Are the polls broken, or is it the pollsters? (Balloon Juice article by Anne Laurie)

[gratuitous]

Link here to interesting article.

Some bits and pieces about how the GOP is flooding the zone with deceptive polling. It's not accidental that you're being discouraged during the election season. Tweet from Simon Rosenberg:

To me the biggest question about the 2022 election was always would the very strong Dem vote in the 5 House specials and Kansas carry over to the general election.

So far the early vote suggests it has.

Greg Pinelo tweet:

I'm sending this thread out to every hack Democratic operative dishing background doom and gloom to reporters and slagging our own candidates while also plotting to somehow take credit if things go well. There is absolutely a sick culture of this in the party.

Another Rosenberg tweet:

There is a ferocious campaign GOP campaign right now to flood the zone with their polls, game the averages, declare the election is tipping to them.

No question they could win but the early vote and polling this week DO NOT confirm this trend. Sorry.

Rosenberg again:

How much of a difference could this GOP manipulation of the averages be having?

There is a 3.3 pt difference between the generic on Real Clear and one without any partisan polling.

Media has to wake up here and stop getting played.

And his last word, which message I approve:

We have to move beyond polling now. It's a close election. We are getting a lot of early vote data. That's real data not bullshit flood the zone GOP polling.

[former9thward]

1. What is his prediction?

I did not see anything specific at the link.

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Might be a good play - betting against the CW in this election cycle.

What are the CW betting odds on Republicans taking control of the House?

[FBaggins]

10. Better than 10-1

I was just considering an OP saying essentially that.

It’s too late for candidates to put new donations to work in time for next week. If you have cash left to throw at the election and you think the polls are off in the other direction this time, “putting your money where your mouth is” would not only help influence public opinion (by moving the odds reporting)… but make a killing at the same time.

[uponit7771]

3. K&R, Poll porn using polls with super low MOEs is unprofessional

[Thunderbeast]

4. A good night for Democrats will fuel the inevitable fraud charges.

How could they win when the polls were glowing red?

It is all part of the setup to de-legitimize the election in advance.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. Forget the poills, go vote

Link to tweet

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Thanks for posting this. nt

[lees1975]

7. Wish I could link the reference

to a critique of an Emerson poll that was factoring the percentage of under 35 younger voters at less than half of what it was during 2020 and then running their models. They seem to be using pre-2016 factoring data. Reminds me of Dick Morris predicting a Romney landslide based on "factors" from the Reagan era.

I expect it may be close, but not the shift of 28 house seats that CBS or RCP think. Not even close.

[gratuitous]

8. Rosenberg has interesting information quoted in the Balloon Juice post

He details just which zones are being flooded with GOP-friendly polls and results. It's a very targeted effort.

[Deminpenn]

9. A spate of recent InsiderAdvantage polls showing big leads for Rs

across the board made me think about the possibility that Rs were putting out a lot of polls just to manipulate the polling averages to make races seems closer than they are.

Firms like Trafalger and InsiderAdvantage believe that white men are undercounted or underweighted in non-partisan polls. Their models give more weight to these voters who traditionally support Rs/conservatives, thus showing leads for R candidates.

[AntivaxHunters]

11. It's intentional they're doing this & here's why

It allows for "the big lie" to continue.

Should Republicans lose (which I believe they will) they will cite all the polls as a source and scream that all the midterms elections they lost were in fact rigged and NOT legit. This in turn sets up an endless amount of court cases all across the country for the GOP to challenge things.

We're already seeing this strategy come to fruition with several Republican candidates saying that if they lose they won't accept the result of the election they ran in.