Also, a cheering possibility via Mark Warren at Esquire, concerning Nevada:
Here’s why all those polls — and all the Washington pundits and “reporters” who are just now putting the finishing touches on their Harry Reid obituaries — are probably wrong.
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First, the early vote results show that strictly on party registration, Democrats actually have a 9,000-vote lead from votes already cast… This is a surprising number, given that this is the nationalized race of what is supposed to be a wave election, and it indicates that Reid may have stopped the bleeding several weeks ago, enough to shore up his base and get out his vote. And the Reid campaign believes — given that Angle is so far outside the mainstream of even conservative Republican politics, and given the sizeable Republicans for Reid operation in the state — that Senator Reid will pick up more disaffected Republican votes than Angle will pick up disaffected Democratic votes.
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Second, counter to all of the public polls, the internal Reid numbers for the past three weeks show that Reid has actually had a lead ranging from 4 to 8 points (and last week, the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee had a similar internal poll showing Reid six points up). The campaign’s rolling-track numbers from last Friday also showed Senator Reid with a six-point lead.
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Why are these numbers so different from Rasmussen, Mason-Dixon, et al? Well, first and foremost, Nevada is unlike any other state, in that it has a comparatively transient population, with lots of newcomers, and a sizeable percentage of that population works in the gaming industry — the casinos. Traditional polling firms don’t call during the day, and so you miss most of those people, who work in significant numbers at night. And if there was ever a population that communicated with the world exclusively via cell phones as opposed to landlines, this is it. (The Reid campaign has polled cell-phone users aggressively.) The research shows that when you go strictly by the people who you reach on the first try, Reid is 2 points down. But in the subset of people who you reach on the second or third try, Reid leads by 11 points.
Southern Beale
In case this got deadthreaded:
Breitbart got canned by ABC.
You have to wonder what took them so long. If there were an award for stupid decisions, this has to rank up there with the new Gap logo.
morzer
Well, I hope he wins, but cheering for Harry Reid is hard to do with much enthusiasm. The best I can manage is a strangled croak and a slightly limp wave of my tentacles. I miss the days when I could really get into my eldritch piping of “Tekeli li, tekeli li”.
geg6
Well, in my own little cock-eyed optimist mode, I present this:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/2010_elections/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/11/02/prediction_democrats_hold_house
WereBear
Bwahahahahahahahaha!
But ya know, I could be wrong. It simply dovetails so well what everything I’ve been saying about these stupid polls.
Bulworth
Rewarding Angle with a Senate seat would affirm her incredibly backward ideological world view along with her avoid-answering-questions-from-the-media stance.
geg6
@Southern Beale:
The new Gap logo was genius compared to ABC teaming up with Breitfart.
Bulworth
@Southern Beale: Yeah but now the conservatives will call ABC mean names and librul and all that.
WereBear
@geg6: Yes, like this:
People want Democrats? We must be wrong!
General Stuck
As much as I think dems need a different majority leader, every senate seat is extra precious this go around. Losing the senate would be fairly catastrophic imo. Though I think dems still need a more forceful leader, and more liberal.
Jewish Steel
I tip my cap to any journalist or pundit who is willing to have egg on their face in a matter of hours.
ETA: Not that I think they necessarily will. Just that the very act is courageous.
BR
Something from the archives that is no less relevant today:
Bowling for Columbine segment.
Is it surprising or sad that Fox is keeping this same race-based fear going nearly a decade later?
jacy
I never did understand how the gaming industry would allow Angle to win – she just seems way too unstable to do their bidding.
I am fortifying myself by reading only Balloon Juice and raiding the kids’ massive haul of Halloween candy. I’m well on my way to a Milky Way-induced coma, but am disappointed that some mysterious culprit has jacked all the Butterfingers.
mr. whipple
@morzer:
I can’t say I like Reid, but I think he done a remarkable job given the diversity of the Dem party and the nature of it to screw up at the drop of a hat.
beltane
Then it’s true that even landline users with caller id are underrepresented, and that only people who feel obligated to pick up the phone every time it rings (old people) are included in the polling data.
