Category: Louisiana

Categories
Louisiana

Decision 2018: A Mississippi US Senate Race Post-Mortem

The last Senate race has been decided, and Republicans now have a 53-47 majority in that chamber (for a net gain of two seats), thanks to a 54-46% victory (with 99% of the vote counted) in the Mississippi special election race. Now that this race is over (in the House, there is only one more race to be called in the Central Valley of California, which will determine whether Democrats gain 39 or 40 seats in that chamber), are there any lessons to be learned ?

(1) This race was NEVER in suspense – Despite what the pundit class in Washington DC believed (or wanted to believe), the primary results showed that the two Republican candidates (Cindy Hyde-Smith and Chris McDaniel) received a combined 58% of the primary vote. Donald Trump similarly carried with Mississippi with 58% of the vote two years ago. In other words, Mississippi has a relatively inelastic Republican base with a high Democratic “floor” but a low Democratic “ceiling.”

(2) Playing to the base is unwise when you have less than 50% of the vote – The Democratic candidate (Mike Espy) was actually a candidate with potential: though he (as a black candidate) was elected from a black majority district in the Mississippi Delta in 1986, he regularly sought white votes, and his district rewarded him with increasing re-election percentages in his next three races (he resigned in 1993 to become Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Agriculture). However, he had not served in elective office in Mississippi for a quarter of a century, so he had to start from scratch. And even with prior biracial appeal, his challenge this year was this: nearly all of the primary vote of the “also rans” came from a very conservative candidate named Chris McDaniel. Which meant that regardless of what the national media thought of Cindy Hyde-Smith’s blunders/alleged segregationist background, those items were not anathema to the McDaniel voters (or to many Mississippi voters, for that matter). So while working on turning out the Democratic base (which he did) is certainly a recommended strategy in a close race, the fact that 58% of primary voters voted Republican suggests that direct appeals to the McDaniel vote should have been made instead.

(3) Turnout changes benefited the Democrats – Whatever one thought of Mike Espy’s turnout efforts, they did bring the Democratic vote share up from 42 to 46% of the vote. To illustrate:

  • Counties that gave Donald Trump an absolute majority of the vote gave 66% of the primary vote to Hyde-Smith and McDaniel combined, then 63% to Hyde-Smith in the runoff/general election. In raw numbers, turnout in these counties dropped 8% (13% drop in Republican turnout compared to the primary, while Espy received the same vote in the runoff that he and another Democrat received in the primary);
  • Counties that gave Donald Trump less than an absolute majority of the vote voted 65% for Espy or another Democratic candidate in the primary and 69% in the runoff. In raw numbers, turnout in these counties only dropped 3% (compared to an 8% drop in the “Trump counties”). The combined Republican vote in these counties was 14% less in the runoff than it was in the primary, while Espy received 3% more votes in the runoff than he and another Democrat did combined in the primary;

(4) Polling special election races – curiously, no one wanted to (or chose to) poll this special election race. JMC (in conjunction with Bold Blue Strategies and RRH Elections) thought differently and polled this race, and came up with a 54-44% Hyde-Smith lead. Which in fact was nearly identical to the 54-46% Hyde-Smith win. So special election races (like any other race) can be polled, provided that the pollster/pollsters have sufficient domain knowledge of the area being polled to construct a sample that is truly representative of the those who will vote in any given election. That poll can be found here.

Categories
2018 Election Louisiana

Decision 2018 – First day of Runoff Early Voting in Louisiana

In person early voting started yesterday for the December 8 runoff. The special election runoff for Secretary of State is at the top of the ballot (all Congressional races were settled in November without the need for a runoff), with various runoff races (a state representative race in Slidell,  School Board races, tax issues, and the like) on the ballot. In person early voting continues until Saturday, December 1.

Minimal voter enthusiasm

Given that (by and large) there are “lower wattage” races on the ballot (not to mention an election being held during the Holiday season), it was a given that turnout would be lower than in the primary. But the extent of yesterday’s drop in voter turnout relative to the first day of primary early voting shows that voters aren’t engaged at all.

In fact, ever since JMC started tracking early voting in 2008, this is the lowest first day early voting turnout EVER, with 14,811 voting (12,444 were in person, and 2,367 were mail in ballots). For comparison’s sake, the next lowest first day turnout was 16,357, which occurred during last year’s Treasurer’s runoff.

What was interesting about yesterday’s turnout was that despite the very low volume, black turnout was relatively high: 65-31% white/black and 47-37% Democrat/Republican – in fact, only four other times in the last decade has black voter turnout as a percentage of the entire early vote on the first day ever exceeded 30%, and one of those times was the 2008 Presidential election, with Barack Obama on the ballot.

