The Pre-Midterm Zoom
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Now, onto the Zoom….
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POLLING
ITEM:
A round of new data from CNN suggesting key races trending surprisingly strong for Democratic candidates sends the Blue political world into a frenzy of “what ifs”:
What that loudmouth will say on your morning Zoom: The only polls that matter are the polls that reinforce my worldview.
What you should say on your morning Zoom: Many races are about to experience the “natural tightening” that occurs at the end of most elections (as lots of voters come home to their side), which means that this same phenomenon is showing good news in some places for Republicans as well (as in the New Hampshire Senate race, where Don Bolduc is within the margin of error against Maggie Hassan in a new Emerson poll). But please don’t crazily pinball yourself all around for the next two weeks, every time some new survey is released. For now, the New York Times’ Nate still has it right:
These Republican opportunities are very real. There are alarming polls for House Democrats in places like Rhode Island’s Second District and Oregon’s Sixth. Mr. Biden won both by double digits, but now Republicans seem to be competitive or ahead. This kind of warning sign rarely happens in isolation. In fact, there’s additional evidence for Democratic softness in the polling in New York, Washington and Oregon, where Democrats usually still plainly lead but by low-double-digit or even single-digit margins that are consistent with their vulnerability in districts like the blue (but-not-quite-so-blue) Oregon 6.
In other words, this range of a two- or three-point Republican environment is potentially consistent with anything from a victory for Democrats in the Senate to something that starts to feel a lot like a Republican rout.
There could be a LOT of close races, with Democrats winning enough of them to gain at least some symbolic victories.
In the meantime, Henry Olsen offers those of you are poll-addicted three additional areas to look at: where spending is going out, where spending is going in, and who is running desperate attack ads at the end to Hail Mary.
In short: STOP TREATING EVERY POLL RESULT AS A DEFINITIVE SIGN OF SOME COSMIC NATIONAL SHIFT. SOMETIMES A POLL IS JUST A POLL.
Also: Liberal news organizations don’t publish errant polls out of bias. They do it for other reasons!
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ANALYZING
ITEM:
Get ready for a whole lot of endgame egghead looks at what the early voting data tells us:
What that loudmouth will say on your morning Zoom: The only early voting analyses that matter are the early voting analyses that reinforce my worldview.
What you should say on your morning Zoom: Since none of us know what the makeup of the electorate will look like overall, nor what the breakdown in any state will end up being between early voters and Election Day voters, this type of work represents a lot of mental gymnastics that, except in the most expert of hands, doesn’t tell us much at all. But, hey, knock yourselves out reading it all. It’s probably better than obsessing over polls.
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DEBATING
ITEM:
Per the Washington Post on the rules for tonight’s Oz-Fetterman debate:
According to ABC27, the local TV station hosting the debate, real-time captions will transcribe everything the moderators and Oz say, but they will not transcribe Fetterman’s words. ABC27 reporter Dennis Owens, who will be one of the moderators, aired a segment that showed two large TV screens that will hang over the moderators. The screens will features text of what’s being said in real time. Oz and Fetterman will be standing on a stage at the debate behind lecterns.
The candidates will have 60 seconds to answer questions, 30 seconds for rebuttals and 15 seconds for any clarification, according to a person familiar with the debate rules who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share the details. The candidates are allowed to have with them one 8 x 10 notebook, a black ballpoint pen and water. If a candidate is attacked, the moderator will decide whether to allow him the chance to respond.
What that loudmouth will ask on your morning Zoom: Can Fetterman get through this?
What you should ask on your morning Zoom: Can Dr. Oz close the sale?
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SPINNING
ITEM:
What that loudmouth will say on your morning Zoom: Why is Team Fetterman admitting in advance he will have problems?
What you should say on your morning Zoom: Why is the media pretending this is anything but a classic (and ham-handed) attempt to pre-setting expectations?
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MESSAGING
ITEM:
The New York Times with the latest essential reading on the intra-Democratic debate on how to strike the right balance on talking about the economy, abortion, the past, the future, and everything else.
What that loudmouth will say on your morning Zoom: As Bob Shrum famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
What you should say on your morning Zoom: “Every candidate for herself” is the way this will end up going.
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VOTING
ITEM:
Black voters form the backbone of the Democratic electorate, voting for Democrats at higher rates than any other racial group. But interviews with more than a dozen elected officials, strategists and activists in key swing states, most of them Black, suggest Democrats are increasingly concerned that Black turnout could sag this November — and with it, Democrats’ electoral chances.
If Black turnout were to fall this year, it would seriously complicate — if not eviscerate — Democrats’ path to victory in hotly contested gubernatorial and Senate races across the country, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin. In a poll by POLITICO-Morning Consult released last week, just 25 percent of Black registered voters described themselves as “extremely enthusiastic” about voting in this election, compared to about 37 percent of white voters and 35 percent of Hispanic voters.
Though they stressed that they have no doubt Black voters will continue to overwhelmingly support their party, Democratic strategists are worried in particular about a lack of enthusiasm this year among young Black people and Black men of all ages.
What that loudmouth will say on your morning Zoom: Too sub-groupy for me to focus on.
What you should say on your morning Zoom: The only way Democrats are going to avoid the tsunami is with huge turnout among all of the elements of the Obama Coalition of the Ascendent: non-white, young, female voters – who can somewhat offset what is almost certainly going to be a substantial Republican victory with independent voters. So, yes, watch all of this closely.
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SPEAKERING
ITEM:
The New York Times’ Carl Hulse follows a long-standing tradition among Capitol Hill reporters in writing another “Nancy Pelosi walks on water” piece.
What that loudmouth will say on your morning Zoom: I wonder if a Speaker McCarthy will get this kind of coverage.
What you should say on your morning Zoom: I wonder if Ms. Pelosi has read this email from her fellow Golden Stater to the Wide World of News mailbag:
Chaos. Most of us are carrying this knot in the pit of our stomachs, a general dis-ease, every day. It is what really drove the expelling of Donald Trump. We just don’t feel comfortable in our daily lives when we don’t trust the foundation upon which we stand. Though this may be a different chaos, it still foundational instability. One does not feel secure worrying about crime in our own neighborhoods, because we SEE it in our neighborhoods. When we realize the $100 cart of groceries now costs $350. When it take $180 to fill a 28 gallon the gas tank (yes I am in California) to do to work every day. These are a few things that are chaotic disruptors which truly shake the foundation of individuals and families. It’s different from Trumpian Chaos, but chaos none the less and self-preservation demands we must shake it. We may very well seek solutions at the polls.