Latest / Decision Desk HQ Podcast / Episode 41: Are Senate Polls Overrating Democrats’ Chances? With Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights

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Episode 41: Are Senate Polls Overrating Democrats’ Chances? With Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights · Decision Desk HQ Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: The redder the state,
0:01
SPEAKER_00: the more the polls overstated the Democrats,
0:03
SPEAKER_00: which if they need to win in a red-leaning state, that's a red flag.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: This sort of tightening pattern has been pretty consistent over the last
0:12
SPEAKER_01: at least three midterm cycles.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: So will it happen again?
0:15
SPEAKER_00: I have a difficult time seeing Democrats winning the Senate if they can't flip Maine
0:19
SPEAKER_00: because they do have to flip these other states that have such a clear red lean.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: If Democrats do manage to win the Senate,
0:26
SPEAKER_01: they will have done so against some pretty steep history here.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Decision Desk HQ podcast.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Geoffrey Skelley, the Chief Elections Analyst here at DDHQ.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Don't look now,
0:50
SPEAKER_00: but Democrats have closed the gap in Decision Desk HQ's Senate forecast to the point
0:54
SPEAKER_00: where it's just about a pure toss up.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: As of August 26th,
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Wednesday,
0:59
SPEAKER_00: we're recording this,
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Republicans have a 52% chance of holding on to their majority while Democrats have
1:05
SPEAKER_00: a 48% chance of winning the upper chamber.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Substantively speaking, more or less a coin flip.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Democratic chances in red-leaning states like Ohio, Alaska, Texas,
1:15
SPEAKER_00: and Iowa have been buoyed by strong polls to the point that
1:19
SPEAKER_00: the Democratic candidates in those states hold at least a small lead in all
1:23
SPEAKER_00: but Iowa.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: But is there a reason to doubt some of this positive polling news for Democrats,
1:28
SPEAKER_00: or at least pause before we accept it without...
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Without question.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: My guest today is Patrick Ruffini, the founding partner at the Republican firm Echelon Insights.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Last week,
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Patrick published an eye-opening post on his Substack,
1:43
SPEAKER_00: The Intersection, which you should all check out, looking at past polling trends.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: In an analysis of Senate polls from 2018 to 2024,
1:51
SPEAKER_00: he found that polls have tended to overstate Democratic performance relative to
1:55
SPEAKER_00: the final outcome, particularly in the summer months.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: So is there a little bit of a summer sugar high we're going to discuss?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: What may be behind this pattern and what could it mean for 2026?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: We will dig into what Patrick found and the potential ramifications on a Senate map
2:10
SPEAKER_00: that for Democrats,
2:12
SPEAKER_00: they'll need to win at least a couple of clearly red-leaning states if they're going
2:16
SPEAKER_00: to have a shot at winning a Senate majority.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: So with that, Patrick, welcome to the Decision Desk HQ Podcast.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Geoffrey.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: It's great to be here.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, obviously, fascinating piece.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: You looked at something like 3,200...
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Polls over the 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024 cycles.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: There were some interesting differences from presidential midterm and we can dig into all that.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if there was sort of a top line thing that you thought would be sort
2:47
SPEAKER_00: of good for people to understand when looking at this.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: So consistently over the last four cycles and actually over the last six cycles,
2:56
SPEAKER_01: I should correct it.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: My piece focused on four cycles because that's what I had like full data from.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: But actually there was a piece on the erstwhile 538 that I was able to retrieve
3:09
SPEAKER_01: that did the analysis of August polling going back to like 1990.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: And so it's literally the last six cycles starting in 2014
3:18
SPEAKER_01: where August polling has been consistently to the left of the final November result.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, what does that mean?
3:26
SPEAKER_01: It means a few things, right?
3:28
SPEAKER_01: But one thing I will say this is not.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: This is not to say that there will be a polling error this time
3:36
SPEAKER_01: because polling error is obviously judged on the basis of the polls in
3:40
SPEAKER_01: the last three weeks of the election.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: We're not in the last three weeks of the election.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: It's also not to say that Democrats won't overperform in a lot of these states, right?
3:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
3:48
SPEAKER_01: the polls are pretty clear and the midterm environment is pretty clear on the fact
3:53
SPEAKER_01: that they should overperform.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: The question is how much?
3:57
SPEAKER_01: And the question is,
3:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:58
SPEAKER_01: kind of looking at past cycles,
4:00
SPEAKER_01: what's kind of the realistic bound of Democratic performance, if anything?
4:05
SPEAKER_01: But I think the very,
4:07
SPEAKER_01: very clear thing that stands out is that you just simply compare August polling to
4:14
SPEAKER_01: the final November election results and ask,
4:18
SPEAKER_01: is this a reliable indicator of where it's going to go?
4:22
SPEAKER_01: And if it misses, does it kind of tend to miss equally on both sides?
4:25
SPEAKER_01: The answer is no.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: For the last six cycles in a row,
4:28
SPEAKER_01: it has overestimated Democrats by about four points or about three to four points.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Adam Finkelstein,
4:34
SPEAKER_01: You know across across the cycles so there's a few things I'll probably want to go
4:39
SPEAKER_01: into here, obviously, because some people have commented well midterm cycles.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: Adam Finkelstein,
4:45
SPEAKER_01: In the last couple of cycles at least ended up pretty accurate in terms of
4:49
SPEAKER_01: the polling and again.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: Not saying anything about what the final polling error is going to be,
4:54
SPEAKER_01: but what we've actually seen in the last two midterm cycles,
4:57
SPEAKER_01: which if history is any guide,
5:00
SPEAKER_01: this should start right around now or in mid-September or after Labor Day.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: You should see in particular in some of these red state contests,
5:09
SPEAKER_01: a tightening of those or a move towards Republicans in some of those contests
5:15
SPEAKER_01: that would align more with the fundamentals of the state.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: That has been the pattern.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: And we've seen a number of,
5:21
SPEAKER_01: we've seen a number of, we've seen a number of, we've seen a number of,
5:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just going back a few cycles, I mean,
5:41
SPEAKER_01: I talk a little bit about the Lindsey Graham versus Jaime Harrison race or even
5:47
SPEAKER_01: the J.D.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Vance race in Ohio, some of the Iowa races too.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: And particularly in some of these red-leaning states, this seems to be a particular problem.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Where you have consistent polling,
5:58
SPEAKER_01: especially in the summer,
6:00
SPEAKER_01: that tends to, you know, give Democrats, it seemed to give them a really good shot.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: It seems to, you know, at least on paper, make these toss ups.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think there's a reality check that eventually has to happen, right?
