Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

No one could have predicted…

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Republicans in disarray!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

White supremacy is terrorism.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / The combination made my eyes bleed

The combination made my eyes bleed

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Some not-so-good state and national polls for Biden today. So I’m going to do all fundraising focused on some states that could decide the election: GA, NC, PA, and WI.

Hang in there everybody and vote if you can. We are mailing our absentees off later today. You can see all our candidates here.

North Carolina State Democratic Party

Goal Thermometer

Pennsylvania State Democratic Party

Goal Thermometer

Wisconsin State Democratic Party

Goal Thermometer

The Georgia special is one of the best ways to give to a Senate race IMHO. It’s now listed as a toss-up, hasn’t attracted quite as much scratch as some of the others, and the run-off election is later, which could mean after Trump has done all kinds of crazy shit that make the GOP more unpopular than ever.

Raphael Warnock, Georgia Senate (special election)

Goal Thermometer

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  3. 3.

    Matt McIrvin

    Not that bad. Mostly, IBD/TIPP started putting out numbers showing Biden’s lead collapsing to +2 nationally, which no other polls anywhere seem to agree with. That’s affected poll averages.

    Also, Rasmussen and HarrisX doing their usual thing.

  6. 6.

    Matt McIrvin

    …also, Rasmussen and HarrisX doing their thing. I suspect the Hunter Biden bullshit did its job of turning some right-wingers who were getting soft on Trump, so any polls that weight them heavily showed a lot of motion.

  7. 7.

    jl

    Thanks for suggestions on good places to send contributions.

    @Baud: IMHO, people are over interpreting chance fluctuations in the polls. I’ve been tracking the changes, and I haven’t seen a day where Biden has suffered any statistically significant declines, and even what declines there are only affect at most half the swing states, and I don’t see a consistent pattern of decline in any state.

    If Trump suffered a significant decline in support from his antics and timing of the inevitable superspreader event in the WH, then the temporary trend of support downward over, say, two weeks, that  would have masked small chance variations in polling results. Now that support has stabilized, the chance variations in polling will stand our more.

    That is my take on it so far. Really two little to make any definite conclusion. Let’s see how the next debate goes.. If Trump decided to ignore the mic cut off and is heard faintly yelling in the background, or if he behaves himself, might be the last event that could trigger a more definite change.

    Edit: also a greater proportion of polls are for likely voters. Likely voter screens seem to have introduced more variation in the results between different polling outfits, and within each polling outfit when the report the results of different screens for the same poll.

  8. 8.

    CaseyL

    My ballot has been collected, verified, and counted.  Whew!

    So now we get bad polling numbers?  FFS.  I expected polls to tighten, but not by that much.

    Shit shit shit.

  11. 11.

    James E Powell

    I see one poll that might be not so good, might be an outlier. I can accept the idea that Trump’s number could go up a couple points due to Republicans coming home, but nothing has happened to cause Biden’s support to drop 3 points. If there were real movement, we’d see it in more than one poll and we’d see it in the state polls.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    Some not-so-good state and national polls for Biden today.

    Reading is fundamental!

  13. 13.

    trnc

    I hope this isn’t rude in Doug’s post, but what happened to Adam’s post? Did the Rudy/Ivanka text turn out to be fake?

  14. 14.

    RaflW

    Just bumped PA and NC (love WI, but I’ve done a lot there already).

    Saw a few tweets this morning that Dems are suddenly worried about money. Is that for real, Doug? I’m so wore out by the emails the past few months with the alternating ‘panic, the other guys are loaded’ and then ‘thanks we did it!’ cycles.

    But I have noticed that after the mass hauls announced for September, that I’ve backed off a bit. I also am nearing my budget/goal for the cycle (I have tended more and more towards early funding, so that down-ballot races have some money to gear up).
    My budget’s not a hard stop, winning is more important than momentary comfort with the credit card bill, but I do wonder about the whole late money, late ads have more impact analysis. And if funds are trickling, will that really bork the ground game?

  15. 15.

    jl

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes, that is also true. If you look at poll aggregators you can actually track f the major GOP friendly polls just eyeballing at the dots on the graph.

    Also I think 538 averages are being affected slightly by inclusion of the very imprecise Survey Monkey poll. The blog gives it a rating of D-, with I think is appropriate. But there are so many of them, it could introduce some effect, namely more statistically insignificant chance variation in 538 averages. .

    All the changes are well with in the margins of error.  Anyway, at this point, we should be thinking about turnout and contributing with a mind on where GOTV money is needed, IMHO.

