Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News News GOP and Democrats All But Tied Going into Midterms

Yeah Rick, this has been a very strange week. The Democrats increased their chances of retaining the house while the Republican increased their chances of regaining the senate. A split like that doesn’t happen very often. Let’s forget my odds, let’s go with Nate Silver’s 538.

The Democrats increased their chance of retaining the house from 28% on 21 Sep to 31% on 30 Sep. However, the Democrats chance of retaining the senate per Nate’s 538 decreased from 71% on 21 Sep to 68% on 30 Sep.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/

Why? The House I covered earlier. 5 Democratic tossup seats changed to 5 lean Democratic seats plus one lean Republican seat went into the tossup column. Easy enough to understand. Keep in mind, all those six seats that changed categories this last week are still very much in the at risk, flappable columns. It isn’t like any seats moved out of the at risk, switchable category, they’re all still in this category. The senate, the difference is Wisconsin which flipped from a Democratic gain to a Republican hold. A drop for the Democrats from a 52-48 advantage in the senate down to a 51-49 advantage.

Then if you look at RCP generic congressional ballot, the Democrats had a 1.3-point lead on 21 Sep, now on 30 Sep, they trail by 0.9 points.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html

If we look at Nate Silver’s generic congressional ballot, the Democrats had a 1.4-point lead on 21 Sep, upped their lead to 1.9 on 24 Sep before falling back to a 1.3 point lead today or 20 Sep.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/

Does all of this mean we have a disconnect with the odds for Republicans in the senate rising slightly while the odds in the house rising slightly for the Democrats? I think not. We have 435 different elections in the house. The national generic congressional ballot treats the 435 separate elections as one. Wisconsin switching to a Republican hold is but one state. Each state has its own dynamics as to senate and governor races. Also, the momentum that shifted from Republicans to Democrats the first week of August thanks to Trump, seems to be shifting back to the Republicans if this article is correct.

Inflation shifts midterm momentum back to GOP

https://www.yahoo.com/news/inflation-shifts-midterm-momentum-back-to-gop-172643185.html

Most important, we all know how Republicans and Democrats will vote. The unknown fact is we still have 20% of independents still in the undecided column. No one know how this 20% will come down on election day.

Earlier tonight I read an article by a female journalist who spent the summer traveling rural America, interviewing folks about the state of America. I wish I could find the article now, but she talked about a lot folks she spoke to never voted before, but what Donald Trump has done since leaving office, plus the GOP-led Dobbs decision and the legislation that red states have enacted as a result of Dobbs (penalizing women criminally) has caused a lot of folks to register to vote. It’s 2:1 women to men. People are pissed that a right that was had for 50 years is now gone.

Re: Polls

My understanding is that most polls are conducted by phone line. If that is true, how accurate are polls. I cited taking a Pew Research poll recently, but they reached to me by mail, plus $2 to participate.

If you Google “GOP has failed America” you will find a lot of articles of former GOP’ers upset with the Republican Party, who by-the-way, has no platform other to impeach ol’ Joe and investigate Hunter’s laptop.

I’ve written this all year: This mid-term will not be like the others.

Most polling firms use a combination of landlines, cell phones and the internet. How accurate are they? Nate Silver has a polling firm rating based on accuracy of their election results. Here:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

I check it out every now and then, not so much for the accuracy, but for the lean factor. Nate also list that. I live out in the country; you won’t find any election signs or bumper stickers out here. Politics just isn’t talked about. Here lately it’s been mostly Braves. Since football began, the NFL Falcons and UGA college football has also become a hot topic. Since no one talks politics, it’s hard to tell who votes and who doesn’t unless you see them at the polling place. Since I vote early down at the county register’s office, I won’t see anyone at the polling place come election day.

We’ve never talked about ROE nor about Trump. Gas prices, the cost of food we have. But it’s in a general context, no blame being assessed. Just constant bitching. One of the hot topics is the amount of subdivisions going in. The conversion of farmland into houses and the clear cutting of trees and forests and the conversion of farmland into subdivisions. If we had our way, we’d force all these folks moving out here back into the city of Atlanta or back up north where they came from. Let them go back to their asphalt and concrete, we want to keep our farmland and woods.

