We need to win every Senate race where we appear to be ahead, and then to pick up Florida, Montana or Texas. Tall order.
But the fact that polling is consistently putting Baldwin, Gallego and Rosen further ahead in their respective states than Scott is in Florida makes me guardedly optimistic.
As a part time Arizona resident, I'm skeptical of the polls coming out of Arizona at the moment. I believe Harris will close the gap, and the numbers on election day will be squeaky close. There continue to be Republicans who are endorsing Harris, the latest, Jimmy McCain, John McCain's youngest son who is active military. McCain expressed outrage at Trump's Arlington cemetery stunt, endorsed Harris, then re-registered as a Democrat claiming Republicans no longer represent the values of he and his Dad.
Also in Phoenix, Arpaio is toxic, and I cannot imagine his sidekick can get elected. He's tried before and failed.
Arizona still has a lot of corporate, Phoenix 40 Republicans who are turned off by anything that affects business stability, and Trump, Lake, election denying Rs do exactly that.
The Club for Growth did step in true but I think Gallego would really have to do something out of character to lose; obviously, the chances for Lake depend on Trump's coattails or lack thereof
I believe Gallego will win, but my gut reaction is that it will be close, or at least closer than current polls. There is a sizeable undecided group who I suspect are Republicans who hate Lake, but at the end of the day, they'll hold their noses and vote R.
Understandable but I just think she runs behind Trump and that Trump loses in Arizona; I go back to the point that just this week the CFG stepped in to fund her race( until then, she had been effectively triaged); my gut reaction is that Gallego wins about equally to Mark Kelly's win last go round
For better or worse, from the 1950s through the 1980s, Phoenix was run like a company town. Fortunately during Arizona's early years, they had some true political greats (Carl Hayden, Barry Goldwater, John Driggs, etc), which helped offset their very small size vs their giant neighbor. Arizona got a relatively good deal on water where they could have been locked out, and Phoenix metro has very good road infrastructure.
When I look at most of their politicians today, particularly Republicans, I have to ask what the hell happened.
For an Easterner who thinks all the states out West are gigantic, it's a bit mind-bending to think of Arizona having a "small size," but of course I figured out that you mean their population vs. California's.
Actually, the city of Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the nation, but the Phoenix MSA is 10th. Dallas, Miami, and Atlanta MSAs are all bigger than Phoenix, but not by much.
I'm really hoping for us to pick up AZ-1 and AZ-6 and have been contributing to Amish Shah (since the primary) and Kirsten Engel (since 1Q). I'd love to hear any on-the-ground insights you have on these races.
I'm also hoping we pick up AZ CDs 1 and 6. My Mom has been voting against Schweikert for years, but unfortunately the allegedly independent redistricting commission took a part of his district in Democratic Phoenix and sunk it in Debbie Lesko's district. Regardless of what they did Schweikert has lost popularity and his time is limited. I'm hoping this will be the year.
It's not AK law but rather that Constitution. You only need to be a resident at the time of election:
"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen."
Normally, even this doesn't preclude non-residents from *running* because you can always become a state resident later. And the "when elected" has been interpreted to mean "when sworn in," because none other than Joe Biden was only 29 when he won his first Senate race, but he turned 30 before he was sworn in. (Imagine Joe Biden being too *young* for office!)
This is a really unusual case, though, because Democrats can argue that there's no *way* that Hafner could meet the residency requirement because, duh, he's behind bars. Hafner/Republicans could in turn argue that he could always get pardoned, but we can safely say that Biden wouldn't do such a thing in, well, a million years!
Good. They can beat each other up and it would make it easier for us to flip back the Attorney Generalship as well. Fortunately we have a strong candidate in Jay Jones.
The story of 2022 polling was that the legitimate pollsters did okay, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but not terribly. But the averages were all fucked up by shitty right wing pollsters flooding the zone. Nate seems to give more weight to those shitty right wing pollsters than anyone else. However you choose to interpret that decision is up to you, but as long as he's doing that his model will always be more Republican-leaning than others.
