Discussion for article #222806
May Senator Pryor’s lead grow even (ACA) healthier until election dat.
4 Likes
"Three of the recent polls have shown Pryor with a double-digit lead over Cotton "
= Tossup.
Right.
What fucking planet is Sabato from? Oh yeah: Planet Several-Generations-Ago.
7 Likes
Anyone know Mr. Sabato’s record when ti comes to predicting the future?
1 Like
Landrieu,Hagan,Pryor and probably Nunn are gonna win. Rick Scott will lose his Governor’s race. Can’t wait to see the GOP’s despair over losing those Southern races in a midterm election. A Grimes win would be the nail on the coffin. Begich is gonna win in Alaska too.
10 Likes
Breaking! In face of growing mountain of polling evidence that Pryor is, and at all times has been, ahead in race, dispenser of Beltway Conventional Wisdom reluctantly moves race from “leans Republican” to “tossup!”
6 Likes
Internal polling is where you pull the numbers out of your butt.
2 Likes
I came here to say the same thing. How can anyone take this person seriously?
1 Like
His track record isn’t terrible if looking at aggregate numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabato’s_Crystal_Ball
But he does take a distinctly republican lean in his articles. Like, how big of tsunami will happen in 2014? Right now he is projecting republicans picking up between 4-8 seats in the Senate. That’s quite a stretch, and is based almost entirely on history that the opposition party does well in the president’s 2nd midterm. In my opinion, he is going through some serious gyrations to try and stay true to that pattern.
Republicans are going to pick up 3 seats easily from Dems this year…SD, WV and MT. There are 2 that are in the toss up area, LA and NC (Louisiana pretty much staying there without much movement either way. Hagan’s numbers have tanked from a year ago to a tie, but personally I wouldn’t be surprised to see her start to rise now the republican primary is over). Alaska and Arkansas were supposed to round out their magical number to take the Senate, but polling in both states has not born that out. (Sabato just moved AR to toss up and still has AK that way…despite Beglich always leading in every poll and Pryor holding at least a slight lead for a couple of months now). Both Sabato and Silver are not giving Nunn and Grimes much of a chance, declaring KY and GA to be just far too red to ever vote Dem. Polling in both places has had both of them tied or ahead since the declared. (and for what its worth, KY has a 500,000 Dem edge in registered voters, and nearly every state office is held by Dems, including the governor).
Sabato has gone out on a limb, though, with projecting MN, CO, MI and NH as being states that republicans will pick up in 2014, despite absolutely no polling in any of those places indicating anything of the sort afoot.
Its a bit perplexing this year that several predictors like Sabato and Silver have really bent themselves into pretzel shapes to support a narrative that simply doesn’t have the numbers to back it up. In both cases, they are relying more on the historical trend and Obama having less than stellar numbers right now, and ignoring the actual polling trends.
To a certain degree that may be because the thirst for political handicapping seems to be much stronger, earlier this year, before viable polling trends could be established. Its further complicated because the impact of Obamacare has been difficult to quantify (there aren’t a lot of historical patterns to look to). It’s not playing out for republicans as well as they were trumpeting in the media. (Personally I think it will be a favorable for Dems, just not as favorable as many on here believe. I think voters are just tired of the debate, but are seeing benefits, so its a plus for Dems).
For what its worth, my own projections right now are MT,WV and SD go republican. AK and AR stay Dem. My gut says NC stays Dem, too, but I would feel much better if Hagan would put some distance between herself and Tiller in the polls. LA is anybody guess, and since I am guessing, I am going to guess that Landrieu, who has been in a few tight races, will squeak one out again. I still feel good about Grimes’s chances, but Nunn is at serious risk because she refuses to take any actual policy stances. (she is still running “I love grandma” ads…I am not kidding, that’s all the ads promote. If she continues with that strategy once the primary is over, she is going to be toast).So republicans pick up a net 2-4 seats and fall short of the 6 required.
2 Likes
Pryor wasn’t always ahead. He had a pretty good lead in a generic ballot, but started collapsing, going under after Cotton declared. He really started stabilizing and pulling ahead again about 6-8 weeks ago. I think he is leading, but I am skeptical about the double digit leads that have been coming out of AR lately.
Pryor never really had the negatives that Sabato and others attribute to a Dem in a red state. People there seem to like him (family name and all that) and the definitely seem to like their Dem governor. Cotton however, is not a novice at politics, so this race still needs to have an eye kept on it.
To DaveyJones64 I don’t know where you are reading, but Sabato has MN, CO, MI, and NH as all Lean Democratic in his current rating list.
1 Like
yup, when your internal poll shows a tie, it probably means that the 10 point lead in the public polls is spot-on. And yes, Larry Sabato, like most of the pundits, always leans GOP in his predictions. There is zero consequence for the bad predictions. The MSM is lazy as much as anything, and so they have their go-to guys and gals, Sabato, Cook, Bebitch-Jaffe, even though they are wrong as much as right.
sounds pretty thoughtful and reasonable to me. You are right that ACA is a shifting story, and other than the parodistic red meat obamacare, obamacare, the GOP has backed off some on that, as they are now reduced to arguing that some people’s premiums have gone up or are gonna go up…what is telling is that some GOPPERS are now calling it ACA instead of Obamacare, as its popularity rises to neutral, even in red states, since they do not want Obama getting any credit for it…
Man, a Grimes win would be epic…there might even be an honest vote count there, since the governor is a Dem, and since ACA is popular in the state, I could see Grimes pulling this out against the turtle…that would be wonderful
mediocre middle…
Obamacare is part of it but the Teabaggers entire political system is based on the politics of resentment, which is totally useless for getting anything done. People are starting to realize this.
But did he, but did he do anything about his background his background.
I guess I can ignore PPP(D)'s poll that had Pryor up by 1.
PPP(D) has Hagan and Tillis tied at 41.
The Atlanta CJ has Nunn up by 1 and Saint Leo University has Purdue by 4.
It’s going to be Senate Majority Leader McConnell in January.
Rachel Maddow has a nice story on this. She seems to think that Pryor’s ads tying his opponent to Ryan budget votes that would damage SS and Medicare could be a template for other Dem candidates.