However, it’s also important to put yesterday’s abysmal early voting volume in proper context. For one thing, Saturday (in JMC’s experience) is a day of the week when Democrats typically maximize their early voting turnout. And with the first day of early voting being over the Thanksgiving holidays (with an LSU game in College Station, Texas), it’s likely that a substantial number of potential voters were simply not available to vote yesterday. Still, those first day numbers show voter turnout will be substantially less than the impressive 69,035 who early/absentee voted on the first day for the November primary.

There is a third reason turnout was so low: mail in ballots appeared to be more “front loaded” for the primary than in the runoff: while in person early voting dropped 69% relative to the primary, mail in balloting was 92% lower. A similar dynamic was at play in the 2017 Treasurer’s race, where 68% of the total volume of mail in ballots was counted by the first day of the primary, while only 27% were counted by the first day of the runoff.

Yesterday’s top three early voting parishes were East Baton Rouge (2,093 early votes), St Tammany (987), and Orleans (846).

JMC’s projections of early voting volume, overall turnout

Projecting turnout is a constantly moving target throughout early voting week, but since early voting has been in existence in Louisiana for a decade, JMC has established (and continuously refined) benchmarks that can be used to project early voting and/or final turnout.

In this case, JMC is of the initial opinion that runoff turnout will be much less than in the primary. More specifically:

  • Projected early/absentee vote: 75-102K (316K in the November primary)
  • Projected turnout volume: 251-511K (1519K in the November primary)
  • Projected turnout percentage: 8-17% (51% in the November primary)

In Conclusion

Why does early voting matter? When the Legislature essentially established “no fault” early voting a decade ago, you now have a noticeable constituency of people who prefer the convenience of early voting, and this constituency has for seven times in a row (the 2015 primary, 2015 runoff, 2016 Presidential elections, December 2016 runoff, October 2017 primary, November 2017 runoff, and November 2018 primary) exceeded 20% – it was 21% in the November primary. A politician would be foolish to ignore this many “up front” voters, especially in a closely contested race. Also, too, early voting numbers are the first ones that are typically reported after polls have closed at 8 PM.

Categories
2018 Election Analysis Baton Rouge Louisiana National Politics

Decision 2018 – Conclusion of in person early voting in Louisiana

Early voting finished last night (mail in absentees can still be accepted up to the day before Election Day), and it was a record breaker in several ways. What did early voting this year tell us?

Strong turnout/Newton’s Third Law

As of last night, a record 307,237 have either early voted by person or by mail in ballot (271,181 in person, and 36,056 mail in ballots). To put this number in perspective, this is the highest early voting turnout EVER for a non-Presidential election, and this figure even surpassed the 292,213 who early/absentee voted in the 2008 Presidential election (which at that time was a record). In fact, only twice has there been a higher early/absentee voting turnout: the 2016 Presidential election (531,555 early votes) and the 2012 Presidential election (356,603 early votes).

What is especially impressive about this 307K figure is that the only top of the statewide ballot race is a special election for Secretary of State, while relatively uncontested Congressional races (and local races as well) are “filling in the blanks” in the first midterm election since 2006 not to have a US Senate race on the ballot.

Why has turnout been so high ? JMC believes that reports of strong early voting across the country (and, to some extent, energized conservatives after the Kavanaugh hearings) have been picked up on the radar of Louisiana voters, and as a result, Louisianians were aware that there is an election here, even though at the Congressional level, there are no seriously contested races from the standpoint of partisan control of the entire Congress. That sentiment was the narrative for a strong conservative tilt to early voting for the first four days of in person early voting.

The fifth day of early voting, however, is on a Saturday, and traditionally, blacks/Democrats tend to show up more on that day. It has also been JMC’s experience that blacks/Democrats also tend to vote near the end of the early voting period, which in fact was what happened for Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. This pattern also was apparent in both the 2014 and 2016 elections (i.e., the last two times Louisiana had Tuesday elections).

It could also be argued that while typical patterns of early voting produced a stronger Democratic early vote in the last three days, a variation of “Newton’s Third Law” (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction) was applicable as well.

In other words, just as conservatives were energized by external events (Kavanaugh hearings and reports of robust early voting across the country), local reports of high early voting turnout were played up in the news media, and arguably put the election on the Democrats’ radar as well.

The top three early voting parishes were East Baton Rouge (29,669 early/absentee votes), Orleans (28,173), and St Tammany (25,818).

Late Democratic vote

After the first day of early voting, the racial composition of the early voters was 73-25% white/black and 46-40% Democrat/Republican, which JMC considered relatively mild for blacks/Democrats. From Wednesday-Friday, there was a continued conservative tilt to early voting, with a 72-25% white/black and 43-41% Democrat/Republican racial/partisan composition. That pattern abruptly changed on Saturday and continued until the end of early voting, with a 63-33% white/black and a 48-36% Democratic/Republican early vote – not only is Saturday a day when Democrats typically like to vote (as JMC noted in the previous posting), but the composition of the Monday/Tuesday early/absentee voters was consistently more Democratic as well.

