1 I believe the best place to get #51 is in California.

2
The firewall for the Democrats

I loathe their appropriation of this term.  They're the f*cking disease that needs to be stopped, not conservatives.

3 What does the grey mean?

4 A lot of funny business going on in Alaska. I guess they are counting Murky as a Republican? Don't know if she will stay one once she gets back in.

5 CAC, I am really hoping the enthusiasm gap can make up Fiorina being down by 2 and push her to victory! What do you think about that?

6
What does the grey mean?

Not their cycle this election.

7 Not their cycle this election.

I think I've found the Dem's firewall.

8 OT, part of an email I received from John Runyan (NJ-3)

"Team Runyan –
 
I had to share this with you immediately. Since July 6^th our campaign has made 447,074 volunteer phone calls and door knocks. Yes - 447,074!
 
More than 700 volunteers have made phone calls and knocked on doors to help spread JonÂ’s message of lower taxes and less government. That doesnÂ’t include the 800+ people that attended our events with Governor Christie in the past few days! The grassroots momentum is clearly on our side and these are incredible numbers for our campaign."

9 Nope, don't see any wave here.

10 You know, I'm sorry, but this is not analysis, it's crap. Support doesn't "slip" over a one-week period, particularly this close to the end of the election. You have to keep averaging polls to get a decent result. But above all, you have to weight them properly. What you are reporting is not a trend; it is statistical noise. This is simply GIGO, reproduced in a Moron-friendly format.

11 Do you have an opinion on early voting trends?  Or, do early voting trends enter into your projections?

It is my opinion that Dems are pushing early voting this year, and that there will just be that many less voting come election day.  All their GOTV strategies include pushing early voting pretty hard.

12 California's my home state too. That's why I feel confident saying, Ain't gonna happen. Not there. Sorry. The liberalism is in their DNA. Not enough people that would ever conceive of voting anything other than Democratic. I still talk to friends and family there and they all love to whine about how awful it is in CA now, but ask them who they'll vote for and it doesn't even occur to them to try a different party.  Consider how strongly Brown is running. I mean, this guy is OUT THERE. They didn't call him Gov. Moonbeam for nothing. And yet, he's up in the polls. That's California, and it isn't going to change.

It's important to pick up whatever congressional seats can be had there, of course. There are some conservative parts of the state  --  central valley, inland empire, far north. But Senators and governorship......lost cause.  The moonbat enclaves are just too large in number to overcome in a statewide election. And if the current problems aren't enough to change their minds, nothing will. Literally.

13 I think this is one of the most important elections in a long time. We have to halt this march to socialism. I will work as hard as I can ( from my Office and the little free time I have outside it ) to get like minded people to vote. But I am getting a splitting headache from this continual counting of speculative numbers. I wish the election was yesterday. And as far as these polls: The last few years most of the polls have been very far off because of the bias of the questions and the questioner and how they take it. All, no. But most. So I say people, talk to your friends who will vote the right way and make sure they vote early and often, but sit back and have a few drinks. You'll live longer. Or not but your'll enjoy life more.

14 Whatever you do, don't drink "the gift."

15 You certainly can't average polls when some of the polls in the average are blatantly fraudulent. I mean do even the Dems think the Dem base is going to come out stronger by multiple percentage points this year than in 2008 with Obama on the ballot.

16 While a 50/50 split would mean Biden casts the tiebreaking vote, it won't get to that. 50/50 just means there are enough GOP votes to squash the squishes (Collins, Snow, etc) And let us not forget, Leiberman and Nelson are itching to work with Republicans too....

17 The Rs will have 51 before the polls close in California.

18

#15

Manchin would be ahead if I had included the "university" poll backed by a Democratic firm showing him up 10. It is getting easier to spot the outright fraudulent polls.

19

control means contolling what gets voted on ...

It doesn't matter if Snow and Collins would vote yes on a liberal bill ...  they won't get the chance if the GOP can barely take the Senate ...  and they will vote yes of a conservative bill more often than not ...

20 I checked the entrails of my latest Hobo kill and it said the GOP will win the House and tie in the Senate ...

21

Your assignment, should you decide to accept it, is to make sure I lose the AOSHQ election pool (+47, +6). By a lot.

I really don't want to win with those numbers.

22 I checked the entrails of my latest Hobo kill and it said the GOP will win the House and tie in the Senate ...

Posted by: Jeff at October 25, 2010 01:34 PM (A3tpD)

Did you poor value rite on it and light it first?

23 Do you have an opinion on early voting trends?  Or, do early voting trends enter into your projections?

It is my opinion that Dems are pushing early voting this year, and that there will just be that many less voting come election day.  All their GOTV strategies include pushing early voting pretty hard.

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at October 25, 2010 01:15 PM (f9c2L)

 

Bingo. Reid can boast all he wants about having a lead with his party in early voting in Nevada- if thats when they vote, and they run out, up Shits Creek he goes.

Republicans are motivated but many are going to wait until Election Day- I suspect a greater proportion of them compared to the Democrats.

 

24

CAC

What is your take on the Nate Silverman post?

25 22: He's getting better luck than I am.  I tried checking the results on a Ouija board and got a 404 Error...

26 I'm in CA and I don't think CA is in play. Everyone wants their entitled bennies here. The affluent and upper middle class are leaving the state taking their votes with then. The increasing demographics are poor folks. And they want their spoils.

27

Maddogg-

Nate is onto something without coming to the right conclusion.

In his follow-up he mentions his skepticism on the numbers being good for Republicans. He brings up the fact that Republicans used to dominate early voting totals.

