I am getting very tired of waking up to unimaginably bad news. In Wisconsin, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, complete nut-jobs are showing strong leads in the polls for U.S. Senate. To make matters worse, I read this from Nate Silver:
Senate candidates who have a lead of 6 to 9 points in the simple polling average, with 30 days to go until the election — about where Mr. Toomey’s lead stands now — are undefeated since 1998. This isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds, since there are only seven such candidates in the database. But if we expand the scope of our study just a bit, it proves to be the norm rather than the exception. Senate candidates with a slightly larger lead in the polling average — 9 to 12 points — are also undefeated.
So, in the last 12 years, no Senate candidate has ever come back to win when trailing by 6 or more points in the polls a month out from the election. I’m an optimistic guy, but facts like that kind of ruin my mood. Somehow, I still feel like this year is different. Nate says:
Now some may still argue that the Pennsylvania race is particularly unusual: that even though a lead of 6 or 7 points in the polls is ordinarily quite solid, there are special circumstances in this race. Or some might argue that the polls in all races are much less reliable than they have been in the recent past.
The first argument was addressed to some extent in yesterday’s article: it’s tempting to think of each Senate race as its own little unique snowflake. But the polling has provided a reliable guide in the vast majority of races. It is not enough for a race to be unique: it has to be unique in a way that renders the polling much less accurate than it ordinarily would be. If you think you’ve encountered such a case, you should be prepared to make a strenuous argument for it.
I can’t make what I would consider a “strenuous argument.” But I do feel like this year is highly unusual. In recent cycles, the Democratic base has been highly engaged and engaged at a much earlier point in the cycle. Since these polls numbers are still based almost exclusively on an enthusiasm gap, the numbers should naturally narrow as election day approaches.
In each state, Republicans are benefitting from an enthusiasm gap, where their supporters are much more eager to turn out and vote on Nov. 2. In Colorado, for example, the Democrat leads 41 percent to 40 percent among registered voters. However, the contest flips among those most likely to vote, who give the Republican an 8-point lead.
I don’t think the Republicans were leading in any polls of the overall electorate in the leadup to the 2006 or 2008 elections. But the Democrats are seeing that pattern repeated all across the country. They are tied or ahead among registered voters but trailing badly among likely ones. That seems like one of the easier types of problems to solve. In a state like Ohio, which is already voting, we have a full month to get our voters to the polls. On the other hand, votes are being cast now, before any natural closing of the enthusiasm gap has occurred.
Another distinction of this cycle is that the Republican Party has nominated unorthodox candidates in race after race. Almost none of these candidates do well under increased scrutiny, which adds further grounds for hoping that the gap will narrow as more attention is paid to these races.
But, it’s getting late in the cycle. Russ Feingold should not be losing badly to a complete nut-job. Gallup shows that the Democrats gained during September in every region of the country and among every age group except the elderly (where they held their own), but Nate Silver continues to downgrade the Democrats’ chances nonetheless.
If you don’t want to see Ken Buck and Pat Toomey (or their like) in the U.S. Senate, you should consider contacting your local OFA director and finding out how you can help our candidates. This is getting perilous.