JMC’s projections of early voting volume, overall turnout

Projecting turnout is a constantly moving target throughout early voting week, but since early voting has been in existence in Louisiana for a decade, JMC has established (and continuously refined) benchmarks that can be used to project early voting and/or final turnout, even considering that this predictive model got slightly more complex last year with mail in ballots’ starting to be automatically being mailed out to those 65 years old or over who opted to be on this list.

Given the above, as well as the fact that early voting shattered records this election cycle, below are JMC’s turnout projections. These projections also consider the fact that an estimated 5-10K absentee ballots have yet to be mailed in and tallied before next Monday’s deadline:

  • Projected final early/absentee vote: 315K
  • Projected turnout volume: 1050K
  • Projected turnout percentage: 35%
  • Projected percent of the early/absentee vote as a percentage of the total vote: 30%

In Conclusion

Why does early voting matter? When the Legislature essentially established “no fault” early voting more than a decade ago, you now have a noticeable (and increasing) constituency of people who prefer the convenience of early voting, and this constituency has for six times in a row (the 2015 primary, 2015 runoff, 2016 Presidential elections, December 2016 runoff, October 2017 primary, and November 2017 runoff) exceeded 20%. Politicians and political consultants would be foolish to ignore this many “up front” voters, especially in a closely contested race. Also, too, early voting numbers are the first ones that are typically reported after polls have closed at 8 PM.

 

Categories
2018 Election Analysis Baton Rouge Louisiana National Politics

Decision 2018 – “Halftime Report” for Early Voting in Louisiana

We are now at the midway point for in person early voting, now that three days’ worth of early voting in the rear view mirror, with four more days (today/Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday) to go. What has three days of early voting told us?

Turnout remains strong

The first day of in person early voting brought in 69,035 voters (40,030 in person, and 29,005 more accumulated mail in ballots). Even though the mail volume (as expected) dropped off considerably from that 29K figure to about 1100/day since then, daily in person voting has remained relatively strong, with 68,300 voting since the first day, or about 34K/day.

The cumulative total is now an impressive 139,721 (“impressive”, since at the top of the ballot, the Secretary of State special election is the only statewide race, while relatively uncontested Congressional races’ (and local races as well) are “filling in the blanks” – this is the first midterm election since 2006 not to have a US Senate race on the ballot).

To put this 140K figure in proper perspective, last year’s Treasurer’s race (which many in the political community assumed was an analogous election cycle from a turnout perspective) brought in 97K (primary) and 93K (runoff) early/absentee voters for the ENTIRE early voting period. And the 2016 Senate runoff (which JMC has consistently felt from an examination of historical data would be a more reasonable expected level of voter turnout) brought in 66K after three days and 186K overall. In other words, the early voting turnout for the 2016 Senate runoff election will likely surpass the early/absentee voting turnout for the entire 2016 Senate runoff after two more days of early voting (i.e., by Saturday night).

Why has turnout been so high ? JMC believed both then and now that reports of strong early voting across the country (and, to some extent, energized conservatives after the Kavanaugh hearings) have been picked up on the radar of Louisiana voters, and as a result, Louisianians are aware that there is an election here, even though at the Congressional level, there are no seriously contested races from the standpoint of partisan control of the entire Congress.

As of yesterday, the top three early voting parishes were East Baton Rouge (12,988 early votes), St Tammany (11,770), and Orleans (10,246).

(Still) Moderate Democratic Enthusiasm

After the first day of early voting, the racial composition of the early voters was 73-25% white/black and 46-40% Democrat/Republican, which JMC considered relatively mild for blacks/Democrats. Since then, there has been a small uptick in white/Republican voting strength: as of last night, the cumulative composition of the early voters was 73-24% white/black and 45-41% Democrat/Republican. However, in JMC’s experience, Democratic early voting tends to be the heaviest on Saturdays – which this election cycle (with a Tuesday Election Day) will be the third to last day of early voting, so it will be interesting to see to what extent there will be a “Democratic bump” over the weekend.

JMC’s projections of early voting volume, overall turnout

Projecting turnout is a constantly moving target throughout early voting week, but since early voting has been in existence in Louisiana for a decade, JMC has established (and continuously refined) benchmarks that can be used to project early voting and/or final turnout, even considering that this predictive model got slightly more complex last year with mail in ballots’ starting to be automatically being mailed out to those 65 years old or over who opted to be on this list.

Given the above, as well as the fact that early voting has remained relatively strong, below are JMC’s “half time” projections:

  • Projected early/absentee vote: 300K
  • Projected turnout volume: 1030K
  • Projected turnout percentage: 35%

In Conclusion

Why does early voting matter? When the Legislature essentially established “no fault” early voting more than a decade ago, you now have a noticeable (and increasing) constituency of people who prefer the convenience of early voting, and this constituency has for six times in a row (the 2015 primary, 2015 runoff, 2016 Presidential elections, December 2016 runoff, October 2017 primary, and November 2017 runoff) exceeded 20%. Politicians and political consultants would be foolish to ignore this many “up front” voters, especially in a closely contested race. Also, too, early voting numbers are the first ones that are typically reported after polls have closed at 8 PM.