No, but if Casey ends up winning by 7-8 I don't think a pollster showing a tied race 2 months out from the election is crazy and SSRS is a legit pollster and I think they probably just did a poor job in this poll of finding the Trump/Casey voter that I think will end up being around ~5% of the electorate.
No. The crosstabs are a mess. Democrats way undercounted while Independents were overcounted. The 50-64 demo was Trump+26 & McCormick+25 while every other state had that demo within single digits in either direction.
He has Harris up in every swing state but NC and AZ even though he includes some GOP troll polls. I think his model assumes that current polls mostly reflect Harris' convention bounce and are going to shift against her, but I don't see any reason to expect that.
Only posted this because Harris was in NH, Walz campaigned in his home state. And Emhof was in Virigina within the last few days. Maybe they are seeing something we aren't?
To be fair she likely did have a 72% chance to win (Silver actually had it 58% in his final rankings). Trump drew an inside straight. Flip two coins and I'd they both end up heada you're at 25%, which is what Trump managed to do in 2016.
This poll was August 25th - 29th so almost 2 weeks old, long before Tim Sheehy's racist remarks about Native Americans was public knowledge. Now, hopefully his image takes a battering and this goes a long away towards rescuing Tester so he can squeak it out again. I cannot stress THIS enough: Under NO circumstances should an INCUMBENT be "triaged". EVERY seat is important. Anyone from Montana, or know anyone who is bear in mind that volunteering, canvassing, phone-banking, word-of-mouth among Native Americans, Independents, young voters is what's going to get Sen. Jon Tester reelected. It's doable; the press release of the poll says he needs to do BETTER among Independents and make a further dent among some Republicans. That's it!! 💙🇺🇲🌊🙏
Plus that poll was heavily focused on older voters, which is fine because they are going to be a key part of the electorate but not the whole electorate itself in Montana.
Precisely and if you actually look at the crosstab data the finding shows, they explicitly state that they have an oversample of 464 likely voters ages 50+. Partisan polls aside, I've also noticed that many of these polls seem to considerably undersample younger voters, which seems very suspect considering this is not only an election year with a competitive statewide race, but there's also the abortion amendment on the ballot, which can easily affect youth turnout. I do wish there were more nonpartisan pollsters in races like Montana or at least a poll that wasn't some Republican or conservative group for once, but this race is anything but a lost cause. Definitely worth keeping an eye on future news and data for these races.
I don't think anyone has said Tester should be triaged? We have so much money we can afford to spend as much as we need. The question is at what point does it make a difference there? Either way we can afford to give him all the support he needs AND probe the map for other opportunities.
Unfortunately I think the comments will have a nominal effect. Some native tribes have called for an apology while last I read the Crow tribe to whom he was referring in his story hadn't even commented. He has some ties to the natives, such as ranching with them so maybe some will be open to giving him the benefit of the doubt. Either way it can't hurt. We need his unfavorables down. If Harris keeps her race within 15 Tester has a shot for sure.
No, of course Tester shouldn't be triaged, but I totally disagree that there's never a situation in which an incumbent should be triaged. Suppose Manchin had decided to run for reelection and was trailing by 30 points in late October.
I’m not writing him off and Tester doesn’t need 50% to win, but there’s a reason I’ve had this race as Lean R since Matt Rosendale dropped out. This 45% is giving me nightmare Deja Vu harkening back to the 2018 red state Democratic incumbent Senators. Then again, Tester did win when every other one lost, so if anyone can pull off an upset, it’s him.
Hi folks, I disappeared for a bit. It was hard for me to care about most stuff for a bit... Trying to get back into things.
An update on Marcus Graly's comment from yesterday, the 25th Middlesex district in the MA state house. The initial primary results had the challenger (MacKay) ahead of the incumbent (Decker) by about 40 votes. After a hand recount Decker is now ahead by 41 votes. I was surprised and disappointed to see that. With about 7k votes total, an 80 vote change is roughly a 1% net shift after the recount.That's a large change for a recount.