6:16
SPEAKER_01: With that,
6:16
SPEAKER_01: is that what's the track record of these polls that Claim that there's a toss up in,
6:21
SPEAKER_01: you know, a lot of these red leaning states.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
6:26
SPEAKER_01: I think factoring that in,
6:27
SPEAKER_01: I think that look, I think this phenomenon I don't think is new.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm uncovering anything new.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people have had this into,
6:34
SPEAKER_01: at least around the campaign space,
6:36
SPEAKER_01: have had this intuition before that August polling isn't really worth it.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: It's salt,
6:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
6:42
SPEAKER_01: very much that you should kind of just wait until,
6:45
SPEAKER_01: you know, in the summer, you should kind of just lay low, wait until September.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: I think Chuck Todd made this point that like,
6:51
SPEAKER_01: you know, we're rediscovering the wisdom of the ancients and the ancients.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Right.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, but data is allowing us perhaps to uncover it.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've put up on screen for folks watching the podcast,
7:07
SPEAKER_00: sort of the lead chart that has,
7:10
SPEAKER_00: takes in all of this information that you,
7:13
SPEAKER_00: and the fit line,
7:14
SPEAKER_00: and you can see that,
7:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Because roughly where we're out,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: like 70 days or so now that you published this last week,
7:22
SPEAKER_00: it's five or so points off of the final margin on average across
7:31
SPEAKER_00: all these polls.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: It's not to say that there weren't some that were missing to the right.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: It's just that,
7:36
SPEAKER_00: as you said,
7:36
SPEAKER_00: they more commonly were missing to the left and to the point that it was
7:40
SPEAKER_00: a bit systematic at the end of the day.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that I think raises questions about obviously why that happened.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: But I thought a good place to start might be to talk a little bit about because
7:53
SPEAKER_00: of some of the things that have been raised talking about sort
7:55
SPEAKER_00: of presidential polling versus midterm polling.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And the presidential polling,
8:00
SPEAKER_00: it seemed like this was worse,
8:02
SPEAKER_00: but it's not that it didn't exist in the midterm polling either.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: And so I think,
8:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
8:08
SPEAKER_01: there are two distinctive patterns when it comes to presidential versus midterm is
8:11
SPEAKER_01: that the presidential essentially tends to Be wrong and stay wrong,
8:16
SPEAKER_01: at least in the last two elections that Trump was running.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think you'd probably say this, probably mostly say the same thing about 2016.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it wasn't different.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: We all remember what happened in 2016.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: But these are the cycles where we have full time series data on.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: So there wasn't as much variation between the polls in the summer, Yeah, absolutely.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: In these presidential years where you're maybe not capturing systematically across
9:01
SPEAKER_01: the cycle,
9:02
SPEAKER_01: not capturing the electorate that has shown up or is going to show up in November.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is a legitimate criticism that could be made of polling based on this,
9:11
SPEAKER_01: because it's not like it necessarily gets...
9:14
SPEAKER_01: Better in 2020,
9:15
SPEAKER_01: it did not get better at all,
9:17
SPEAKER_01: or did not get closer to the final outcome as you advance to election day.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: The last two midterm cycles is a very clear drop off where you have particularly
9:30
SPEAKER_01: the polls right around the time of the publication, right?
9:33
SPEAKER_01: It was 77 days out about a week ago.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And it peaks right around then in terms of the,
9:39
SPEAKER_01: let's say the pro,
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Democratic bias in the polls and then all of a sudden it starts tightening.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: So there seems to be something about voters engaging in a midterm.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it's not a surprise.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, political junkies pretty much bringing attention 24-7.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: They probably say almost as much attention to midterms as presidential elections.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: The few of us.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: We are not normal.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: I think it's very normal for,
10:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:04
SPEAKER_01: kind of the voter at home to You know,
10:09
SPEAKER_01: kind of have different behavior when it comes to midterms of presidential elections,
10:14
SPEAKER_01: which is to say,
10:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm not really going to focus on,
10:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:19
SPEAKER_01: who my senator should be until the third week of October when I have
10:22
SPEAKER_01: to start early voting or I have to do something.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
10:25
SPEAKER_01: here you kind of see,
10:26
SPEAKER_01: at least over the last two cycles,
10:28
SPEAKER_01: this pretty clear trend, right,
10:31
SPEAKER_01: in the midterms where you see this,
10:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:35
SPEAKER_01: reversion to You know,
10:38
SPEAKER_01: particularly in red states,
10:39
SPEAKER_01: it's a red state driven phenomenon where the polls at the end end up in
10:44
SPEAKER_01: the midterms were pretty accurate,
10:45
SPEAKER_01: but the polls in August are not as as reliable an indicator,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: at least of the last couple cycles.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Same was true, though, in 2014.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was another cycle where Republicans seem to close strong at the end.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: And so, look.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: It used to be right.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: I think, um, polls miss on both sides.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that, that,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: that has been an article of faith and that,
11:07
SPEAKER_01: that is empirically backed up, uh,
11:11
SPEAKER_01: as far as, um,
11:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:12
SPEAKER_01: if you look at pre 2014,
11:15
SPEAKER_01: where it actually was the case, um, you know, in that five 38 article, right.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: In the five 38 data that was in a piece,
11:21
SPEAKER_01: I think was,
11:22
SPEAKER_01: is Ted Cruz really screwed and talking about his race against, uh,
11:26
SPEAKER_01: against Beto O'Rourke,
11:28
SPEAKER_01: uh, in, uh, in 2018, uh, And it really compared the August versus November results.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you would see a new pattern starting in 2014.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Could be tied to Trump.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: It could be tied to, you know, maybe 2014 was the first cycle.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: We actually saw evidence of some of the education polarization actually pre-Trump.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: And maybe that was maybe that was the catalyst.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: But it's really no longer the case that,
11:54
SPEAKER_01: OK, this type of error
11:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking specifically the August to November era.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: It's not to say that there aren't cycles where it can't be pretty accurate
12:06
SPEAKER_01: or even overestimate Republicans or elections where it can overestimate Republicans.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: But it really just the claim here is August versus November.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: This sort of tightening pattern has been pretty consistent over the last
12:19
SPEAKER_01: at least three midterm cycles.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: So will it happen again?
12:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, we, I,
12:26
SPEAKER_01: I certainly,
12:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna put a hundred percent chance on it,
12:29
SPEAKER_01: but it's something greater than 50.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously it's,
12:33
SPEAKER_00: it's to your point that that's the reason I think we should,
12:38
SPEAKER_00: and you mentioned this earlier,
12:40
SPEAKER_00: but it reminds me of sort of,
12:41
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:41
SPEAKER_00: the conversation between polling and fundamentals,
12:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: obviously as we get closer to election day,
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I think polling,
12:48
SPEAKER_00: this evidence would,
12:49
SPEAKER_00: would show why it is worth maybe paying,
12:51
SPEAKER_00: you know, closer and closer attention to what the polls are showing.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: But that's also because the polls may be moving somewhat toward the fundamentals at
12:58
SPEAKER_00: the end of the day and say like a red-leaning state where for whatever reason,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: maybe Ken Paxton’s been slow to coalesce Republican support or something in Texas.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: But the reality that Texas is a red-leaning state and a lot
13:10
SPEAKER_00: of those like undecided voters, and we can talk about that.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: I know you talked a little bit about undecided voters,
13:15
SPEAKER_00: are coming home at the end of the day to their party because
13:18
SPEAKER_00: the undecided voters lean right.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: And so if they end up becoming engaged to some extent,
13:23
SPEAKER_00: They're going to move disproportionately into the Republican column in this case.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And so that makes a lot of intuitive sense to me.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's great when we have data that
13:37
SPEAKER_01: confirms intuitions.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes, no, yeah, for sure.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And I was going to say that I think you noted that this seems to happen even
13:49
SPEAKER_00: a little bit more In competitive cycle or competitive races or races we have a lot
13:54
SPEAKER_00: of data for,
13:56
SPEAKER_00: which is,
13:56
SPEAKER_00: of course,
13:57
SPEAKER_00: a little disturbing because,
13:59
SPEAKER_00: of course, that's it's like, in theory, we have more data.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: We should feel we should feel, you know, our our end is larger for the polls for a race.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh,
14:08
SPEAKER_00: surely the data is a little better,
14:10
SPEAKER_00: but at least in terms of what your observation here
14:13
SPEAKER_00: of overstating Democratic performance in August, that doesn't seem to be the case.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean,
14:19
SPEAKER_01: the number of polls in a race,
14:20
SPEAKER_01: and we define competitive based on the number of polls in a race,
14:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:25
SPEAKER_01: so obviously the majority of the polls will be in these races,
14:28
SPEAKER_01: but it actually doesn't mean that, oh,
14:30
SPEAKER_01: we were just not getting good measurements in August because, oh,
14:33
SPEAKER_01: there was maybe one poll and,
14:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:36
SPEAKER_01: a bunch of random stuff we're getting in August, but these are heavily polled races.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Heavily polled races were not necessarily more accurate than the overall race
14:47
SPEAKER_01: in fact, this shows the bias was even greater in those races
14:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think it also, what matters is the definition of what’s a competitive seat
14:57
SPEAKER_01: So, just in terms of the particular composition of the Senate battleground seats
15:03
SPEAKER_01: It used to be, right, you’re really talking about a lot of the presidential battlegrounds
15:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the modal Senate battleground seat is a presidential battleground seat.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: And these days, yes, those seats can be competitive, especially in presidential years.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: But really the modal seat that the Democrats need to carry now is
15:24
SPEAKER_01: a Trump plus 12 seat or,
15:27
SPEAKER_01: you know, around Trump plus 10, Trump plus 12 in the Senate.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: To gain a Senate majority.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: And so it's really those states that you want to really be focusing on what
15:37
SPEAKER_01: the pattern is there as opposed to the battlegrounds.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Actually, the battleground.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, one of the things, you know, maybe you have this chart, right?
15:45
SPEAKER_01: That kind of looks at the partisanship of the state.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: But, you know,
15:48
SPEAKER_01: what I find when I look at the partisanship of the state is actually you look
15:51
SPEAKER_01: at midterms.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Kind of presidential battleground seats,
15:56
SPEAKER_01: states like Georgia,
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Arizona,
15:58
SPEAKER_01: we've had obviously Pennsylvania,
16:00
SPEAKER_01: you've had contests like this and off your cycles,
16:04
SPEAKER_01: where the polling tends to be actually pretty accurate in those, right?
16:09
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of this is, okay,
16:12
SPEAKER_01: maybe we have experience with polling presidential cycles and we know,
16:18
SPEAKER_01: it's kind of speculation at the end of the day.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: But what seems to be the case is this kind of a straight line continuum where
16:25
SPEAKER_01: the redder the state, the worse the error is.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: And the presidential cycles, it tends to be worse.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: Exactly this.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: I brought up that chart for folks who are watching or listening.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: The redder the state, the more the polls overstated the Democrats,
16:40
SPEAKER_00: which if they need to win in a red-leaning state, that's a red flag, literally.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: And so, yes.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that we see on this, right,
16:52
SPEAKER_01: is you see that cluster of states that's kind of on target, right,
16:56
SPEAKER_01: on what seems to be right on target in terms of not having any bias and also is,
17:00
SPEAKER_01: was,
17:02
SPEAKER_01: you know, close to the national or close to 50-50 in the last presidential election.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: So it's close.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: That ends up on average about,
17:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:10
SPEAKER_01: at that point, you're really talking about a one or two point polling error.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: And this is a midterm cycle.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: So to the extent, okay, we have polling in Georgia, right?
17:19
SPEAKER_01: To the extent we have polling, we have North Carolina.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: I would trust those polls a little bit more.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: But they're also – those states are not very – I mean they're outside the realm
17:29
SPEAKER_01: of being the most competitive seats, right?
