538: Dems extend generic ballot lead to 2 pts

[ColinC]

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

Also considering most polls are putting women at 49-52% and substantially have shifted towards Democrats, it isn't crazy to think Dems are currently holding a far more substantial lead.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. K & R!

[Sky Jewels]

2. Wait, are you saying some polls are expecting women to be 49 percent of voters?

If so, that's bizarre. Even in more "regular" elections women vote at a higher rate than men. And this year ... holy crap ... we are enraged. All bets are off.

[ColinC]

4. Yep

Like this one: https://www.scribd.com/document/595960281/Texas-Benchmark-Final-Poll-Results-092122

Texas had 55% turnout of women in 2020 and this Siena poll thinks it'll drop 6% in a year that abortion rights was overturned.

[Sky Jewels]

6. Wow. Talk about polling malpractice!

[ColinC]

24. I think they could be manipulating them intentionally

Maybe because they don't want to overstate the chances they think Dems have in a midterm where they are the president's party.

[Polybius]

3. 2 points ahead is a loss of 20-30 seats with gerrymandering

We need to be 5 points ahead to break even.

[ColinC]

5. We probably are

Polls have been gratuitously underrepresening women this cycle.

[ITAL]

7. That's not really true this go round

There have been multiple articles the six months or so that said the GOP didn't get nearly as big of an advantage with gerrymandering as everyone thought they would.

[Polybius]

9. Yes, they didn't get as big of a gerrymander as they asked for

But you always over-ask, and take what was decided in courts. And what was decided was a far bigger gerrymander than they had previously had, and they already had an advantage. Without gerrymandering, they would be down by 40 seats after the 2020 election. Instead they are down by like 5 seats.

[ITAL]

16. Not according to Cook

They basically said 2020 to now is a wash.

[Polybius]

17. Interesting

So they are now less then 2020's gerrymander, or about the same? 2022 is going to be fascinating.

[ColinC]

21. Slightly less, or about the same.

Fivetheityeight moved a lot of current Dem seats from tossup to solid based on gerrymandering. But beyond those, it didn't really change the math much.

[Polybius]

23. Thanks for correcting me without putting me down

I really appreciate it, and will try and make sure that my posts are more factual. I may even subscribe to The Cook Report.

[ColinC]

25. Of course!

Cook is a wonderful source -although I think their attempts to hedge on the side of caution may sometimes lead them to make bad calls. But Dave Wasserman, overall, is excellent.

[ColinC]

10. Yeah. Dems are in a very slightly better situation this year than 2020

Dems had a 3% lead in the results in 2020 and only lost 13 seats. A 2% lead would hold the house or probably even gain a seat or two.

[Sky Jewels]

14. And this year Dems are doing door-to-door campaigning.

Rs did it in 2020; Ds did not (due to the pandemic). It makes a difference.

[ColinC]

15. Such an understated fact

Like 538 did this piece in 2008 about how important voter contact is: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/contact-gap-proof-of-importance-of/amp/

Yet ever since, there hasn't seemed to be a huge acknowledgement of that reality to include the results of 2020 and how this effects 2022.

[Silent3]

28. Even before the last round of redistricting, however, Democrats needed a 5-7% lead...

...just to break even in House seats. There was a lot of Republican advantage already baked in.

[Johnny2X2X]

8. Not quite

According to the models, a Dem +5 vote virtually guarantees Dem control of the House. But +4 is a 75% chance Dems keep the House and +3 is about a 60% chance Dems keep the House. +2 gives Dems a little better than 50-50. +1 is basically a tossup. Even is a GOP slight lead.

Even though the NY redistricting case went against us, redistricting was a wash, it did not get worse.

[Polybius]

12. In NY we got greedy

We proposed a big gerrymander of our own, and the court decided against us 4-3, based on a law passed in 2015.

[ColinC]

22. Yeah. Which kept things basically status quo overall

[Polybius]

26. It's a bit worse than status quo here

I hate the way the courts drew up this new map.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/nyregion/redistrict-map-nadler-maloney.html

[ColinC]

27. Yeah that's gross.

[2naSalit]

11. I've decided to...

Not only take polls with a giant chunk of salt these days, I view them as some distant background noise.

[ColinC]

19. They basically are but have good info in them and lots of accuracies

Like their gauging of the shift of women towards Dems is likely accurate. They're estimation of the amount of women that are likely to turnout, however, are from a different universe entirely.

[jcgoldie]

13. Dems up to 31% to hold the house

In 538 projection. Thats been rising slowly and up 8 or 10 points over a couple weeks ago.

71% to win the senate.

[ColinC]

18. By election day at this rate, probably it will be 50-60 for the house and 90-99

For the Senate.

[Polybius]

20. Nice

I follow Predictit too, which are pretty good at getting it right.

https://www.predictit.org/markets/search?query=Midterms2022