This is discussing the possible Senate results, exactly the thread subject. The other thread seems to be to see who has the best crystal ball: not what I am discussing. I don’t own one.
I am not predicting if there will or won’t be any correlated systemic polling error or what direction. No idea. Or at least no confidence in my idea.
I am pointing out what sort of systemic polling error would result in what. Using current polling. Which might change.
A systemic polling error underestimating D result by 3+, systematically, not just in a single cherry picked race, would put AK and IA in play as possible pick ups getting a D Senate majority of even 54 possible, and at least 52 likely.
One the other direction, which has happened more frequently, then all current toss ups go R, NH is probably lost, and as low as D 47 is plausible.
I see the plenty of reason to be hopeful, and plenty of reason to be prepared for disappointment.
Roger Marshall, GOP Senator from Kansas, is facing what appears to be a tough fight to retain his Senate seat. He got no help from the NY Times this week. The Times published an article detailing Marshall’s debt collection practices from when he was a practicing OBGYN physician.
The Times article is probably paywalled, but here’s another link, based on the Times reporting.
I only wish this article had dropped about a month from now, but I still think it will do some damage.
Tomorrow is a crucial day in the Kansas election season, as there will be debates between the senatorial candidates as well as the gubernatorial candidates, held at the Kansas State Fair. Tickets are a hot commodity.
I keep hearing systemic and it feels like a canonization of some broad uniform result that’s just not measurable. How could it possibly be cherry picking if someone is talking about the two highest profile, most polled elections? That’s an unfair characterization. I’m commenting on the elections that had the most prolific polling data sets, with measurable outcomes, of 2025.
We haven’t gotten a result we could directly measure the generic ballot against since 2024. But if Talarico is actually ahead that tracks much closer to D+12ish than D+6.
Eh, none of the Republicans in state office even tried running in the primary, so they got the default of a lawyer with zero political experience. I’m not concerned about Markey’s chances, he’s currently polling 20 pts above Deaton. Apart from the Scott Brown aberration, there hasn’t been a Republican Senator from MA since 1979. At some point someone will ask Deaton whether he’ll support Trump, and no matter what his answer is he’ll lose half his possible voting base.
Yeah, i think that’s a safe seat, unless Markey has some medical issue between now and then. But you can’t have much more name recognition then Sununu has in NH, and that’s a purple state.
Generally speaking I don’t know if age has ever hurt someone at the ballot box. The difference between Bernie Sanders’ margin of victory between 2018 and 2024 was practically a rounding error. And technically he did better in 24 considering the much redder electoral environment. That feels like the closest comparison to Markey you could hope for.
The good news about Governors running for Senate (in this case) is they tend to get overestimated before polarization drags them back to reality. Now Larry Hogan did outrun Trump in Maryland by like 20 points in 2024, obviously if Sununu could pull something like that off then Pappas’ goose would be cooked, but what we’ve seen so far is that as an incumbent governor in 2022 he did about 6pts better than Ayotte in 2024 in a nearly identical environment.
I have to assume one of New Hampshire’s 2 sitting congressional representatives, who’s been in office since 2019, is probably your best possible candidate for an open seat. In his district he outperformed Harris by 6 points in 2024, and ran even with Hassan in in 2022.
I am also worried about this race. People not from New England lump NH in with the other northeast states, but I cannot stress enough the deep libertarian streak that runs through there. Parts of it are very much redneck country, and they currently have a GOP Governor who will probably cruise to victory. And as you say, Sununu is an extremely well-known name in NH. I think this election will be very close.
You apparently aren’t aware there’s two Sununu politicians. The one running for Senator is John, the brother of Chris who was the Governor. John was previously Senator, but lost 6 years ago. Now he’s trying to get his old seat back. He was never Governor.
The hoary old sentiment that all politics are local is not 100% accurate - national trends do matter. But in this case it does seem to have some bearing. Ken Paxton is paradigm of awfulness and more than few people in his own party despise him for the uber-corrupt demagogue that he is. That Talarico has a chance in Texas is entirely down to the awfulness of his opposition (for another prominent example see Doug Jones beating out Roy “I like teen girls” Moore in Alabama). Even then I still kinda slightly expect Talarico to lose because Texas, but will be very pleasantly surprised if he doesn’t. Regardless of the outcome I wouldn’t fully extrapolate that race to the wider national scene.
But the same polling that has Talarico ahead had Gina Hinojosa threatening Abbott. Likewise Rob Sand and Josh Turek in Iowa. Ossoff up by double digits in Georgia.
Even Rounds/Cotton/Graham/Marshall are all seeing some scary (for them) polling. Now it certainly all could be a mirage like it was in 2020. But something that sticks with me is that in 2016 and 2020 Trump was outrun by his party. He trailed the congressional margin by like 4pts and 2pts respectively. 2024 he did better than congressional Republicans. It was especially apparent in contested statewide races where downballot Dems were able to notch some crucial wins.
So if Republicans win narrowly on the strength of Trump’s ability to sway disengaged voters, and then are left with him off the ballot, as he (while sitting at the lowest approval he’s ever had) tries to make the entire midterm about him. I would expect a massive backlash consistent with the Dem performance in the 2025 off year elections, and their domination of special elections (which were not going very well in 2020).
And there was a third, but i think he’s retired (or dead). It’s a really big political name in NH. Of course, Kennedy lost the Senate to Markey in MA 6 years ago, so name recognition isn’t everything. It’s a big thing, though.
Right, John H. Sununu (still alive) was the father of John E. and Chris. He was governor from 83-89 and Bush’s Chief of staff 89-91. I went to college with one of the non-political sons while his father was governor, nice enough guy, but totally under the family thumb.
That’s just the problem; it’s not measurable. At least, not before the fact. After the fact, you look at the actual vote numbers, and then you know just how much the polls were off and in which direction.
The people who run the polls know that their polling will have some systematic errors. And they take measures to try to correct for that. And they’re pros at it, so the measures they take are usually pretty good. But they’re not perfect, and so there usually is some net amount of systematic error that they didn’t correct for. But it’s very tough for us laymen to determine what that residual error will be, because everything that we’re taking into account to try to predict it, the pollsters are also taking into account.
They are good, really very good, but the future is only easy to predict after it has happened! The model to “correct” the raw data that correctly got it for turn out of different demographics and party ID the last two times but not the time before could be off either way this time. The changes you make based on thinking circumstances are different, or to factor in most recent errors, can be just wrong. And the polling experts all tend to use similar models so whatever way it veers they tend to veer together.
I don’t think it works that way. Voters often have a strange collection of strong views, some far left, some far right.
I just checked to see if there is a third party candidate running to Talarico’s left, and there is not. The Libertarian candidate says trans athletes should only be able to play against each other. So Texas progressives do not have much choice if they want to vote against Paxton, which they do.
In 2021, Talarico voted for amendments to soften anti-trans legislation and then voted against the bills after the amendments were voted down. So his approach may not have changed as much as isolated soundbites seem to indicate. And such amendments are the kind of nuanced approach to things that, in broad outline, not thinking about trans issues specifically, I support. But a lot of swing voters punish politicians who won’t give simple answers to complex questions.