  18. 18.

    jl

    @Baud: Better to make a little spreadsheet and put down some history. People are focusing, perhaps unconsciously on individual poll results that confirm their presuppositions, or trigger their fears.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @trnc: I pulled it because 1) I couldn’t actually completely rule out it was fake, 2) I’d bigfooted Cheryl causing her to pull her post, which had not been my intention, and 3) could see that DougJ was going to bigfoot me, which was his intention.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @RaflW: They’re worried about money in certain places. For instance, Senator Peters in MI needs more, as does the physician running in Alaska. Amy McGrath and Jamie Harrison don’t need anymore. Espy needs more. Doug Jones needs more. MJ Hegar may need more. Overall Democrats have raised beyond expectations, but it isn’t always in the right places.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: It is what it is. I try to avoid it, I know some of the others do too. It’s going to happen even with the best of intentions. But we do have some serial offenders.

  23. 23.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Jaime Harrison has tweets, and statements in his videos to supporters,  that volunteer live body efforts at local GOTV, remote and on-the-ground, are more important than money at this point.

  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    electoral-vote.com’s graphs of EVs looked like they tightened a little, but I think it’s just because the subset of polls they sample happened to include one of the less impressive ones for Pennsylvania (other aggregators don’t show that effect). Sam Wang’s model shows no tightening, 538’s I think is being driven down slightly by the IBD/TIPP thing because they fold national polls into their model.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    In a way I am fine with polls not looking so good (not sure that is even the case) because I do not want Democrats to get complacent.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @MomSense: At this point, I’m less concerned about that than I am about Trump supporters getting excited (and being egged on by the media coverage of the “comeback”).

  29. 29.

    Joe Falco

    I know I shouldn’t pin my hopes on it, but I do so hope Warnock is able to win 50% + 1 to take the seat outright and avoid a run-off. Seeing Georgia Republicans accuse one another that voting for their pet Trumpie cost them the Senate seat and thus their Senate majority may fill my schadenfreude meter for a month.

  30. 30.

    jl

    @Baud:

    ” I honestly don’t follow polls at all except when people talk about them here. ”

    I am a statistician, so i have some weird hobbies. Also good source for good examples for, our precious youth, our best hope for tomorrow,  the students, aka these damn kids these days..

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @randy khan: Florida worries me, but it has worried me for months. In 2018 the final polls for governor had Gillum up by 4.8. He lost by 1 point. So that’s almost a 6 point swing and outside the margins of error for those polls. My concern is that it is not clear that they have the actual likely voter demographics for Florida right in the polling. Specifically, I’m not sure that they actually have the right mix of voters in their samples. In 2018 for the governor’s race they clearly had the sample wrong. I don’t know if they have it right this time. It’s why I’ve consistently said that unless Biden is showing in the final polls in Florida that he’s up by 6, and preferably 8, or more, then he’s losing Florida by 1. However, the actual congressional district level polling, in some very key districts in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties that came out at the beginning of the week, are showing GIGANTIC swings away from how the President performed in 2016 and how Biden is polling now. And they are far more in line with what we’d expect if the national polling is correct.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: I’m not blaming any particularly candidate. People are flooding Harrison and McGrath with money because they can’t stand Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell. But almost no one outside of Michigan knows who Senator Peter’s challenger is (John James and I’m not sure I got the first name right). And my guess is most people don’t even know that one of Alaska’s senators is up for reelection and there is a highly competitive Democrat challenging him and polling very, very well.

  34. 34.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: We have to expect a lot of non-sampling uncertainty with an unusual election. But I generally agree, want more separation in FL. If Biden gets FL and either AZ or NC, probably be over on election night, so those are critical states as well as MI, WI, and PA.

  35. 35.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Harrison is stating very plainly that he’d prefer people volunteer to phone bank or do what in-person GOTV help that is needed. So, I didn’t mean to blame him. He’s just a very sharp electoral politician, trying to optimize his resources in the final days.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: If you go to Peter Schorsch’s feed for 19 October, you’ll see he’s done these for a lot of key Florida districts.

  39. 39.

    NickM

    I just saw the Monmouth poll of Iowa has Biden up 3% among likely voters, which sounds pretty good to me especially as Trump won it by 9 in 2016.

  40. 40.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    At this point, I’m less concerned about that than I am about Trump supporters getting excited (and being egged on by the media coverage of the “comeback”).