17:32
SPEAKER_00: The Senate won't be decided on those in this election.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: They won't be the ones making or breaking either party.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess they could break the Democrats if Republicans held North Carolina.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: But obviously Democrats need North Carolina and then more.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, those aren't the crucial states.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: The crucial states are really further, obviously further to the right.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
18:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying there's a dramatic and there's necessarily a dramatic difference,
18:03
SPEAKER_01: but it does seem to be the case in particular that,
18:07
SPEAKER_01: you know, the right or the state.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: The less accurate the polls get and the more they understate the Republican.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: The same is not necessarily true in blue states.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: So in blue states, yeah,
18:20
SPEAKER_01: you tend to have that, you know, kind of that midterm line, but going under there.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: But overall,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: what you tend to get is where you tend to get the most accurate polling is in
18:31
SPEAKER_01: a very blue state and it tends to accurately state the Democrat,
18:36
SPEAKER_01: right, in those elections.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: But the same is not true.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: In those Republican states,
18:41
SPEAKER_01: that what you're seeing is those Republican states are way underestimating.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I kind of bring that comparison up is you might think,
18:47
SPEAKER_01: okay, there's reversion to the mean.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: You have undecideds.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: You have, yeah,
18:50
SPEAKER_01: the polls don't necessarily capture Wyoming very well because, yeah,
18:55
SPEAKER_01: you have that undecided vote in Wyoming that all breaks it to the Republican in
18:59
SPEAKER_01: the end or something like that.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: And the one or two data points we have in Wyoming would probably show that.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: But- But you'd only have two in Wyoming.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: On average, Massachusetts is accurately polled as a very blue state.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: It's not equal on both sides.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: We've made some references to things that could be behind this.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Some of this is a larger conversation about some of the problems
19:36
SPEAKER_00: that polling has just, I think, had generally.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: In sort of the Trump era,
19:42
SPEAKER_00: particularly with,
19:43
SPEAKER_00: especially in presidential cycles,
19:45
SPEAKER_00: and maybe who are the polls sort of missing or under-representing in their samples
19:50
SPEAKER_00: and that kind of thing.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: But I, you know,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: one of the things that you certainly showed and really backs up exactly that kind
19:58
SPEAKER_00: of idea is that States where there's a larger percentage that is of
20:05
SPEAKER_00: the electorate that's white with a non-college,
20:08
SPEAKER_00: a white,
20:09
SPEAKER_00: non-Hispanic white with no four-year college degree,
20:13
SPEAKER_00: this tends to be a larger error.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: And what are a lot of those states?
20:15
SPEAKER_00: The same ones that Trump overperformed the polls in 2016, 2020, 2024,
20:21
SPEAKER_00: across especially sort of the Rust Belt,
20:23
SPEAKER_00: the Midwest,
20:24
SPEAKER_00: critical states and states that have Some critical center races in places like Ohio
20:29
SPEAKER_00: or Iowa in this cycle and Michigan.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, and this is, you know, decided to kind of throw this into a model.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty rough, right?
20:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so this is,
20:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: you know, specifically kind of looking at what kind of states predict poll error.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, like what really stands out, you have Trump two-way share and white non-college.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: They're both kind of.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: Both significant, right?
20:57
SPEAKER_01: But the white non-college, and I think for the nerds on here, right?
21:01
SPEAKER_01: The error bars on that are a little bit less, right?
21:05
SPEAKER_01: Which means the model's a little bit more confident in that as sort of
21:08
SPEAKER_01: the explanation or as an explanation.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
21:12
SPEAKER_01: when we eventually look at state by state,
21:16
SPEAKER_01: what this tends to mean is,
21:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:18
SPEAKER_01: we have intuitive,
21:19
SPEAKER_01: again, intuitively have had big misses and In these upper Midwest states, right?
21:27
SPEAKER_01: We've had them in particular in states like Ohio and sort of
21:33
SPEAKER_01: the more right leaning upper Midwest states, right?
21:40
SPEAKER_01: You know,
21:41
SPEAKER_01: maybe a little bit less,
21:42
SPEAKER_01: maybe I would say maybe a little bit less in those, again,
21:44
SPEAKER_01: those competitive swing states,
21:45
SPEAKER_01: but the one that lean a little bit further right where Democrats do need
21:49
SPEAKER_01: to make inroads.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
21:52
SPEAKER_01: that seems to be the predictor, right,
21:54
SPEAKER_01: of polling error, right, where,
21:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:58
SPEAKER_01: particular,
21:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:59
SPEAKER_01: these Midwest states, but even Maine, Even Alaska, where we've had polls in Alaska.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: We obviously remember the big 2020 miss in Maine.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: But those are all states with relatively high percentages of white voters
22:15
SPEAKER_01: without college degrees.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Now, where we actually see polls have a better track record was in the Sun Belt,
22:21
SPEAKER_01: honestly, where you have less.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember Georgia polling, Arizona polling, relatively good at the end of the day.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: North Carolina, decent,
22:31
SPEAKER_01: you know.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: And that's,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: I think, I mean, again,
22:36
SPEAKER_01: a lot of this is speculation,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: but when you have,
22:38
SPEAKER_01: let's say,
22:39
SPEAKER_01: a bulwark of Democratic or say a kind of minority,
22:44
SPEAKER_01: a stable minority population or a large minority population that actually,
22:50
SPEAKER_01: at the end of the day,
22:50
SPEAKER_01: kind of gets pulled accurately,
22:53
SPEAKER_01: that might absorb a lot of the error, that might take in a lot of the error.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of question, right?
22:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you're polling Georgia,
23:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you need to have that Black voter percentage pretty nailed.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: You're going to have it pretty nailed down.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Like a third or so, you know, something in that vicinity.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 30-ish.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's going to be there.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: And that is going to be roughly, I mean, yeah, yeah.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Certainly we've seen movement towards Republicans in recent cycles, but that's going to be 90%.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, 10 Democrats, whatever it is.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And then on the white vote,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: I think you have a pretty decent segmentation between Metro Atlanta and the rest of
23:37
SPEAKER_01: the state where you have these very well-defined ways of leading your surveys,
23:43
SPEAKER_01: which I think can keep things pretty well in check.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: You know,
23:47
SPEAKER_01: particularly when you have these pretty ethnically racially divided But what about
23:53
SPEAKER_01: a state like Wisconsin?