You don’t have any outward signs of one’s politics out here, no one wears their politics on their sleeves. Politics takes a backseat to normal everyday activities. Everyone is just living their life the best they can.

Even though C19 is no longer in the news, the US is still averaging 463 deaths a day from C19. 91M deaths in TX and 81M deaths in FL since 2020. That has got to impact voting given the narrow margins of winning now-a-days.

I think you got your numbers wrong. 91 million deaths in Texas and 81 million in Florida. If your numbers were right, there wouldn't be anyone left in Texas or Florida to vote. Just snakes and alligators. Texas has a total population of around 30 million. Everyone living in Texas would have to had died 3 times. I'm positive you didn't mean million, How about 91 thousand and 81 thousand for Florida. New York state has a population of 20 million with 71,000 deaths. New York state had a higher death rate than Texas per capita

Regardless of COVID deaths, those deaths doesn't seem to be harming either Abbot in Texas or DeSantis in Florida.Abbot is polling over 50% and DeSantis is close at 48.8%.


https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/governor/tx/texas-governor-abbott-vs-orourke-7376.html

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...da_governor_desantis_vs_crist-7324.html.

Yes, it's 91K in TX and 81K in FL. Thanks for pointing out my error.

The broader picture is that the US is still experiencing about 463 C19 deaths per day. That's 14K per month - that's a lot of voters across the board.

We have done as much as can reasonably be expected of a nation, but the trouble is, too many don't have enough faith in science and the benevolence of a national society to accept the help offered.
ANTI-VAXXERS cannot be reasoned with.

And most of these daily deaths are indeed the unvaccinated.

About 72 to 75 percent of the US adult population are now fully vaccinated, having received at least TWO shots of either the Pfizer vaccine or "dat funky cold Moderna".



That means that almost 83 million people are walking around unvaccinated or at least UNDER-vaccinated.
We have endured countless bouts of violence and chaos trying to get through to these people, but they're determined to be walking talking bioweapons labs.
And while some of them are old holdovers from the super paranoid anti-establishment left leaning "wellness community" (think Jenny McCarthy) an even larger component consist of our newfound nemesis, the Cult of MAGA, which dwarfs the McCarthy adherents by several orders of magnitude, both in size and funding.

I have now gotten my third booster, this time the new one. I also got the flu shot. I'm heading to Florida (I think) in 3 weeks. We haven't been to WDW in 3 years. A lot has changed since then. I want it to be fun. My wife really needs it. My younger son is even going this time. Who knows when we'll get the chance to go again.

Jeffrey, I too think we as a nation has done everything possible regarding covid. The wife and I have received both the two initial shots and the two boosters. We both still wear masks going to the store. I’d rather err on the side of being safe even if it might be overdoing it. I think not.

And Rick, I think wishing death on voters in Texas and Florida is taking partisanship a bit too far. At least for my blood. Then again, I 've never been a partisan nor affiliated myself with or for either major party. So, I never learned to hate based on party politics, ideology and partisanship.

It's no longer "party politics, ideology and partisanship" and hasn't been for well over five years, and if I am generous, certainly not since January 6th, 2021. That IS a wound that shall not heal except by a massive stroke of justice that renders insurrectionists and their leadership permanently neutered.

I think it is highly disingenuous to paint a portrait of America in which two groups are merely expressing "political differences" when one group actively attempted to violently overthrow the government and is still attempting to do so as you read this.
I would like to regard you as reasonable but the more you butter up the insurrectionists as innocent parties who are
"just expressing themselves" the more it looks like you might as well endorse "The Big Lie" openly.

Sorry, I wish the same fate on any and all enemy combatants for one simple reason: The kind of people who would do such a thing at the Capitol are the kinds of people who wouldn't hesitate to shoot ordinary citizens on the street.