Categories
2018 Election Analysis Louisiana National Politics Polling

Decision 2018 – JMC Analytics and Polling’s 10/12 US Senate scorecard – The Road To 51

In the last Senate scorecard published two weeks ago, JMC noted that Republicans’ chances continued to improve to the point that they could feel better about their chances of maintaining their Senate majority. Now that early voting is almost all “full steam ahead” (only parts of Florida and Oklahoma have yet to start in person early voting), have things changed any ?

First, let’s talk about the criteria JMC uses to score each of the 35 Senate races on the ballot this year:

Scorecard Criteria

Starting with this scorecard, JMC will examine polling data as published on RealClearPolitics for all Senate races for the previous 14 days (after this scorecard, the “lookback” will be compressed to 7 days) and get an average for each race. Once the averages are obtained, here is how JMC rates each race:

(1)   Safe Democratic or safe Republican (dark blue/red) – A candidate either has a polling average of at least 50% and/or a 10-point lead in the polls;

(2)   Lean Democratic or lean Republican (light blue/red) – A candidate has a 3-9 point lead in the polls;

(3)   Tossup (yellow) – A candidate’s lead is less than 3 points in the polls;

Given those criteria, this is the “state of the nation” as of the writing of this article:

Aggregate Dashboard statistics

Trump job approval: 51-46% disapprove (was 52-46% disapprove two weeks ago)

Congressional job approval: 70-20% disapprove (was 72-17% disapprove two weeks ago)

Generic congressional vote:  48-41.5% Democratic (was 48-40.5% Democratic two weeks ago)

Direction of country: 53-41% wrong direction (55-39% wrong direction two weeks ago)

Senate race statistics

Current: 51 Republicans, 49 Democrats (technically, two of the Democrats are Independents who caucus with them)

Polling average: 52 Republicans, 45 Democrats, 3 Tossups (3 Democratic seats) (Last week’s polling average was 50 Republicans, 45 Democrats, 5 Tossups (3 Democratic and 2 Republican seats))

Commentary: The electoral reality that Democrats have a lot more seats to defend (26 seats, as opposed to 9 Republican held seats) has finally begun to benefit the Republicans, given that various political metrics (Trump approval, generic Congressional vote, direction of the country) have moved slightly in their direction over the last couple of weeks. And given that quite a few of these 26 seats are on more Republican friendly turf, increased GOP enthusiasm as a result of a conservative backlash against the Kavanaugh hearings has continued to provide (in Senate races anyway) additional benefit to Republicans now that people are early voting, and early voting numbers in state after state are fairly heavy (in three states, current early voting figures have already exceeded the 2014 early voting totals with just under two weeks of voting left).

This week, several changes to the scorecard are beneficial to Republicans. North Dakota continues to look strong for Republicans as a pickup after Democratic Senator Heitkamp’s Kavanaugh vote, combined with two major campaign blunders, has damaged her campaign. Michigan and the seat in Minnesota vacated by Al Franken have now (based on recent polling) moved to “Lean Democratic.” Recent polling in Arizona and Nevada has also moved in the Republicans direction (in the case of Arizona, Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema has been caught on tape making disparaging remarks about her state and disparaging “stay at home moms”). The only race movement benefiting the Democrats is that West Virginina (where Democratic Senator Manchin’s Kavanaugh “yes” vote undoubtedly helped) has moved from “Lean Democrat” to “Solid Democrat.”

That leaves us with three tossup seats (Florida, Indiana, and Missouri) all held by Democrats. Florida is an especially interesting situation, because it’s already a closely divided state. But with the devastation recently caused by Hurricane Michael, there is an electoral impact not favorable to Republicans: it’s estimated that as of “press time”, 38K votes by now should have been cast in those impacted counties but haven’t, and since these counties voted 59-38% for Trump, that loss is estimated to cost the GOP 8K votes.

Senate Scorecard as of 10/25/2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Voting

Since the last time this scorecard was released two weeks ago, there has been a considerable spike in early voting. Two weeks ago, 569K had early voted. Now that early voting is nearly fully online, at least 12.2 million have early voted (108K have in Louisiana, which is pretty impressive for a state with no critical Congressional or Senate races). JMC qualifies that number with “at least”, because not all jurisdictions report this data online; even then, few update this information on a periodic basis).

Categories
2018 Election Analysis Demographics Louisiana National Politics

Decision 2018 – (First Day of) Early Voting in Louisiana

In person early voting is now underway for the 2018 midterm elections in Louisiana and will continue until next Tuesday, October 30 (after which, mail in absentee ballots will be accepted for another week). What did yesterday’s early vote tell us ?