In NH-02 I've noticed that Goodlander's signs are eerily similar to Hassan's signs from prior elections. They also both have the first name Maggie. Strikes me as an intentional attempt to gain some subconscious support. I am voting for CVO in this primary but my gut says Goodlander is decently favored.
Not fishing for sympathy but I cannot make my reply coherent while staying vague... So: I had to say goodbye to my cat of many, many, many years. It'll get easier with time. I've been through this before. But I am finding it harder to stay interested in a lot of subjects, including politics.
It's been long enough that I'm getting there. I'll be here and slowly start to come back to commenting frequently.
Long time lurker but might be interesting for folks, my friend in college (we went to AU) volunteered on Lichtman’s quixotic Maryland Senate campaign in 2006. It was uh… not good. Interesting to see him become this national news making guy after hearing day to day how his suboptimal race went. https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2006/09/lichtman-arrested-at-senate-debate
Apparently the State of Florida is suspecting fraud in the collection of amendment 4 petitions(the abortion amendment); stay tuned; personally, I don't trust the motives of the SOS here in Florida but nationwide fraud in petition gathering has been an ongoing problem
Completely agree with you; as a poker player, I think this may be a tell that the Republicans are worried here; not necessarily on the President or Senate race but possibly on the down ballot; for the first time in my long memory, the Democrats are contesting every single race for the state legislature
This article suggests it’s likely to collect evidence against known petition gatherers who’re suspected to have engaged in fraud, not to disqualify Amendment 4 from the ballot. Apparently there was an official deadline to challenge signatures that already passed.
The Crystal Ball’s senate ratings has two tossups: Montana and Ohio.
https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/the-race-for-the-senate-democrats-still-in-the-game-but-republicans-have-the-upper-hand/
They also rate TX-Sen and FL-Sen likely Republican.
We need to win every Senate race where we appear to be ahead, and then to pick up Florida, Montana or Texas. Tall order.
But the fact that polling is consistently putting Baldwin, Gallego and Rosen further ahead in their respective states than Scott is in Florida makes me guardedly optimistic.
We don't actually need to win all of those seats to keep the Senate, but it sure would be nice!
Correct. But we do need to win one of them. If we win the ones where the polling averages put us ahead, we're only at 49.
As a part time Arizona resident, I'm skeptical of the polls coming out of Arizona at the moment. I believe Harris will close the gap, and the numbers on election day will be squeaky close. There continue to be Republicans who are endorsing Harris, the latest, Jimmy McCain, John McCain's youngest son who is active military. McCain expressed outrage at Trump's Arlington cemetery stunt, endorsed Harris, then re-registered as a Democrat claiming Republicans no longer represent the values of he and his Dad.
Also in Phoenix, Arpaio is toxic, and I cannot imagine his sidekick can get elected. He's tried before and failed.
Arizona still has a lot of corporate, Phoenix 40 Republicans who are turned off by anything that affects business stability, and Trump, Lake, election denying Rs do exactly that.
Appears to me that Lake is already triaged
Not by everyone, per the digest.
The Club for Growth did step in true but I think Gallego would really have to do something out of character to lose; obviously, the chances for Lake depend on Trump's coattails or lack thereof
I believe Gallego will win, but my gut reaction is that it will be close, or at least closer than current polls. There is a sizeable undecided group who I suspect are Republicans who hate Lake, but at the end of the day, they'll hold their noses and vote R.
Understandable but I just think she runs behind Trump and that Trump loses in Arizona; I go back to the point that just this week the CFG stepped in to fund her race( until then, she had been effectively triaged); my gut reaction is that Gallego wins about equally to Mark Kelly's win last go round
Is there any way in which she's objectively worse than Trump?
