25 October 2010

Of polls and early voting

Is next week's election going to be less of a disaster than we've been led to expect? Some of the latest polls have shown some shift in momentum toward the Democrats, but they have a deep hole to climb out of -- is there enough time for enough people to change their minds or recover their enthusiasm?

Early voting may provide us with a clue. FiveThirtyEight says it's in line with what the polls predicted; TPM says Democrats aren't doing all that badly; Politico sees a mixed picture.

Stanley Greenberg and James Carville draw an optimistic lesson from 1998. PoliticusUSA looks at analysis by Rachel Maddow and at the new Newsweek poll, which suggests the enthusiasm gap is shrinking. And Politics Plus has some interesting observations.

On independent voters, the latest data don't look good. In several states with tight races, the level of Hispanic turn-out could be decisive. California, at least, is clearly leaning our way. In the all- important battle to stop Rand Paul, Conway is only 4.3 points behind -- a surmountable deficit.

Don't forget that the situation would be much more dire were it not for the teabaggers, whose taste for extremist candidates has given us a safe Senate seat in Delaware and a fighting chance in Nevada, Kentucky, and Colorado.

One point of interest is that the polls this year have come heavily from right-leaning pollsters, which may be biasing the results.

So what's going to happen? My guess is that it will be worse than some of us are starting to hope, but not as bad as we've feared.

4 Comments:

Blogger One Fly said...

What I have seen from the media has been blatantly pro repug numbers and like the whores most are I call bullshit and am hoping for a Truman moment with a huge denial against the right.

25 October, 2010 07:20  
Blogger Leslie Parsley said...

I am cautiously optimistic - maybe because I can't or don't want to believe that moderate Republicans are impressed with the last two years of obstructionism and with the kooky candidates running under the GOP banner.

Politically, philisophically and personaly I have serious problems with so-called Independents. They're nothing more than political opportunists who are switch hitters. I hope one day they all get saddle burn.

Ditto, One Fly.

25 October, 2010 10:38  
Blogger Sue said...

I guess if we keep in mind the seats that will go GOP are really GOP seats that went for Obama in '08 out of desperation. So for the right to claim tsunami like disaster for dems is a little egotistical. The country despises the republicans.

25 October, 2010 17:29  
Anonymous nonnie9999 said...

i'm cautiously optimistic, too. i think there's a very large silent majority who are out there and shaking their heads at the teabaggers.

25 October, 2010 18:50  

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