Ron Beasley
The bad news is we will hear about voter fraud non stop for months if not years.
cmorenc
How can Harry Reid be such a canny political street-fighter within his home state, and such a spineless wuss as a Senate Majority leader? Yet both things seem to be true at the same time.
batgirl
My dad has been busy volunteering for Reid in Nevada, busy canvassing and making calls and he still thinks it is possible for Reid to win this one.
He was calling Angle’s home town one day and actually got someone who graduated with her. She was just as crazy and stupid then as she is now.
beltane
@Southern Beale: The tradmed is a little slow on the uptake. They had to be bitten by the snake themselves before they would believe it had fangs.
Comrade Dread
That’s a very intelligent and nuanced analysis.
Therefore if it holds true and Reid wins the election expect this Republican party to ignore it in favor of shrieking about conspiracies by shadowy brown people to defraud the real American Sharon Angle of her rightful place.
Mako
If Harry goes down we can have nuclear energy. Which is probably a good idea. And seriously, why is some guy from Nevada a big cheese? Nevada? Stinking hunk of desert with, like, maybe 300 unforeclosed citizens . Dude doesn’t even have a proper tan.
Jewish Steel
@beltane:
I have not picked up a ringing phone since 1994. It would feel like sweeping a stranger at the door straight into your living room. Who would do such a thing?
corwin
My nightmare scenario – Reid loses tonight, the Senate is split 51 Ds, 49 Rs, Lieberman and Nelson threaten to bolt unless they get their way for the next 2 years, then Reid challenges Ensign in 2012 to get his seat back.
Fwiffo
Before getting too optimistic about early voting numbers, I have to recall early numbers from 2008. In Florida, for instance, Democrats were beating Republicans in early voting turnout by more than 20 points. Obviously, Obama’s margin in Florida wasn’t nearly that big.
Basically, Democrats GOTV focused on early voting and Republicans went for election day turnout. Also, going by party registration can be misleading because Democrats typically have higher registration but more cross-over voters.
So if Democrats are even or only slightly ahead in early voting numbers, I’d actually expect them to lose by a fair margin on election day.
...now I try to be amused
And they’re probably none too happy with Angle’s “Nevermind the Nevada economy” positions.
Guster
@jacy: My wife ate my kid’s only Butterfinger.
I crept downstairs last night to liberate it: too late. Is nothing sacred?
Kristine
I just wanted to say that I received my “Pets of Balloon Juice” calendars today, and they are things of beauty.
Silver Owl
I hung up on the phone polls a total of 9 times after having answered 3-4 phone polls. lol Then I turned the ringer on my phone off. I have neither answered nor looked at my phone in two weeks.
I got seriously tired of my phone ringing constantly with people telling me to vote, asking for money, political messages, robo-calls from different states and machine voices wanting to know where I stand.
If I could have glued my mailbox shut I would have done that. lol
Mako
@Guster:
We were lucky to get a handful of raisins.
R-Jud
I spent most of today down with food poisoning (which came about as a result of my birthday meal). Then in the afternoon, while I was preparing some dry toast, Mr Jud knocked a glass jar over that smashed and cut a 3″ gash in the top of my foot, so I spent two hours at the emergency room bleeding and trying to wrangle a bored toddler.
However, I think jacy‘s day was worse:
That blows. I fucking LOVE Butterfingers.
Ash Can
Honest to Pete, I’m not at all sure what’s going to happen. I’ve been hearing plenty about how fired up the Republican voters are, but 1) how many of them are there, and 2) where are they voting? Are there really that many races in which the GOP candidate is consistently outpolling the Dem incumbent by a large margin?
Ash Can +1 1/2 after 4 hours of canvassing
suzanne
@beltane:
Why do old farts do this, and then get all butthurt when they don’t like who’s calling? I’ve noticed this in the last few days with GOTV; (mostly old) people will answer the phone, then be pissed they got interrupted. Um, hello… answering machines? Caller ID? Just fucking ignoring it?
I have a feeling you’re absolutely right about this skewing the polling data.
jacy
@Guster:
You would think people would give out more Butterfingers and less Smarties. What’s wrong with people! The dogs won’t even eat Smarties, but the five-year-old keeps unwrapping them, like the outcome is going to be different. I’ll no doubt be stepping on them for weeks to come.