I had no idea what the Phoenix 40 was, so I looked it up. https://gplinc.org/leadership/phoenix-40/
For better or worse, from the 1950s through the 1980s, Phoenix was run like a company town. Fortunately during Arizona's early years, they had some true political greats (Carl Hayden, Barry Goldwater, John Driggs, etc), which helped offset their very small size vs their giant neighbor. Arizona got a relatively good deal on water where they could have been locked out, and Phoenix metro has very good road infrastructure.
When I look at most of their politicians today, particularly Republicans, I have to ask what the hell happened.
For an Easterner who thinks all the states out West are gigantic, it's a bit mind-bending to think of Arizona having a "small size," but of course I figured out that you mean their population vs. California's.
Yes, when my family moved to Arizona, the state had 3 US representatives, with a population of 1.7 million. Now population is about 7.5 million.
And the Phoenix metro area is what? The 5th most populous in the U.S.?
Actually, the city of Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the nation, but the Phoenix MSA is 10th. Dallas, Miami, and Atlanta MSAs are all bigger than Phoenix, but not by much.
I'm really hoping for us to pick up AZ-1 and AZ-6 and have been contributing to Amish Shah (since the primary) and Kirsten Engel (since 1Q). I'd love to hear any on-the-ground insights you have on these races.
I'm also hoping we pick up AZ CDs 1 and 6. My Mom has been voting against Schweikert for years, but unfortunately the allegedly independent redistricting commission took a part of his district in Democratic Phoenix and sunk it in Debbie Lesko's district. Regardless of what they did Schweikert has lost popularity and his time is limited. I'm hoping this will be the year.
Good news from Professor Alan Lichtman: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/opinion/allan-lichtman-trump-harris-prediction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IU4.2dPo.iqGvw2GKrM5L&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&fbclid=IwY2xjawFGnmFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVD17a51SqXcCFZk6i8uD1G1rd5Qzz-8X2ehb4tg4FNNZhK6kaOQVvnpdQ_aem_XJwfaIc-Fo0q8CMDfsnf6A
What kind of laws does AK have that a non-resident can file for office?
It's not AK law but rather that Constitution. You only need to be a resident at the time of election:
"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen."
Normally, even this doesn't preclude non-residents from *running* because you can always become a state resident later. And the "when elected" has been interpreted to mean "when sworn in," because none other than Joe Biden was only 29 when he won his first Senate race, but he turned 30 before he was sworn in. (Imagine Joe Biden being too *young* for office!)
This is a really unusual case, though, because Democrats can argue that there's no *way* that Hafner could meet the residency requirement because, duh, he's behind bars. Hafner/Republicans could in turn argue that he could always get pardoned, but we can safely say that Biden wouldn't do such a thing in, well, a million years!
https://www.wric.com/news/politics/local-election-hq/lt-gov-winsome-earle-sears-files-paperwork-to-run-for-virginia-governor/
As expected, Winsome Earle-Sears will run for Viriginia Governorship next year. Likely facing off against Abigail Spanberger.
The Republican ag may also run for Governor.
Good. They can beat each other up and it would make it easier for us to flip back the Attorney Generalship as well. Fortunately we have a strong candidate in Jay Jones.
Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor is also running for AG.
You're right. Hopefully they won't beat each other up too badly. As Mitt Romney learned in 2012, there is no Etch a Sketch in the general election.
Nate Silver has updated his model to give Trump a 58% chance to win in Nov
Peter Thiel is getting his money’s worth.
We really don't need to hear about every single time Nate's model changes.
Or anybody else's model, for that matter.
The story of 2022 polling was that the legitimate pollsters did okay, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but not terribly. But the averages were all fucked up by shitty right wing pollsters flooding the zone. Nate seems to give more weight to those shitty right wing pollsters than anyone else. However you choose to interpret that decision is up to you, but as long as he's doing that his model will always be more Republican-leaning than others.
does anyone believe SSRS having Casey tied?
