Originally published at: From the Annals of Polling, Part 2 - TPM – Talking Points Memo
In my last post I mentioned this data analysis GOP pollster and consultant Pat Ruffini has put together looking at Senate polling going back through the last four cycles, so 2018 through 2024. Ruffini is a very partisan Republican in all the meanings of that word. But I think of him as broadly reliable when…
The difference between the polls from earlier months to closer to the election to the election itself may reflect the effective deployment of targeted ads by the Republicans closer to the election when there is less time for the Democrats to counter them. That is the way the attack on trans people worked last election. So far the Republicans have been more effective (and less scrupulous) in their last minute advertising campaigns. So the early polls reflect the voters’ view of general conditions and the views closer to.thr elections are after the Republicans have fed them alarming misinformation.