High early voting turnout, but……

Only two times have examining the first day’s early voting been a real eye opener: (1) the 2016 Presidential election (where an record 531,555 ultimately voted), and (2) yesterday’s early voting numbers. With only a special election for Secretary of State and the Congressional races at the top of the ballot (i.e, Louisiana hasn’t had the Senate race missing from the midterm ballot since 2006), all the prognosticators said that turnout would be abysmally low. However, due to a heightened level of interest in the midterm elections across the county from both sides of the partisan aisle, some of that interest has obviously entered the electoral consciousness of Louisiana voters, and it almost certainly contributed to yesterday’s turnout numbers.

Slowly but surely, Louisianians are becoming more comfortable with the idea of voting before Election Day: the first Presidential election where early voting was available was in 2008, and at that time, a (then) record of 34,498 early voted on the first day. The record was broken again in the 2012 Presidential election, when first day turnout was 54,989. That record was shattered a third time in 2016, when 87,066 ballots were counted on the first day.

Last night, that number was 69,035 (73-25% white/black and 46-40% Democrat/Republican), but before we (prematurely) celebrate Louisianians’ newfound love of midterm voting, let’s put things in perspective. Last year for the first time, the Secretary of State sent out absentee/mail in ballots automatically to those 65 years old or over. Given that some people vote their mail in ballot when they receive it before in person early voting starts, those cumulative mail in ballot numbers “spiked” the first day early voting numbers.

To illustrate, in the 2016, 26% of the first day balloting consisted of mail in ballots, while it was 12% in the 2016 Senate runoff. Starting with the Treasurer’s race, mail as a proportion of the total first day vote spiked to 62%, and it was a noticeably higher 42% yesterday. In practical terms, that means that (1) you have a “new normal” of increased mail in ballot volume, and (2) mail in ballots are now being sent back (and counted) earlier during the early voting cycle, since a literal examination of this data (without understanding the previously mentioned context) would lead a casual reader of the data to believe that the volume of mail in balloting counted on the first day is 957% higher than it was for the 2016 Senate runoff – and NO ONE (including JMC) seriously believes that final turnout will spike that much relative to the 2016 Senate runoff.

Yesterday’s top three early voting parishes were East Baton Rouge (6,263 early votes), St Tammany (5,521), and Orleans (4,972).

Moderate Democratic enthusiasm

Enhanced Democratic enthusiasm in the 2012 (when Barack Obama was on the ballot), 2014 (when Mary Landrieu was on the ballot), and 2015 election cycles (when John Bel Edwards sought to return the Governor’s chair to the Democrats after eight years of Republican control) made it seem like Louisiana was entering a period of elevated Democratic turnout. Similarly, in primaries across the country this year, Democratic turnout (relative to 2014) increased 77%, while Republican turnout increased 25%.

Louisiana, however, has not lost its enthusiasm about President Trump, and in 2016, black early voting turnout as a percentage of the electorate was two percentage points lower than it was in 2012 (going from 29 to 27%). It further tumbled to 19% on the first day of the 2016 Senate runoff. Given that context, the fact that blacks made up 25% of first day early voting turnout was relatively mild considering that they represent 31% of the statewide electorate. Similarly, Democrats had a mild 46-40% edge over Republicans after the first day of early voting (it was 54-33% Democratic in 2014 and 44-41% Republican in the 2016 Senate runoff).

It will be interesting to see whether more Democrats early vote throughout the week after a weak start; in JMC’s experience, Democratic early voting tends to be the heaviest on Saturdays – which this year will be the third to last day of early voting.

JMC’s projections of early voting volume, overall turnout

Projecting turnout is a constantly moving target throughout early voting week, but since early voting has been in existence in Louisiana for a decade, JMC has established (and continuously refined) benchmarks that can be used to project early voting and/or final turnout, even considering that his predictive model got slightly more complex last year with mail in ballots’ starting to be automatically being mailed out to those 65 years old or over

Therefore (particularly considering the “spike” in mail in ballots that artificially inflated the numbers), JMC is of the initial opinion that there will be more “front loading” in the early vote relative to November 6 turnout, and that it’s entirely possible that the previous record (set in the 2016 Presidential election) of 26% of the vote being cast before Election Day may approach 30% this year. 

With that said, these are JMC’s first day projections:

  • Projected early/absentee vote: 275K
  • Projected turnout volume: 910K
  • Projected turnout percentage: 31%

In Conclusion

Why does early voting matter? When the Legislature essentially established “no fault” early voting more than a decade ago, you now have a noticeable constituency of people who prefer the convenience of early voting, and this constituency has for six times in a row (the 2015 primary, 2015 runoff, 2016 Presidential elections, December 2016 runoff, October 2017 primary, and November 2017 runoff) exceeded 20%. A politician would be foolish to ignore this many “up front” voters, especially in a closely contested race. Also, too, early voting numbers are the first ones that are typically reported after polls have closed at 8 PM.