    That was a major impact of the Comey letter.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    On MSNBC, Obama is speaking to a crowd in the street, and a little girl has decided she’s gonna share that spotlight, distancing be damned, and it’s a helluva picture

  44. 44.

    evap

    @Joe Falco:  Alas, I think this is extremely unlikely since he is not very close to 50%.   But it would be wonderful, and since it’s a special election he would be seated immediately.  At least, that’s my understanding.

  46. 46.

    James E Powell

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Florida is a constant source of anxiety and no polling will ever make me feel any better. I can rest because I look at PA, MI, & WI and I throw AZ in for extra.

    I thought Gary Peters was doing better. After I gave him my last $100 for this cycle I was getting four panicky emails a day. They stopped yesterday.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I know a lot of people don’t trust the never-trumpers– I’d never vote for one, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how they’re supposed to be tricking us… anyway– I found this tweet interesting, and accurate about a sense of inferiority among Dems, specifically wrt to ads

    stuart stevens@stuartpstevens·18h

    For some reason, there seems to be this strange inferiority complex a lot of Dems have about their campaign operations. I don’t get it.

    @ JoeBiden is running a superb campaign. Walk with confidence, Democrats. There are more of you. Seize the day.

  49. 49.

    Eljai

    @NickM:  NYT/Siena has Biden +3 in Iowa as well.  Like you said, trump won Iowa by 9 in 2016, so even with the margin of error this is not good news for trump.

  50. 50.

    Matt McIrvin

    I wouldn’t be inclined to count on Florida at all. I feel better about Arizona and even NC but don’t know if that’s more than listening to my gut.

  51. 51.

    jl

    Josh Marshall makes a good point, polls differ in how they account for people who report that they’ve already voted. And the percentage of people who have an opportunity to vote early differs from state to state. That will confound underlying support with turnout, which differs over time for any state, and differs between states. So, I think trying to interpret every jig and jog in the polls is just hopeless.

    I think best response to polls is, unless you are statistician with some weird hobbies, just don’t pay that much attention and send contributions to where GOTV would be most useful.

    @joshtpm

    ” It seems clear – and there’s some specific evidence of this – that people reporting ALREADY having voted is pushing the LV screen. Reports of that in poll from Iowa. That said, this pattern has shown up for some time. Before voting started. So a number of contending explanations. ”

    https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1319020459657146369

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: Here’s some other examples:

  54. 54.

    Paul W.

    @RaflW: This resembles my thinking! I’ve backed off of all of the well funded marquee Senate races excepting MJ Hegar who needs more money to be effective in TX and is really on the cusp of winning (I phonebank for TX Dem party at night and energy is through the roof).

    I don’t think any of the polls today really makes me nervous, they’re all in the MOE for where I thought the race is (nationally Biden +9, roll that out to your BG states) and if Dougj was not wisely giving money to state parties I would say that PA and WI have enough money at the presidential level but obviously investing in state parties is CRITICAL to make all of this long term so glad to see the targetting!

  55. 55.

    David ?Booooooo!? Koch

    at least 8.2 million votes were cast yesterday

    (600,000 of those were cast in Texas)

    Act Blue raise $23 million dollars yesterday.

     
     
    ? Roll Tide, Roll ?

  58. 58.

    VeniceRiley

    I’m just looking at the polls rated B+ or over. Several very good A and A+ rated polls in states today. I’m not worried about the top of the ticket at all. Next cycle though, I want to concentrate on the DLCC and get more battleground bang for the buck on local races.

  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think we want our side to be nastier than it is–we see the Lincoln Project whooping it up with these incredibly vicious ads and think, Democrats should be doing that! But that’s always been the kind of thing you leave to surrogates unless you’re Trump.

  62. 62.

    JPL

    Loeffler and Collins are going at it, and Warnock should be ahead after the election.  Unfortunately if you don’t have fifty percent plus one, there is a runoff.   In GA turnout is light but now with absentee ballots, maybe that will change.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: Honestly I have no way of knowing if the district polling is right or the state polling. Or neither. Or both.

  65. 65.

    David ?Booooooo!? Koch

    NYT/Siena has Biden +3 in Iowa as well.