No one that knows politics
No, but if Casey ends up winning by 7-8 I don't think a pollster showing a tied race 2 months out from the election is crazy and SSRS is a legit pollster and I think they probably just did a poor job in this poll of finding the Trump/Casey voter that I think will end up being around ~5% of the electorate.
No. The crosstabs are a mess. Democrats way undercounted while Independents were overcounted. The 50-64 demo was Trump+26 & McCormick+25 while every other state had that demo within single digits in either direction.
great points all; and think about it, with all of those flaws, top line is still a tied race
He has Harris up in every swing state but NC and AZ even though he includes some GOP troll polls. I think his model assumes that current polls mostly reflect Harris' convention bounce and are going to shift against her, but I don't see any reason to expect that.
Only posted this because Harris was in NH, Walz campaigned in his home state. And Emhof was in Virigina within the last few days. Maybe they are seeing something we aren't?
Doubt it; they are actually campaigning, as opposed to the opposition
Another case in point, the bus tour through south Florida; the fundraising advantages allows our side more opportunities
There may be fundraisers tied to those trips and events with local
candidates.
Nate Silver gave Hillary a 72% chance in 2016, his credibility is terrible since 2012!! 💙🇺🇲
To be fair she likely did have a 72% chance to win (Silver actually had it 58% in his final rankings). Trump drew an inside straight. Flip two coins and I'd they both end up heada you're at 25%, which is what Trump managed to do in 2016.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/05/poll-sheehy-tester-montana-senate-race-00177518
For AARP
Fabrizio/Binder (c rated)
600 likely voters 8/29
MONTANA
Trump 56 (+15)
Harris 41
Sheehy 51 (+6)
Tester 45
+15 Trump sounds right and unfortunately the Sheehy +6 maybe right too. I think there is a good chance the Senate will end up R51 D49
I think so too as of this moment in time. Anything can change though. 2 months is a long time.
I think our side pulls off an upset and winds up at 50
This poll was August 25th - 29th so almost 2 weeks old, long before Tim Sheehy's racist remarks about Native Americans was public knowledge. Now, hopefully his image takes a battering and this goes a long away towards rescuing Tester so he can squeak it out again. I cannot stress THIS enough: Under NO circumstances should an INCUMBENT be "triaged". EVERY seat is important. Anyone from Montana, or know anyone who is bear in mind that volunteering, canvassing, phone-banking, word-of-mouth among Native Americans, Independents, young voters is what's going to get Sen. Jon Tester reelected. It's doable; the press release of the poll says he needs to do BETTER among Independents and make a further dent among some Republicans. That's it!! 💙🇺🇲🌊🙏
No chance of triaging Tester or Brown; too flush with money @saturation levels
Plus that poll was heavily focused on older voters, which is fine because they are going to be a key part of the electorate but not the whole electorate itself in Montana.
Precisely and if you actually look at the crosstab data the finding shows, they explicitly state that they have an oversample of 464 likely voters ages 50+. Partisan polls aside, I've also noticed that many of these polls seem to considerably undersample younger voters, which seems very suspect considering this is not only an election year with a competitive statewide race, but there's also the abortion amendment on the ballot, which can easily affect youth turnout. I do wish there were more nonpartisan pollsters in races like Montana or at least a poll that wasn't some Republican or conservative group for once, but this race is anything but a lost cause. Definitely worth keeping an eye on future news and data for these races.
I don't think anyone has said Tester should be triaged? We have so much money we can afford to spend as much as we need. The question is at what point does it make a difference there? Either way we can afford to give him all the support he needs AND probe the map for other opportunities.
Unfortunately I think the comments will have a nominal effect. Some native tribes have called for an apology while last I read the Crow tribe to whom he was referring in his story hadn't even commented. He has some ties to the natives, such as ranching with them so maybe some will be open to giving him the benefit of the doubt. Either way it can't hurt. We need his unfavorables down. If Harris keeps her race within 15 Tester has a shot for sure.