23:56
SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about the polling area in Wisconsin,
23:58
SPEAKER_01: talking about maybe a little bit less so in Michigan,
24:00
SPEAKER_01: but especially in Wisconsin,
24:02
SPEAKER_01: where it's really kind of hard to distinguish between that white non-college voter
24:09
SPEAKER_01: in Wisconsin who's going to go for Harris or Trump,
24:12
SPEAKER_01: because they tend to be kind of next door neighbors,
24:14
SPEAKER_01: like no place kind of outside Milwaukee or Madison.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, most of those places are 55-45.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: So if you're looking at weighting targets for a survey in Wisconsin,
24:27
SPEAKER_01: a survey in a lot of these upper Midwest states,
24:29
SPEAKER_01: it's just a lot harder to basically have a proxy baked into your
24:37
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's a really good question.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really good question.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really good question.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: I think pollsters have mostly done a good job since 2016 of actually waiting
25:00
SPEAKER_01: on education and actually representing those white non-college voters.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: I think the question is when you get those white non-college voters on the phone
25:11
SPEAKER_01: or you get them on text, are you capturing the full intensity?
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Support that exists for Trump and by extension for other Republicans.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: And I think the evidence has been pretty spotty, right?
25:24
SPEAKER_01: That, you know,
25:25
SPEAKER_01: if you just get into these states that are deep red,
25:28
SPEAKER_01: you really see this problem very clearly.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know,
25:32
SPEAKER_01: you're going to have an 80%-20% area or 70%-30% area that's going to come back 70%-30%
25:38
SPEAKER_01: or 60%-40%.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times people, I think we don't pay as much attention to this problem as pollsters.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: These are not typically the competitive states in elections,
25:51
SPEAKER_01: but more and more they are in Senate,
25:53
SPEAKER_01: potentially more and more they are in Senate elections.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: So we have to get good at this.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: We have to get good at figuring out even these states
26:00
SPEAKER_01: that are not typically competitive at the presidential level,
26:03
SPEAKER_01: what do we do with them in a Senate cycle or in a midterm cycle?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this, I mean,
26:08
SPEAKER_00: this very much connects,
26:09
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:09
SPEAKER_00: talking about like non-response to sort of one of the fundamental questions
26:13
SPEAKER_00: that pollsters keep running into,
26:15
SPEAKER_00: which is,
26:16
SPEAKER_00: are the people who answer polls fundamentally different in important ways from
26:19
SPEAKER_00: the people who don't?
26:21
SPEAKER_00: And then is there sort of correlation between sort of Uh,
26:25
SPEAKER_00: partisanship or, or,
26:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:26
SPEAKER_00: things like this talk about things like social alienation or,
26:30
SPEAKER_00: or people being disconnected and frustrated,
26:32
SPEAKER_00: maybe certain people who are less likely to,
26:35
SPEAKER_00: to answer a poll,
26:36
SPEAKER_00: even a Republican who is more likely to answer a poll differs in important ways
26:39
SPEAKER_00: from Republican who isn't.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: And that at the end of the day,
26:42
SPEAKER_00: you end up under sort of,
26:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:44
SPEAKER_00: underrepresenting in your sample that in
26:46
SPEAKER_00: a way you can't necessarily wait your way out of.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that Because obviously there was all this talk about shy Trump voters
26:54
SPEAKER_00: and whatnot,
26:54
SPEAKER_00: but it was really just,
26:56
SPEAKER_00: it wasn't that they were shy,
26:57
SPEAKER_00: it was just that there was a fundamental difficulty in sort of reaching them.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: That I think this data and the fact that it pops up across the places,
27:07
SPEAKER_00: very much the same places we saw President Trump underestimated
27:11
SPEAKER_00: in presidential races,
27:13
SPEAKER_00: that shouted at me when I looked at your chart,
27:15
SPEAKER_00: which I'll bring up now actually,
27:18
SPEAKER_00: you have a chart here with, Sort of the, the, that average error across States.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, and, and to your point, you noted Georgia quite good, North Carolina, not too bad.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, you know, four points is not bad, honestly.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to ask you about Texas too,
27:37
SPEAKER_00: because Texas and Georgia,
27:38
SPEAKER_00: obviously both important races this cycle,
27:41
SPEAKER_00: but then yeah, Ohio, Iowa,
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Michigan six,
27:44
SPEAKER_00: seven ish,
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Maine up close to eight,
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Alaska nine,
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And you did adjust it in this other version for how much each state was polled,
27:53
SPEAKER_00: because obviously some were polled more than others,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: but the broad strokes were similar.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and again,
28:00
SPEAKER_01: it tells the Sunbelt versus Rust Belt story pretty nicely in terms of
28:04
SPEAKER_01: the polling error.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Again, it would be fun if we didn't have key Senate elections in the Rust Belt,
28:11
SPEAKER_01: but that's not the reality.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: And you could just skate by on your Georgia or North Carolina numbers in this polling.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, Texas is an interesting one.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Where I would say Republicans can take a little bit less comfort out of Texas,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: I feel like, because of, you know, there's probably lots of reasons.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think there's a fair chance you'll see some Latino reversion.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: And so some of the,
28:38
SPEAKER_01: let's say,
28:39
SPEAKER_01: the Trump plus 13 number, right,
28:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:42
SPEAKER_01: the previous presidential margin might be a little bit softer in Texas as
28:46
SPEAKER_01: a target compared to,
28:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:48
SPEAKER_01: a state like Ohio where there's just deep,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: these are deep, almost,
28:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:54
SPEAKER_01: That feel like permanent divisions in the electorate that,
28:59
SPEAKER_01: you know, get harder and harder to shake over time.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: But I think, yeah, you're right.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: You're seeing,
29:05
SPEAKER_01: you know, again,
29:06
SPEAKER_01: these plain states,
29:07
SPEAKER_01: these interior states where,
29:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:09
SPEAKER_01: when we do have,
29:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:12
SPEAKER_01: when they pop up on the radar, You know, it's going to be a Dan Osborn in Nebraska.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: I remember, oh, the panic over Greg Orman versus Pat Roberts in 2014 in Kansas, right?
29:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have these kind of every now and again,
29:27
SPEAKER_01: these early polls, and maybe it's now with these independents that they're running.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: But I just remember,
29:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:37
SPEAKER_01: even going back to 2024,
29:39
SPEAKER_01: In Nebraska,
29:41
SPEAKER_01: where you had what seemed like
29:43
SPEAKER_01: a vulnerable incumbent versus this upstart independent, you know, in Dan Osborn.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: And I was like,
29:51
SPEAKER_01: it was just hard,
29:52
SPEAKER_01: I think hard for me,
29:54
SPEAKER_01: probably a little bit hard for a lot of other people to take seriously, right?