    Iowa Poll — Monmouth*

    Biden…………51%

    Dump………..46%

     

    *Rated A+ pollster by 538

     

    “Patriotic farmers” are going Blue

  66. 66.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    Many of us still haven’t internalized that most people are not like us.

    right, most especially even less engaged, less enraged Dems are not very-on-line like us

    @Matt McIrvin: I enjoy the hell out of Lincoln Project ads, but along those same On-Line vs Normies lines, I have not been persuaded that they’re as effective outside twitte

    eta: I should say, Stevens links to, and I’m responding to, the twitter reaction to Biden’s very non-LP-like Sam Elliot ad, so… I don’t know how Normies are reacting to that ad. But everybody from the Paleocon NTer Tom Nichols to the Biden-skeptical and dyspeptic Armando of Daily Kos (and the K-Hive) were bowled over by it

  67. 67.

    Mary G

    Went to the whole list and dropped way more money than I usually feel comfortable giving, but fuck it, I can’t survive another four years and I want to leave it all on the field. Dr. Gross in Alaska is delightful – he won a fight with a bear! He may well have an upset underway.

  68. 68.

    jl

    @David ?Booooooo!? Koch:

    I wonder if there is an upward coat tails effect from Ernst’s giga-gaffe in the polls. You’re in Iowa, you know the prices, if you give a damn about the farms.

    Like in California, if you can’t talk water, you are dead with both farmers, environmentalists, and people worried about the NorCal versus SoCal state water wars.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Obama apparently about to speak at a drive-in (?– I’m listening not watching) rally in Philly, MSNBC letting Andrea Mitchell fill air time until he comes on stage. And she’s filling time by talking about that Sam Elliot ad– says it was like a mini-Ken Burns doc

  70. 70.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: I wish I could get more detail on the sampling in the polls. Me, IMHO, I’d over sample counties that have have more population, and those that seemed to have been decisive in previous elections, show different behavior in turnout.

    Seems like they just stratify, don’t do two stage cluster-stratify sampling, but hard to tell.

    But, as per Marshall’s tweet above, if there is confounding of support and turnout between polls, states, and within states over time, due to early voting, just hopeless to try to interpret small changes in the polls.

    Edit: and of course, report in detail how they handle people who report that they have already voted.

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    @jl: DougJ’s fundraising posts don’t really have an impact on the posts that are before or after them.  Sometimes people chat in these threads, but sometimes it’s all about the fundraising.

    Anne Laurie and I often purposely have posts at the same time early in the morning (On The Road and COVID).   Some folks are interested in one or the other, or maybe both. They are not in any way in competition with one another.  Same thing around 10pm.

  74. 74.

    jl

    @WaterGirl: I was joking. I don’t care at all about rapid sequence of posts. It’s not like I have to walk 2 miles to look at one or the other. Edit: particularly for posts that regularly come at the same time every day. If something up with covid and reason to look, I know more or less when AL’s covid post will appear, so can budget the time.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    @Baud: Polls today are fine. We’re hitting the period of daily polls. SurveyMonkey dropped a zillion of them, and they should all be thrown out because they’re all garbage.

    And I agree with others – I don’t know whats going on with IBD/TIPP. They always get a little squirrley close to the election.

  83. 83.

    Tim C.

    @Matt McIrvin: This.

     

    IBD basically got things right in 2016, by being the only ones predicting that Democratic support for Hillary was as soft as it was.  So they got some legitimate credibility off of that.  On the other hand, they seem to be using the same formula this year which most other pollsters don’t agree with.   So it’s a YMMV situation.

    What’s more interesting though is that a lot of polls that screen for likely voters are showing an inversion of the normal pattern. Usually R’s get a boost from the likely voter screen,  this year it’s reversed.

  85. 85.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    So bad polls yesterday and today? What happened during this polling period?

    or is that DougJ being motivational… ?

  88. 88.

    Martin

    @Tim C.: It’s a valid approach to push leaners close to an election (undecided, but leaning x or y). But I think IBD just guessed in 2016, much as I’m guessing that undecideds will break for Biden. It might be an educated guess, but it’s not a valid statistical approach.

  89. 89.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Martin: The advantage to Florida, as well as Ohio, is that both start counting mail in ballots and early voted ballots as they come in once early voting starts. So they’ll both know by 10 PM or so on 3 November who won those states. There won’t be any two or three or four day delays.

  90. 90.

    geg6

    Not sure what polls you are seeing, but the polls for PA today looked good.  I’m skeptical that it’s a double digit Biden lead as some then showed, but 7 or 8 points sound about right to me.

  91. 91.

    WaterGirl

    OT / Public Service Announcement:  If you haven’t sent email saying you want your pet’s photos is the Pet Calendar, please send email.