Categories
Louisiana

Decision 2018: Georgia 6th Congressional District Poll

Historically, the Atlanta suburbs (particularly those suburbs to the north, northeast, and northwest of Atlanta proper) have been thought of as a Republican stronghold, and in the 1990s, the 6th Congressional district was redrawn by the Democratic legislature for former Congressman Newt Gingrich to concentrate the Republican vote in that part of the state so that north Georgia Democrats could be strengthened electorally by not having an ever increasing number of affluent (and at that time, heavily Republican) suburbanites in their districts.

As time went on, the district became more diverse, which when combined with northern/Midwestern migration due to corporate relocations diluted the near unanimous Republican sentiment of the district. This was especially apparent when the same district that supported Mitt Romney 61-38% in 2012 only voted 48-47% for Donald Trump. And when this district became open in spring 2017 due to President Trump’s selection of Congressman Tom Price to be in his cabinet, a competitive (and expensive) special election ensued that saw former Secretary of State Karen Handel only win by a 52-48% margin.

Was her narrow victory a fluke or symbolic of fundamental shifts of the district’s political preferences ? In a bipartisan and joint polling engagement conducted independently of any campaign or organization, JMC Analytics and Polling teamed up with Bold Blue Campaigns to poll two suburban Congressional districts in Atlanta (the 6th and 7th Congressional Districts of Georgia). The 7th Congressional District was polled yesterday, and today, results for the 6th Congressional District are being released.

Poll results for the 6th Congressional District of Georgia can be found here. Either John Couvillon ([email protected]) or Steen Kirby ([email protected]) may be contacted about the results.

Categories
Louisiana

Decision 2018 – JMC Analytics and Polling’s 10/18 US House scorecard – The Road To 218

In the run up to the November elections, JMC has been assessing the partisan climate of 435 US House races using a combination of election and polling data. In making these assessments, JMC has noted that over the last generation (roughly around the beginning of the Clinton administration), substantial numbers of “straight ticket” voters have begun to vote the same way for Congressional and legislative races as they do for President. Given that election reality, the 2016 Presidential vote for all 435 U.S. House districts is a good place to start for (theoretically) assessing how “solid” a House district is for either party. The following criteria are used:

Defining JMC’s “watch list”:

Most vulnerable: a House Republican represents a district that gave President Trump less than 50% of the vote in 2016 (or a Democrat representing a district President Trump carried with an absolute majority). 41 districts meet this criteria (37 represented by Republicans, 4 by Democrats). These districts narrowly supported Hillary Clinton 47-46% (about the national popular vote), and in a partisan wave, these districts are likely the first ones to flip;

Moderately vulnerable: a House Republican represents a district that voted between 50-55% for President Trump in 2016 (or a Democrat representing a district President Trump carried with a plurality of the vote). An additional 60 districts meet this criteria (52 represented by Republicans, 8 by Democrats). These districts overall supported Trump 52-43% over Hillary Clinton, so these districts hypothetically (without taking into consideration candidate strengths/weaknesses) have “Republican votes to spare”, and would therefore be less likely to flip in the “straight ticket” environment of today, unless the partisan wave were substantial;

Minimally vulnerable: a House Republican represents a district that voted between 55-60% for President Trump in 2016 – except under extraordinary circumstances, the assumption here is that even if the Republican candidate is weak, there are more than enough “Republicans to spare.” 52 districts (all Republican held) meet this criteria, and these districts supported Trump 57-38% over Hillary Clinton;

Given the detailed criteria above, JMC is watching 153 House districts (141 held by Republicans, 12 by Democrats) – the assumption for the remaining 282 House districts is that the Trump (or Clinton) percentage is high enough for it to be extremely unlikely for any of these seats to flip.

Applying JMC’s “watch list” to actual (election and polling) data:

Given that the Presidential percentage is more theoretical in nature, what does actual polling data (or in the case of nonpartisan primaries in California and Washington State, primary election data) say? (Caveat: polling/election data is only available for 72 of the 153 House seats placed on the “watch list”)

Most vulnerable seats (34 have poll and/or primary election data)

  • 5 safe Republican seats (no change since last week);
  • 12 Republican seats are too close to call  – “too close to call” meaning the leading candidate is ahead by less than 5 points (was 13 Republican and 1 Democrat last week);
  • 16 Republican and 1 Democratic held seats are trailing by 5 or more points, and therefore, these seats are likely to “flip” (was 14 Republicans last week);

Moderately vulnerable seats (27 have poll and/or primary election data)

  • 10 seats are safe Republican (was 11 last week);
  • 2 seat is safe Democratic (was 1 last week);
  • 12 Republican seats are too close to call (was 9 last week);
  • 1 Democratic seat is too close to call (was 0 last week);
  • 2 Republicans are trailing by 5 or more points (was 3 last week);

Minimally vulnerable seats (11 have poll and/or primary election data):

  • 7 are safe Republican (no change);
  • 4 Republican seats are too close to call (no change). 