No, of course Tester shouldn't be triaged, but I totally disagree that there's never a situation in which an incumbent should be triaged. Suppose Manchin had decided to run for reelection and was trailing by 30 points in late October.
I’m not writing him off and Tester doesn’t need 50% to win, but there’s a reason I’ve had this race as Lean R since Matt Rosendale dropped out. This 45% is giving me nightmare Deja Vu harkening back to the 2018 red state Democratic incumbent Senators. Then again, Tester did win when every other one lost, so if anyone can pull off an upset, it’s him.
Anyone know when the August fundraising numbers will be released??
Campaigns that file monthly file FEC reports on the 20th of the month (this is pretty much only presidential campaigns).
Campaigns that file quarterly (Senate and House) file 15* days after the end of each quarter, so the next reports will be due Oct. 15—a while yet!
State candidates file on a lot of different schedules.
Of course, lots of campaigns leak numbers early, and the presidentials almost always do. Harris reportedly raised $300 mil in August, according to a new NBC report: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/kamala-harris-raised-300-million-august-extending-cash-windfall-rcna169759
* For whatever reason, fourth-quarter reports are due on Jan. 31 each year.
Thank you
Adams and Hochul continue to outdo each other: https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/09/05/fbi-raids-homes-of-two-top-eric-adams-aides/
Hi folks, I disappeared for a bit. It was hard for me to care about most stuff for a bit... Trying to get back into things.
An update on Marcus Graly's comment from yesterday, the 25th Middlesex district in the MA state house. The initial primary results had the challenger (MacKay) ahead of the incumbent (Decker) by about 40 votes. After a hand recount Decker is now ahead by 41 votes. I was surprised and disappointed to see that. With about 7k votes total, an 80 vote change is roughly a 1% net shift after the recount.That's a large change for a recount.
In NH-02 I've noticed that Goodlander's signs are eerily similar to Hassan's signs from prior elections. They also both have the first name Maggie. Strikes me as an intentional attempt to gain some subconscious support. I am voting for CVO in this primary but my gut says Goodlander is decently favored.
Hey, buddy! Sorry you were having such a rough time. I think a lot of us know how that can go. Really glad to see you back!
Thanks David, I really appreciate the kind words!
Not fishing for sympathy but I cannot make my reply coherent while staying vague... So: I had to say goodbye to my cat of many, many, many years. It'll get easier with time. I've been through this before. But I am finding it harder to stay interested in a lot of subjects, including politics.
It's been long enough that I'm getting there. I'll be here and slowly start to come back to commenting frequently.
I'm sorry.
Thanks. She was a good cat.
Alan Lichtman officially predicts Harris will win. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/09/05/historian-allan-lichtman-2024-election-prediction/75082875007/
Long time lurker but might be interesting for folks, my friend in college (we went to AU) volunteered on Lichtman’s quixotic Maryland Senate campaign in 2006. It was uh… not good. Interesting to see him become this national news making guy after hearing day to day how his suboptimal race went. https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2006/09/lichtman-arrested-at-senate-debate
I'm glad he's sticking to academia
Apparently the State of Florida is suspecting fraud in the collection of amendment 4 petitions(the abortion amendment); stay tuned; personally, I don't trust the motives of the SOS here in Florida but nationwide fraud in petition gathering has been an ongoing problem
Not good, and I doubt the accusation is in good faith.
Completely agree with you; as a poker player, I think this may be a tell that the Republicans are worried here; not necessarily on the President or Senate race but possibly on the down ballot; for the first time in my long memory, the Democrats are contesting every single race for the state legislature
This article suggests it’s likely to collect evidence against known petition gatherers who’re suspected to have engaged in fraud, not to disqualify Amendment 4 from the ballot. Apparently there was an official deadline to challenge signatures that already passed.
https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-amendment-four-petitions/62073672
Thank you
Get wise to predictive programming in my podcast here:
https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/ING4VMI9KMb