Speaking of cell-phone/landline, we all went cellphone only about three years ago, along with my brother and my best friend (we’re all early/mid-40s). A few months ago my mom went cellphone only and she’s 73. Therefore, only the slow and old and hopelessly unhip still answer a landline.
meh
This was the point that I was making last night in dougies thread – I don’t know anyone under 40 with a landline they use. If they have a landline it’s because it’s a requirement for DSL or DirecTV or some shit. I’m tellin ya…the teabaggers are going to go full revolutionary war when they find out they lost by 5% because the asshats at PPP and Rasmussen didn’t think to call at times other than when Bill O and Family Feud was on and undersold Dem support by the mid single digits…oops.
FreeAtLast
@jacy: I brought all the surplus Halloween candy (we’re empty nesters ) to the John Hall headquarters where I did some GOTV telephoning; better than starting to gain weight a month before Thanksgiving.
Hall and his opponent are in a one-point race. I was encouraged by the number of volunteers, but somewhat discouraged by the tone of people’s voices at the other end of the phone line.
Mako
@R-Jud:
Luxury. We ran out of bread and had to go to the store while television political ads beamed directly into our frontal cortexes via satellite. And the neighbors, who are obviously more well-to-do, gave out Smarties! Fucking Smarties! You know they could afford Snickers. They are all about “Smarties will trickle down into Snickers” or some such shit.
We’ll see how the feel about that after i piss out these Smarties on their begonias.
Blue Shark
…I for one would suffer one Senator Angle to see a Majority Leader Schumer
Mako
@jacy:
You would think people would give out more Butterfingers and less Smarties…
Exactly, what is this, the ’60’s? Its not like you got hundreds of youths swarming your front porch for sugar cubes. Seriously, support your local confectionaires, not some random Canadian company.
wmsheppa
@jacy: The gaming industry’s big players announced months ago (before the Republican primary) that they’d be giving only to Reid, so they definitely have no interest in letting Angle win.
elmo
@Jewish Steel:
The beauty of Caller ID.
Ash Can
@Mako: Remember, there are two very different kinds of Smarties.
Guster
Fuck elections! More Butterfingers!
Smarties? Raisins? Sweet Jesus, why not give out candied Rove.
I’m drunk already, la la la.
TooManyJens
Hey, I like Smarties. Both kinds.
matoko_chan
if im right about the cellphone vote will u guyz give meh props?
prolly not.
:)
the cellphone votes need a new 3D model….simulated annealling on a demographic topology? some optimization algorithm……so collgetowns and urban centers are peaks and the rural south and flyover country are broad valleys and deep ravines.
Uloborus
@Comrade Dread:
I’m sorry, but you’ve failed to factor in that the Republicans will sweep congress and this election is a referendum on the populist power of the Tea Party and the need of the GOP to go farther right. And how this will all be true even if they lose 20 seats in both chambers.
Mako
@Ash Can:
They all look canadian to me. Give me a good Mars product any day. Solid billionaire backed candy, that’s what’s this country was built on. You think Andy Jackson ate Smarties when he was kicking Canadian ass in New Orleans? Try stopping a bullet with a french Smartie, then try with a Snickers… oh wait, Ricky Martin just came out as gay on Oprah.. who suspected… i need a moment to process…
Mako
@matoko_chan:
if im right about the cellphone vote will u guyz give meh props?
I will. Not that it’s an original idea or anything, but you are the one promoting it here, so you get the kudos no doubt.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
Props for reciting an idea that numerous others have put forward? What are you, Sarah Palin in disguise?
cckids
@Blue Shark:
Jesus God, speak for yourself. I truly cannot stomach the idea of THAT as one of my senators. And paired with Ghost Sen. Ensign? We’d have no representation at all.
Edited to clarify that, ok, we could do better than Harry as Maj. Leader. Also, he just seems tired of it all. Please, please Harry, make this your last campaign, ok? You dodged SUCH a bullet this time. Don’t press your luck–go out gracefully.
Mako
@morzer:
Good thought, nice one.