29:59
SPEAKER_01: This idea that like, oh, this is actually, this is actually on the board.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: Because I think,
30:05
SPEAKER_01: I think intuitively,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people In this community,
30:09
SPEAKER_01: I've kind of processed that this is a thing and you have these summer,
30:14
SPEAKER_01: oh my God, we have a summer PPP poll in South Dakota, right?
30:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh my God, South Dakota is now competitive.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: So I think there's been a little bit of a crying wolf aspect of this where, okay,
30:27
SPEAKER_01: in these plain states,
30:29
SPEAKER_01: in these deep,
30:29
SPEAKER_01: deep red states, that we're maybe going to discount it a little bit, right?
30:35
SPEAKER_01: We're maybe going to discount it a little bit,
30:36
SPEAKER_01: but You know,
30:38
SPEAKER_01: history has shown us if you're discounting Nebraska to a certain degree,
30:42
SPEAKER_01: you're also kind of discounting Iowa.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: You're discounting Ohio.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: You're discounting some of the states that, you know, maybe not as red.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the Democrat can legitimately get within single digits.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: And maybe they have a history of crossing over.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
30:59
SPEAKER_01: you could see it's within if you squint that you could see the possibility
31:04
SPEAKER_01: of Democrats seeking it out.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: But it's really the same dynamic at play as you would see in Nebraska
31:10
SPEAKER_01: to South Dakota and a lot of these deeper red states.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about with the
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Sort of the, just looking, thinking about the Senate map in this particular election.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
31:26
SPEAKER_00: we've touched on,
31:27
SPEAKER_00: there's Texas right now,
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Talarico,
31:30
SPEAKER_00: James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, has a small lead there, you know.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: A couple points, point or two.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Georgia, Jon Ossoff is looking a little more secure for Democrats.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: It's Georgia,
31:41
SPEAKER_00: so I don't think anyone would ever say he's dead certain to win,
31:43
SPEAKER_00: but he's certainly polling pretty well.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: And then in North Carolina, Roy Cooper is pulling heads for the Democrats.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: So right there, if they were to win Texas, which is a huge if, I want to make that clear.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: But thinking about sort of the sunbelt and maybe feeling a little more Uh,
32:04
SPEAKER_00: certainty that,
32:05
SPEAKER_00: that there hasn't been as much error in those States,
32:08
SPEAKER_00: but even then,
32:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:11
SPEAKER_00: that would be,
32:12
SPEAKER_00: uh, because Georgia wouldn't be a pickup for Democrats that'd be a hold.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: You're talking about, okay,
32:16
SPEAKER_00: let's say they just get those two Sunbelt states and that's two,
32:19
SPEAKER_00: but they got to find two more and not lose any.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And then you're getting into the conversation about some of these Midwestern States
32:25
SPEAKER_00: where,
32:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:26
SPEAKER_00: for instance, I mean,
32:27
SPEAKER_00: it is striking,
32:28
SPEAKER_00: you know, Sherrod Brown and, uh, And in a few polls has had a larger lead.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Some of them is just smaller on average.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: I think right now he's up by like five in our polling average.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: I think there's,
32:37
SPEAKER_00: there've been some Fox News polls that have consistently had him up by more
32:41
SPEAKER_00: than I would expect.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's, I'm not throwing shade at Fox News here.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: I think they,
32:46
SPEAKER_00: they do a pretty good job of trying to get a read on what's going on in
32:49
SPEAKER_00: the election,
32:50
SPEAKER_00: but every pollster is going to have their, maybe there's a state-specific thing
32:54
SPEAKER_00: about what they've got going on versus what others have got going on.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And I've just noticed that they've had sort of the outliers there
33:01
SPEAKER_00: that are particularly favorable for Brown.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: And it seems at odds with the fundamentals.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: I believe Sherrod Brown could win that race,
33:10
SPEAKER_00: but I would assume that if he does win, it's going to be like a point.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, two points, you know, surely not much more than that.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Just because Ohio, I mean,
33:20
SPEAKER_00: President Trump carried it by like 11 points and there's,
33:25
SPEAKER_00: there can certainly be midterm swing,
33:26
SPEAKER_00: but is there going to be that much midterm swing?
33:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's,
33:31
SPEAKER_00: and that also raises questions for places like Michigan and Iowa,
33:34
SPEAKER_00: obviously Michigan,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: you know, are Republicans in a position where maybe they actually are.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: They have a better shot with Abdul El-Sayed not pulling as well to be able to win in
33:43
SPEAKER_00: a state like Michigan.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Or Iowa is actually, hence, safer than we think on the Republican side.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Or safer may be the wrong word.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Not as in danger as maybe we might think.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, the one thing I would say Michigan, right?
34:00
SPEAKER_01: Why don't we immediately bring it up in this context?
34:04
SPEAKER_01: It's not a deep red state.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: It hasn't voted for Trump by anything more than a point.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: And so historically, the polls in those types of states have been pretty accurate.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: Polls, you know,
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Michigan in the last couple of cycles, I think have been pretty accurate, right?
34:19
SPEAKER_01: In terms of the Senate, maybe, you know, maybe we saw the John James thing, right?
34:25
SPEAKER_01: But where I think maybe they're a little less vulnerable to,
34:29
SPEAKER_01: let's say,
34:29
SPEAKER_01: this type of error is that it feels like there's probably a little bit more slack in
34:33
SPEAKER_01: the Democratic vote, right?
34:35
SPEAKER_01: Where you could see,
34:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:37
SPEAKER_01: there's probably a legitimate question mark of, okay,
34:39
SPEAKER_01: else I yet consolidating,
34:41
SPEAKER_01: maybe two things are happening at once,
34:43
SPEAKER_01: you have the polling error,
34:44
SPEAKER_01: but else I yet consolidates He's unusually late in consolidating his base,
34:50
SPEAKER_01: just like, you know, Republicans are maybe late in consolidating their base.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, those two things cancel each other out.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: But Ohio in particular has been egregious,
35:02
SPEAKER_01: I think,
35:02
SPEAKER_01: over the last few cycles in terms of seeing a lot of hype around competitiveness or,
35:09
SPEAKER_01: you know, just consistent polling.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: Showing the Democrat ahead or pretty consistent polling showing the Democrat ahead
35:17
SPEAKER_01: and just not not really panning out
35:20
SPEAKER_01: in the end.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think that that applies very much to Bernie Moreno versus Sherrod Brown in 2024.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, Sherrod Brown was pulling ahead for most of that race.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: And then also to Tim Ryan versus JD
35:33
SPEAKER_01: Vance, you know,
35:34
SPEAKER_01: in 2022, where, again,
35:36
SPEAKER_01: that was one where,
35:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
35:37
SPEAKER_01: for most of the cycle,
35:39
SPEAKER_01: most of the polls had You know,
35:42
SPEAKER_01: Tim Ryan, you know, ahead or, you know, tied or I think mostly ahead.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: And then only in late October, right, does sort of reality set in, right?