To summarize, this sample of 72 House races (out of a population of 153 House districts) where polling and/or election data is available shows the following:

  • 22 safe Republican and 2 safe Democratic seats (was 23 Republicans, 1 Democrat last week);
  • 28 Republican and 1 Democratic held seats are “too close to call” (was 26 Rep, 1 Dem last week);
  • 18 Republicans and 1 Democrat trail by 5 or more points (was 17 Rep last week).

If this sample of 69 were extrapolated to the entire population of 153 seats on JMC’s “watch list”, that would suggest a net Republican loss (now that Democrats are trailing in a race in Minnesota) of 21 seats (23 last week), with 58 additional Republican seats too close to call (was 58 Republican, 4 Democrats last week).

October 18 House Scorecard

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the political complexion of the “too close to call” seats ? These seats on average voted 49-45% for President Trump while at the same time supporting the Republican incumbent in 2016 with 57% (in other words, Congressional Republicans ran 8 points ahead of President Trump in 2016). The fact that these seats are 6 percentage points more “Republican friendly” than the national average is indicative of the Republicans problems in the House.

For seats where Republicans are trailing, Clinton carried these districts 49-45% – two percentage points more Democratic than the national average. These same seats also voted 54% Republican in 2016 Congressional races (in other words, Republican candidates ran 9 points ahead of President Trump). Given that President Trump’s approval ratings have lately hovered around the mid 40s nationally (in other words, what his 2016 popular vote share was), that, combined with the reality of “straight ticket voting” is why these Republicans are in trouble, since these vulnerable Republicans haven’t established an identity independent of the President.

Now that the Kavanaugh nomination is in the rearview mirror, it does seem that there has been some partisan benefit to the Republicans, although that benefit won’t help much in House races, since battleground races are generally on marginal electoral turf where any recent Republican mobilization will be offset (and then some) by heightened Democratic enthusiasm that has been apparent from the advent of campaign season (Democratic primary turnout was 77% higher than it was in the 2014 primaries, while Republican turnout was only 25% higher).

Republicans face an additional challenge as they are fighting to hold into the House: Democratic candidates/challengers are out raising (and in several dozen cases, substantially out raising) Republican candidates, so they have adequate funds to get their message out. More specifically, a recent National Journal article showed that 92 Republican incumbents were outraised by Democratic challengers.

As additional House race polls are released, this analysis will be revisited; the point of this analysis was to show (using available Presidential, primary, and polling data) why Republicans face the very real possibility of losing their House majority for the first time since 2006.

 

 

Categories
2018 Election Analysis Demographics Louisiana National Politics Polling

Decision 2018 – JMC Analytics and Polling’s 10/12 US Senate scorecard – The Road To 51

In last week’s scorecard, JMC Analytics and Polling noted that the aftermath of the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings brought a “second wind” to Republican candidacies in several tight Senate races; more specifically, Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota fell substantially behind for the first time, thus making Republicans’ maintaining control of the Senate a more likely possibility. Has anything changed since last week ? First, let’s talk about the criteria JMC uses to score each of the 35 Senate races on the ballot this year:

Scorecard Criteria

Starting with this scorecard, JMC will examine polling data as published on RealClearPolitics for all Senate races for the previous 14 days (as we get into later October, this “lookback” will be compressed to 7 days) and get an average for each race. Once the averages are obtained, here is how JMC rates each race:

(1)   Safe Democratic or safe Republican (dark blue/red) – A candidate either has a polling average of at least 50% and/or a 10-point lead in the polls;

(2)   Lean Democratic or lean Republican (light blue/red) – A candidate has a 3-9 point lead in the polls;

(3)   Tossup (yellow) – A candidate’s lead is less than 3 points in the polls;

Given those criteria, this is the “state of the nation” as of the writing of this article:

Aggregate Dashboard statistics

Trump job approval: 52-46% Disapprove (no change since last week)

Congressional job approval: 72-17% Disapprove (no change since last week)

Generic congressional vote:  48-40.5% Democratic (no change since last week)

Direction of country: 55-39% wrong direction (54-39% wrong direction last week)

Senate race statistics

Current: 51 Republicans, 49 Democrats (technically, two of the Democrats are Independents who caucus with them)

Polling average: 50 Republicans, 45 Democrats, 5 Tossups (3 Democratic and 2 Republican seats) (Last week’s polling average was 50 Republicans, 47 Democrats, 3 Tossups (3 Democratic seats))

