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Home Front: Politix |
Jim Geraghty: "interesting indicators" |
2006-11-07 |
National Review Online "Obi-Wan" is Mr. Geraghty's code-name for a source in the inner councils of the RNC who (based upon what happened in 2004, anyway) seems to know what he is talking about. Mid-evening, on November 6, Obi Wan . . . laid out what he thought were some interesting indicators: Three major polls, all showing the generic ballot lead for the Democrats cut in half. His pollster of choice, Andrew Kohut at Pew (formerly with Gallup), wrote a summary of findings that has a fascinating tone: The narrowing of the Democratic lead raises questions about whether the party will win a large enough share of the popular vote to recapture control of the House of Representatives. The relationship between a party's share of the popular vote and the number of seats it wins is less certain than it once was, in large part because of the increasing prevalence of safe seat redistricting. As a result, forecasting seat gains from national surveys has become more difficult. |
Posted by:Mike |
#1 I had chalked a lot of the drop in the margin of the generic ballot to a more equal sampling of Democrats and Republicans: whereas they had been strongly skewed toward Democrat respondents in the preceding weeks and months, they was now a much more representative sampling. However Rove has his internals, and presumably "Obi-Wan" has his, too. It's doubtful they'd have skewed their own sampling. That would be lying to themselves, and that's not going to them any good. So if they're seeing big shifts internally, something REALLY IS going on. Good to see. I'll have more to write about after the election, win, lose or draw. But for what its worth, I voted GOP nearly across the board today. (The holdout was a like-minded independent for County Executive.) |
Posted by: eLarson 2006-11-07 14:53 |