. Other pollsters have not seen the same dramatic shift in Crist’s favor.
To their credit, the Survey USA release mentions a possible reason for volatility:
Their September 26 poll of Oregon showed incumbent Democrat John Kithaber up by 12 in the governor’s race and incumbent Democrat Jeff Merkley up 20 in the Senate race, around what the other pollsters have found. That same day the group released a poll that had Republican David Perdue up 1 in Georgia’s Senate race; that’s the smallest lead any pollster has found in the past six polls. They found Jason Carter, the Democrat, up 1 in the governor’s race. That was the only poll in the last five to have Carter ahead. Again, this doesn’t mean that they’re “skewed” or “biased” or trying to depress Republican turnout or trying to lull Democrats into a false sense of security. At first glance, I would wonder if they were projecting or expecting a higher turnout — with an electorate closer to the makeup of presidential years — than other pollsters. This doesn’t mean they’re wrong, this doesn’t mean they’re right. It all depends upon who shows up. By the way, when you see an article on The Atlantic site entitled, “Why a GOP Senate Majority Could Be Short-Lived”, it’s a useful indicator that the center-left media feels the need to prepare its readership for the possibility, and to help them cope with defeat. (Having said that, yes, the 2016 map for Republicans in the Senate looks quite tough.) A Bit of Momentum for Iowa Republicans in Early Voting Hey, remember my warning about the early-voting panic? Those late September days when people were ready to write off the GOP’s chances because of out of the 2,000 or so ballots returned, more were from registered Democrats than registered Republicans? (Note that a midterm Senate election in Iowa will have about 1 million votes, and about 2 million in North Carolina.) We’re up to about 50,000 ballots returned — maybe 5 percent of the total? — and Democrats still lead, but by less:
But the momentum is changing, day by day:
In North Carolina, early voting guru and University of Florida professor Michael McDonald sees better news for the Democrats:
Then, if you look at this survey on voter contact…
It’s a red flag for Republicans. But I’d rather see a red flag in the first week of October, when there’s still a month to address it and catch up, than in the first week of November. Why Yesterday Was Like Christmas to Me Have you ever gotten good news that you simply cannot believe?
Naturally, this happens literally three days after I declared on Twitter, “I have come to terms with the idea that the story will never be continued, and isn't meant to be continued.” Perhaps in the coming days I’ll post my way-too-long-and-obsessive essay from last November about Twin Peaks. See, it’s not just, “oh, that old show is coming back.” It’s “that old show that ended on perhaps the biggest unresolved cliffhanger of all time is coming back.” It’s, “that old show, which enjoyed a post-series movie, that deliberately chose to not resolve that cliffhanger ending, and instead chose to open up a whole bunch of new questions, is coming back.” It’s, “that old show, that reunited a good chunk of the cast for a funny parody/tribute episode in another television series, is coming back.” I don’t think there’s ever been a similar return of a series after a generation’s absence. Maybe you can compare it to Paul Newman playing “Fast Eddie” in The Hustler in 1961 and The Color of Money in 1986. Finally, it’s “that show, which had a great central storyline of a mystery and that ran off the rails once it resolved that mystery, is coming back, for a definite limited run of nine episodes, providing a closing story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, as it probably was always meant to be.” Series co-creator, Mark Frost, said in an interview Monday:
Once you’ve waited 25 years, waiting another two years is easy. ADDENDA: Ah, yes, Laura Fillault, I’ve said something akin to “just eat your&*#$^%&*toast” during some of our frazzled mornings in our household. Here’s Kurt Schlichter parodying — I think — those Democratic fundraising e-mails:
Finally, Lisa De Pasquale finds Al Sharpton curling up with his favorite book:
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