  93. 93.

    jl

    @Martin: I think the 2016 problem with forecasts of overall national vote versus state results needed to win EC stemmed from problems with correlations between state support and national trends. When there is a change, anything is kind of a guess. IIRC, 538 handled it more by accounting for the uncertainty, rather than trying to correct for possible bias.

    Long winded way of agreeing and amplifying your point.

  95. 95.

    jl

    @debbie: We don’t know if ALL the pages are blank, or did Stahl say something about the contents, or lack of them?

    Me, I would have filled up every page, something like

    “It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. It’s hoax. Trump saved a billion lives. …”

  98. 98.

    James E Powell

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’ve been avoiding cable news for years, but tuned into MSNBC just now because somebody said Obama was going to be on. I wanna hear my president!

    It was pretty painful listening to Mrs Greenspan & the whole panel of experts compare Clinton’s 2016 campaign with this year without once mentioning misogyny. They did chat up the old “economic anxiety” bullshit along with “we didn’t see Hillary come here.” Then had a huge laugh about Trump saying his mic went out last night because of “crooked Hillary.” Oh that Donald, isn’t he something?

    I want all of them to suffer.

  100. 100.

    cain

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Jaime keeps telling he in emails that he’s fucked and that I need to give more money.. all my money.. it’s panic time! Oh brother.

    I’ll give some money to Doug Jones. At least I don’t have to give any to the Oregon peeps.

  101. 101.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman:  Small children put schedules and intentions and focus through a meat grinder.  You can’t even count on 5 uninterrupted minutes when you need it.  (I don’t have extreme experience, just lots of helping out and observing friends, but my partner was so affected that he still yields right of way in all things to parents of tots.)

  103. 103.

    Butter Emails

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I just don’t understand this – They bothered to bind a book of blank pages – why not at minimum have something written on them?  Pages filled with “No TV and No Beer makes Homer go crazy” would have been an improvement. Dropping in the text of the ACA would probably would have fooled Stahl if she’d read a few lines.

  105. 105.

    Dan B

    @Mary G: OMG they are on some delusion inducing drugs!  They believe that 60 Minutes reporters don’t know how to look for dirt and/or telling details.

  106. 106.

    Geminid

    The Wason Center came out with their poll for the VA 2nd Congressional District- Norfolk, Va. Beach, etc. It showed freshman Elaine Luria up by 7 pts. over the guy she beat in 2018 by 2.  Biden was up by 9 points, a 13 point swing from 2016, when trump carried the district by 4.       Luria is 45 years old, and if she is reelected this time, she’ll probably end up as Chairman of the House Armed Services Commitee, and have a submarine named after her not long after she retires. Or a small aircraft carrier, if they are still making them. Luria retired from the Navy as a lieutenant commander, served on the surface warfare side of the Navy.

  109. 109.

    patrick Il

    • @Mary G: For once Trumpers  weren’t lying That would be an  accurate description of what they have done to improve healthcare.
  110. 110.

    RobertDSC-Work

    @Tim C.:

    IBD is right-wing. I used to work there and saw the newspapers as they came off the press. The op-ed pages were pure conservative trash.

  111. 111.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @jl: Sent Peters and Gross cash on Monday; the former carpetbombed my inbox in the following 24 hrs. I understand the conventional whizzdumb is that the most likely person to donate to a candidate is someone who’s already donated to that candidate, but jeebus cripes, stop acting like Turkish carpet sellers!

  112. 112.

    different-church-lady

    No, c’mon man, I had a peek at Nate’s joint today and he’s saying slight downtick in national, but slight uptick in state.

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Martin: Biden only wins Texas if there’s a systematic polling miss the other way from 2016. Which is entirely possible.

  115. 115.

    dww44

    @Joe Falco:  As a Georgia voter I too hope you are right. IMO both Perdue and Loeffler deserve to lose for many reasons but most especially for their unethical investment trading in January after the secret Senate committee hearings. I was a compliance officer and they or their money managers were trading on  material non-public information. They were not serving their constituents:they were serving their own. And lying to us the whole time.

  116. 116.

    E

    So, the post says some not so good polls for Biden today, yet over at the economist they have a likely Biden win at the highest I’ve ever seen, up to 93% from 91% just the day before.

  117. 117.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Kay: You’re nuts, DougJ. Polls were great today. I’m very optimistic about our chances.

    He’s just practicing for his new career – drafting screeching impeding-catastrophe panic-attack-inducing panhandling e-mails for political candidates. Few things in this world outside the Rethuglican Party are as consistently disgusting.

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