However, most of the big Democrats this time around are REALLY pushing the early vote hard, so of course their numbers would be bigger than in elections from before 2008. Not to mention the fact that Nate Silver seems to ignore the Indepedent voters who are leaning in generic votes towards the Republicans by margins of 15 or more.

I like Nate and his methodology- note how he refuses to show Sestak SURGING to a much bigger shot at winning that race- but that doesn't mean he is infallible. It's good to get as many different interpretations of the data as you can, be it from Silver or the guys at RealClearPolitics or contributors here or even the Huffington Post.

 

 

28 Counting NV as a likely R pick up is a bit... optimistic, don't you think?  They've been essentially tied for some time now.  CO is still awefully close too.

29 Both are listed as leaners, not likely.

30

CAC, it's my understanding that the "Dem" for early voting refers to which party they voted for in the primary and/or a previous election.  Is it possible that many of these early votes are actually for Republican candidates? 

Also, are the early votes tabulated and/or reported for a candidate, or are they just "accounted for" and the results held until Election Day?

I mean, I gotta tell you, I don't think that ANYONE has a true handle on the enthusiasm gap for Republican candidates this year.  When I look at how quickly Christine O'Donnell came out of the gate in the primary this year (and never looked back), that tells me that people are DETERMINED to throw the bums out.

31 I wish I could be this optimistic but I still think the R's only pick up 8 in the Senate...which is actually pretty damn good, if you think about it. Stick the DemonRats with the coming economic mess and take it back in 2012. That was the original plan and it's still a valid one.

32 That's where the magic sauce comes in, Hollowpoint..

I think, if I've been following CAC correctly, that he thinks there is an inherent edge to R's.. what some call the enthusiasm gap.  that doesn't show in the polls.

33 Oh, and the yellow stuff? Give it to the next hobo you see. They're just using you as a delivery mechanism.

34 You certainly can't average polls when some of the polls in the average are blatantly fraudulent.

Why not?

35

You crazier than you think.  6th runs parallel to Alameda, at least it does in Denver. And I want my soul back.

Oh yeah, 18 inch base at Loveland.  Ski season is open.

36 "You certainly can't average polls when some of the polls in the average are blatantly fraudulent. Why not?" Its like the Olympics judging dropping the highest and lowest score before averaging, that way the score from Russia towards the Americans wouldn't bring down the average since it was obviously wrong and biased. It gives you a more accurate picture of where the race stands.

37

CAC

Thanks. Hard to tell what the hell is going on. Ace seems a tad overemotional to me, though he may be attempting to motivate.

38

Both are listed as leaners, not likely.

Oops- meant leaners instead of likely.

Still- they look like they're solidly toss-up to me.

I'm not sold on the idea that there's going to be a big Republican wave that's not been accounted for.  Pollsters generally don't divulge how they determine who's a "likely voter", but I'd assume that the that "enthusiam gap" has mostly been factored in already.

39 As John MacInnes, the legendary hockey coach at Michigan Tech described playing the defense man position: "Watch your opponent's torso -- ignore his bluffs and fakes with his head, his arms & stick and his legs & skates -- his torso will go to where ever he intends to go."
Pay no attention to misdirecting polls being touted by the MFM and lefties. Keep our focus on what each one of us is in a position to influence over the next eight days, whether it's donating $$, assisting with GOTV, or preferably, both. Crush them!

40 I think what has poisoned a lot of polling this cycle, Hollowpoint, is something I believe Jay Cost touched on- the horrible "likely" screening of a lot of these pollsters. Suffolk comes to mind most prominently, but out of 1000 registered voters, it is bullshit to say OMGZ 85% to 90% of them are Likely!!! That should be the FIRST red flag anyone considers. I crap a lot now on PPP- but Jensen and Carville's DemCorps and associated firms have the decency to release their crosstabs. It is critical to look at these- and it is why I don't buy that Boxer has zoomed ahead of Fiorina as LA/USC and PPP (you know they will) have indicated. Broken down by region, not a frozen titty's chance in hell that Central Valley is split by 2 points over the two options when other polling firms have established a very obvious anti-Democrat backlash in the region. You have to dig into the polls when available. When not, it's really hard to factor them into the data. I think the current generic is R+9.5 But even if it is only R+6, that is an enormous shift over 2008 and a big one over 2006. Looking at the volume of seats that fall well within the inverse of that by PVI and how they fell in the last 2 elections, big gains are to be expected. The surge isn't the number over even but the number over the last two cycles, which in terms of Republican advantage would scale in the negatives.

41 That sounded more complicated than it should be. Everyone is looking at R +X (with X being the current generic ballot advantage. But what you should be looking at is R+ ((r in 2008 +10)+ X) as we were about -10 in generic preference in 2008 which means the surge is R+16 with a current R+6 guess or R+19.5 using my guess. That's fucking colossal.

42 maybe I'm being excessively hopeful, but I wouldn't write Linda McMahon (CT) off till all the votes are counted.

43

maybe I'm being excessively hopeful, but I wouldn't write Linda McMahon (CT) off till all the votes are counted.

Don't worry- I got a few thousand ready and waiting to go if called upon!

44

That sounded more complicated than it should be.
Everyone is looking at R +X (with X being the current generic ballot advantage.
But what you should be looking at is
R+ ((r in 2008 +10)+ X)
as we were about -10 in generic preference in 2008
which means the surge is R+16 with a current R+6 guess or R+19.5 using my guess.

That's fucking colossal.

I don't agree with such emphasis on the generic preference.  Independant voters are still voting for a specific candidate above all else.  They may prefer Republicans in a general sense, but not necessarily the Republican running in their district.

Even in a Presidential election, the generic preference never matches the actual outcome.

45

Die sock die