Commentary: Ordinarily, the aggregate statistics listed above would be deadly for the Republicans. Except that in the case of the US Senate, Democrats have a lot more seats to defend (26 seats, as opposed to 9 Republican held seats), and those seats are (by and large) on more Republican friendly turf. Furthermore, increased GOP enthusiasm as a result of a conservative backlash against the Kavanaugh hearings has helped Republicans in specific areas. Last week, JMC had noted that GOP leads solidified in Tennessee and Texas, with North Dakota slipping away for the Democrats. This week, Republican held Senate races in Arizona and Nevada (where Republicans had trailed) shifted from “Lean Democratic” to “Tossup.” Democratic held seats in Florida and Indiana, while still in the “Tossup” category, moved about a point towards the Republicans (the Democratic held seat in Missouri remains a tie). One potential “game changer”, however, is in Arizona, where the Democratic nominee was caught on tape yesterday talking about “crazy people” in her state.

Senate Scorecard as of 10/12/2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Events

Since last week, early/absentee voting has surged, as more states have mailed out ballots/started early voting. Last week’s best available estimates from Dr Michael McDonald of ElectProject showed that 91,700 have already voted. As of the writing of this article, at least 569,000 have (“at least” because not all jurisdictions report this data; even then, few update this information on a periodic basis). Early voting will continue to accelerate: in the next 7 days, 5 more states (including Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina, Oregon, and Tennessee) will commence with early voting (early voting in Louisiana begins on October 23).

Categories
2018 Election Analysis Demographics Louisiana National Politics Polling

Decision 2018 – JMC Analytics and Polling’s 10/9 Statehouse scorecard – The Road To 26

As part of its pre-election analysis, JMC Analytics and Polling has been examining verifiable election data (like polling and primary election results) to make assessments of Congressional races. However, what goes on at the statewide level is important as well, since governors have the ability to help shape policy. And given that this is generally the last statewide election before Congressional/legislative redistricting in 2021-2022, whoever gets elected governor is crucial from this perspective as well, since major Democratic losses in the 2010 midterms put Democrats at a nearly unilateral disadvantage during 2011-2012 redistrictings.

In a sense, the governor’s races are the polar opposite of the Senate races. There are 36 governor’s races up for election this fall, and there are a lopsided (26-9-1) number of Republican held governor’s seats up for re-election (as opposed to the 3:1 exposure Democrats have in the Senate races being held this year). It also makes life more challenging with 13 open Republican governor’s chairs (compared to four Democratic seats) to defend this fall. To properly assess the state of these statewide offices, let’s talk about the criteria JMC uses to score each of the 36 Governor’s races on the ballot this year:

Scorecard Criteria

JMC examines polling data as published on RealClearPolitics for all Governor’s races for the previous 14 days (as we get into later October, this “lookback” will be compressed to 7 days) and get an average for each race. Once the averages are obtained, here is how JMC rates each race:

(1)   Safe Democratic or safe Republican (dark blue/red) – A candidate either has a polling average of at least 50% and/or a 10-point lead in the polls;

(2)   Lean Democratic or lean Republican (light blue/red) – A candidate has a 3-9 point lead in the polls;

(3)   Tossup (yellow) – A candidate’s lead is less than 3 points in the polls;

Given those criteria, this is the “state of the states” as of the writing of this article:

Aggregate Dashboard statistics

Trump job approval: 51-46% Disapprove (52-46% disapprove last week)

Direction of country: 54-39% wrong direction (54-39% wrong direction last week)

Governor’s race statistics

Current: 33 Republicans, 16 Democrats, 1 Independent

Polling average: 26 Republicans, 19 Democrats, 5 Tossups (4 Republican seats, 1 Democratic seat)

Commentary: Currently, the political climate (unlike the Senate races) favors the Democrats for two reasons: (1) Republicans have nearly three times the seats up for re-election this year than Democrats do, (2) states holding Governor’s races encompass the vast majority of the American electorate, which means that in a year with challenging ratings for President Trump, such public opinion will be felt more acutely at the state level.

More specifically, Republicans are generally doing well in Southern governor’s races (and, curiously, several Northeastern/New England states, where their incumbents have successfully established their own political identities). It’s the swing states (or even Democratic ones) that swept in Republican Governors in 2010/2014 that are the most challenging. Republicans are running behind in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They are also in a tough open seat race in closely divided Florida, where the Republican nominee quickly shot himself in the foot upon his primary victory for using racially tinged language to describe his black opponent.

October 9 Governor’s Scorecard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Events

As this article is being written, absentee and early voting activity has begun to accelerate: last week, best available estimates (courtesy of Dr Michael McDonald of ElectProject) showed that 91,700 had early or absentee voted. As of the writing of this article, 234,400 have. And with states like Arizona, California, Iowa, and Ohio commencing with early voting this week (early voting in Louisiana begins on October 23), that number will easily double by this time next week.