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Only in the last week do we actually get some polls that are okay in the ballpark
35:56
SPEAKER_01: of what's actually going to end up happening in a state like Ohio.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: So I mean,
36:00
SPEAKER_01: history has been pretty strong in terms of that being a very heavily pulled state
36:05
SPEAKER_01: where this exact same dynamic has taken place.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you,
36:11
SPEAKER_00: given this analysis and obviously your work as a pollster,
36:15
SPEAKER_00: I was curious what you make of Alaska.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Because Alaska is obviously,
36:19
SPEAKER_00: there is a universe,
36:20
SPEAKER_00: I think right now in our forecast,
36:22
SPEAKER_00: if you play out the simulations,
36:23
SPEAKER_00: there's like a 6% chance that Alaska decides the majority.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: And of course,
36:28
SPEAKER_00: if that is the case,
36:29
SPEAKER_00: like if it's the 51st Democratic seat or the 50th Republican seat,
36:34
SPEAKER_00: it could be a while because between the many remote communities and
36:39
SPEAKER_00: the mail voting taking a while there and then ranked choice voting on top of that,
36:43
SPEAKER_00: if no one has a majority of first choice votes, it could take a little bit.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: But obviously, Alaska has not polled a ton.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: But then you have a situation where it is looking like an important state
36:56
SPEAKER_00: in all this, a very important state.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And so obviously it's got its unique challenges, I would imagine.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: But then on top of that, it's not pulled that often by major pollsters.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: And then they have to go and try to make sense of it.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And so I was just kind of curious for your thoughts on that.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Because Alaska is always, I think Alaska is just kind of permanently fascinating.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's where you see,
37:18
SPEAKER_01: all right, the asterisks here around, oh, Democrats can't do it.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think, look,
37:23
SPEAKER_01: the case, right,
37:25
SPEAKER_01: that I've made before is that if you actually look at states that have been carried
37:28
SPEAKER_01: by the presidential candidate and the opposite,
37:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
37:32
SPEAKER_01: by one presidential candidate by 10 points or more,
37:36
SPEAKER_01: you have to go back to,
37:38
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
37:38
SPEAKER_01: to 2018 to see an instance of the opposite party winning a state like that.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: You have to go back to 2017,
37:46
SPEAKER_01: Doug Jones versus Roy Moore to see it without an incumbent running.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: And you have to go back to 2012 and Joe Donnelly,
37:57
SPEAKER_01: maybe North Carolina,
37:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry,
37:59
SPEAKER_01: North Dakota too,
38:01
SPEAKER_01: where it was like, oh,
38:03
SPEAKER_01: these are states that really went against the presidential with an open seat,
38:11
SPEAKER_01: with a challenger, an open seat, right?
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And so- Rick Berg, I will forever not quite understand what happened there.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Exactly,
38:19
SPEAKER_00: exactly, right,
38:20
SPEAKER_00: so- That one,
38:22
SPEAKER_00: the Richard Mourdock losing in Indiana,
38:24
SPEAKER_00: you could find some controversies with him and stuff.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: The Rick Berg one was harder to figure against Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's sort of the trend.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: Now, I think we'd have to acknowledge, right?
38:38
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's important to acknowledge that if Democrats do manage to win
38:42
SPEAKER_01: the Senate, they will have done so against some pretty steep history here.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: We will have seen I mean, I do take it seriously that it could happen.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that you have maybe a couple of idiosyncrasies on the map,
39:06
SPEAKER_01: I think you have Alaska's an idiosyncratic state.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: You have Ken Paxton, a uniquely weak candidate in Texas.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: So Democrats could very easily get lucky with, Yes,
39:20
SPEAKER_01: the combination of things that really is enough to push those states to be
39:26
SPEAKER_01: the first states since 2012.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: We've had an open seat candidate in a regularly scheduled election actually or
39:36
SPEAKER_01: a challenger in a regularly scheduled election defy the partisan odds in that state.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: But I think we'd have to acknowledge how unusual that would be if that were to happen.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: But as far as Alaska goes, We've had the primary right so that there's an indication.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the I think a legitimate either criticisms or points
39:57
SPEAKER_01: that Democrats would make is that that is the fact that look,
40:00
SPEAKER_01: primary vote composition is pretty good indicator historically,
40:05
SPEAKER_01: maybe not state by state,
40:06
SPEAKER_01: but nationally,
40:07
SPEAKER_01: if you compare it,
40:08
SPEAKER_01: it's been stronger for Democrats since it wasn't,
40:11
SPEAKER_01: you know, it's actually been stronger for Democrats than it was in 2018.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: In terms of their primaries voting,
40:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:18
SPEAKER_01: I might argue to that that Democrats have had
40:20
SPEAKER_01: an unusually competitive primary elections in a lot of states where,
40:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:27
SPEAKER_01: there hasn't been the same ability with the exception of a North Carolina
40:31
SPEAKER_01: to shut down primary challenges to,
40:36
SPEAKER_01: you know, the Schumer, DSCC-backed candidates that there used to be.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: And so that has driven a ton of Democratic primary turnout.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Now, whether or not,
40:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:49
SPEAKER_01: does that count against the kind of clear partisan split in the primary turnout?
40:55
SPEAKER_01: But that's that's an argument I think Democrats could make plausibly,
40:59
SPEAKER_01: legitimately that, look,
41:00
SPEAKER_01: energy is higher on the Democratic side compared to,
41:05
SPEAKER_01: you know, compared to previous cycles.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: And again,
41:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:07
SPEAKER_01: primary vote composition is Tends to be a pretty good indicator going into
41:11
SPEAKER_01: the midterm.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: So regarding Alaska, right, we obviously just had the primary there.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: It looks like Peltola got 49%.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: And at least I don't know if it's shifted in the last few votes.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know there were still a few more votes they're tabulating because,
41:28
SPEAKER_00: again, it does take a little bit.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: And then I think it's kind of like, how do you count fake Dan Sullivan?
41:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: As a Republican.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: But that's not a helpful fact for, you know, incumbent Dan Sullivan.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I would say, what is it?
41:45
SPEAKER_01: I want to say it came out like, OK, the combined Democratic vote was like 50%.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: Republicans are at 47%.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: Other Dan Sullivan was at three, something like that.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's how mentally I came out with that.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm there, right.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's entirely,
42:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:01
SPEAKER_01: that's entirely plausible that that translates to a win in November, right?
42:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, but at the same time, Peltola won 51% in her 2024 primaries.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: And ended up losing.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ended up losing.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: Well,
42:18
SPEAKER_01: she trailed
42:19
SPEAKER_00: in first choice votes and then she lost in the ranked choice voting
42:21
SPEAKER_00: to Nick Begich III in her 2024 House race.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah,
42:25
SPEAKER_00: I've looked at that too because,
42:27
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:28
SPEAKER_00: historically,
42:29
SPEAKER_00: California's top two primary
42:31
SPEAKER_00: and Washington's top two primary have had some pretty good predictive power
42:36
SPEAKER_00: because they are elections where,
42:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:40
SPEAKER_00: Anyone can participate, and all candidates are running together regardless of party.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: So Alaska has a little bit of that with the top four,
42:46
SPEAKER_00: but we obviously don't have as long or as much data to go on there as we do
42:52
SPEAKER_00: with California and Washington at this point.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: But it is something that struck me was that Peltola was,
42:58
SPEAKER_00: you know, Democrats were right around 50%, but she had been there before.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: So how much does it matter is really hard to say.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: I guess another one, just maybe we can close out with this, but Maine is an oddball.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: It is a bit of an odd state as well in this particular election because it's
43:19
SPEAKER_00: the only state carried by Kamala Harris that Republicans are defending,
43:23
SPEAKER_00: but it also has Susan Collins who has made a career of winning in a state that has
43:30
SPEAKER_00: a light blue lean at the federal level,
43:31
SPEAKER_00: but obviously a lot of split ticket voters in Maine.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: And she has,
43:36
SPEAKER_00: of course,
43:36
SPEAKER_00: done very well among them and has outperformed the polls,
43:40
SPEAKER_00: obviously, most notably in 2020.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: But she has this history.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: And I have a difficult time seeing Democrats winning the Senate
43:49
SPEAKER_00: if they can't flip Maine because they do have to flip these other states
43:52
SPEAKER_00: that have such a clear red lean.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: And so I guess,
43:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:58
SPEAKER_00: it's not,
43:58
SPEAKER_00: Maine is not as big as Alaska or maybe as, I mean,
44:03
SPEAKER_00: it is the biggest state basically,
44:05
SPEAKER_00: or it has the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi,
44:08
SPEAKER_00: which I love to pull that fact out.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: So I'll pull it out here.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's geographically not small, but it is not Alaska.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps it has some of its own challenges.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, look, there's no excuse for the polling.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just feel like maybe it's easy for me to say we didn't poll Maine in 2020,
44:27
SPEAKER_01: but it seems like there's no excuse for...
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Please poll it this time.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Not if I want to keep my average high.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean... Yeah, fair, fair.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: But... Something in the water in Maine, man.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: It's an asterisk.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: Is it fully knowable?
44:45
SPEAKER_01: Why?
44:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: Is it fully knowable?
44:47
SPEAKER_01: But like,
44:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:48
SPEAKER_01: the fact that, you know, she pulls behind by six or wins by nine or what is it?
44:52
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the reverse or whatever.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, is a clear example.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's an example of what we're talking about.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: It's also a state that's a blue state.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, blue, you know, kind of leans blue, purplish blue at the presidential level.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: So it seems to be right.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: That would be a state high white non-college and a blue state.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: Where you would see,
45:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:15
SPEAKER_01: exactly,
45:15
SPEAKER_01: and you're seeing high polling error,
45:17
SPEAKER_01: not just, and it averages out to high polling error.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't,
45:21
SPEAKER_01: it's not just,
45:23
SPEAKER_01: it's not just the 2020 race, but,
45:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:28
SPEAKER_01: I feel like, okay,
45:30
SPEAKER_01: it's sort of a white non-college that the folks in
45:33
SPEAKER_01: that second congressional district may be hard to poll.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: That are really, They're
45:45
SPEAKER_00: electing Jared Golden and voting much more heavily for Susan Collins.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just a lot going on in upstate Maine, apparently.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, Patrick.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: This was a great conversation.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: I thought your analysis was super interesting and very telling.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: And it gets into some of the larger challenges that pollsters are facing.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: But also, I think it's a good reminder that there is uncertainty in all this.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: And there are reasons to be at least a little skeptical about some of the Democratic leads.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: So a poll showing Sherrod Brown ahead by like eight In July in Ohio,
46:29
SPEAKER_00: a state that President Trump won by 11.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: You're not wrong to be a little bit hmmm about that because it does seem to run
46:37
SPEAKER_00: against what we know about what's been going on in politics, especially recently.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: But hey, I also wanted to like, obviously you're with Echelon Insights.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to give you a chance to maybe plug The Intersection
46:51
SPEAKER_00: where you posted this excellent analysis.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
46:54
SPEAKER_01: The Intersection, you find it on Substack.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: It's also at patrickruffini.com.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: And yes, I highly recommend people check it out.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: They should follow Patrick there and on socials.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Always has lots of really, really sharp takes.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Definitely an excellent follow on X, Twitter, or whatever you want to call it these days.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Eric Cunningham and Stephen Stover for helping me out with this episode.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: And Patrick,
47:22
SPEAKER_00: I certainly want to thank you for taking the time to come on and talk with me
47:26
SPEAKER_00: about this.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: This has been great.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm Geoffrey Skelley, the host here at Decision Desk HQ podcast.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Please check back with us next week.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: We will be back with some more exciting coverage of what's going on in the 2026 midterm.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: So again, Patrick, thank you so much.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.