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Kathianne
11-01-2024, 08:56 PM
Betting has R for Senate, we'll see. Tuesday and until decision reached, can't happen soon enough:

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2024/11/01/knifes-edge-the-battle-to-control-the-house-is-looking-pretty-close-n3796593


Knife's Edge: The Battle to Control the House is Looking Pretty CloseJohn Sexton 7:20 PM | November 01, 2024



AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
As we all know, the presidential election is looking very close though some observers have recently suggested pollsters might be "herding" a bit to avoid embarrassment and thereby misleading people about the true state of the race. Meanwhile, the battle to control the US House is also looking very close.


Public and private polling, as well as interviews with strategists and operatives in both parties, point to one of the tightest contests yet for the House majority, which Republicans now hold by a mere four seats. While the vast majority of the 435 seats in the House are not in play, the roughly two dozen that are being contested are truly up for grabs. Of the 22 races rated most competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, 20 are within the margin of error in internal Democratic polling...


The battlefield includes centrist Democratic incumbents in Maine, Washington, Alaska and Pennsylvania who are trying to hang on in their rural districts that favor former President Donald J. Trump and Midwestern Republicans facing unexpectedly steep challenges in Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin.


Because there are so many close races and so few flips are needed to determine control of the House, you can really make the case that any of these races will determine the outcome. For instance, in New York:


Half a dozen suburban swing districts in New York state likely hold the key to control of the US House next year.


Five of these districts are held by first-term Republicans, who carved out upset victories in the 2022 midterm elections on the back of voter concerns over crime, inflation and immigration.


But after facing criticism over party in-fighting and electoral infrastructure, Democratic leaders have invested millions into their New York operation this time around and are banking on high presidential election-year turnout.


Alternatively, there are some close races in California that could determine the outcome.


In California, Representative John Duarte, a freshman from the Central Valley, is seen as the party’s most vulnerable member. A number of the other seats, including those held by Representative Michelle Steel in Orange County, one of the first Korean American women to serve in Congress and a prodigious fund-raiser, and Mike Garcia, a former Navy combat pilot in the Antelope Valley, are hotly contested.


As of now, Cook Political Report says if the parties split the 22 competitive seats evenly, Republicans would maintain narrow control of the House.


At the moment, Republicans hold 221 seats to Democrats’ 214. In our final House race ratings, Democrats are favored in 205 seats, while Republicans are favored in 208, leaving 22 seats in the Toss Up column. If the Toss Ups split down the middle, Republicans would maintain their majority by an even narrower 219 to 216 seat margin.


Though Republicans are favored in a few more seats, they also have a lower ceiling, since they’re defending more competitive territory. If Republicans sweep the Toss Ups, they’d pick up nine seats, while if Democrats sweep the Toss Ups they would pick up 13 seats.


Because this is a presidential election year, it's very possible that the outcome of these close races could be swayed by who wins the presidential race. But as I said at the top, the top race still looks very close. So we can't guess at who wins the House with much accuracy because, at the moment, the polls don't show a clear preference for president. Bottom line, if Trump wins, the GOP probably retains the House. If he loses, they are more likely to lose the House. If the polls can be believed, the whole thing rests on a knife's edge.

Gunny
11-01-2024, 09:02 PM
Betting has R for Senate, we'll see. Tuesday and until decision reached, can't happen soon enough:

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2024/11/01/knifes-edge-the-battle-to-control-the-house-is-looking-pretty-close-n3796593Read earlier where a couple of Republicans are behind. I really don't expect the Republicans to keep the House. Current House has accomplished what? Besides putting on a circus sideshow complete with clowns for the Nation to watch?

Kathianne
11-01-2024, 09:06 PM
Read earlier where a couple of Republicans are behind. I really don't expect the Republicans to keep the House. Current House has accomplished what? Besides putting on a circus sideshow complete with clowns for the Nation to watch?

Can't do much with 4 seat difference, especially when 2 of them are squishy. We'll see, I don't have much hope for House either, but then if Nate Silver is right, there maybe a significant Trump win. Lots can't c & p:

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/11/01/silver-and-some-of-the-interesting-polling-n2181390


WATCH: Nate Silver Calls Out Polls for 'Cheating,' Putting 'Fingers on Scale,' Drops His Latest ForecastBy Nick Arama | 3:45 PM on November 01, 2024The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.



AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough
Election analyst Nate Silver has President Donald Trump up in his latest forecast.




Silver also managed to get a lot of people talking when he called out polls for trying to keep the race close, which he termed "herding" or "cheating," saying they couldn't all be coming out within one point.


Warning for graphic language:




He said the race has moved toward Trump since early October. Then he started mocking the polls, saying, "Every state is a plus 1! Every single state's a tie! No, you're f**ing cheating!"


You’re cheating ... Your numbers aren’t all going to come out at exactly one-point leads when you’re sampling 800 people over dozens of surveys. You are lying. You’re putting your f*cking finger on the scale."


He namechecked Emerson but didn't explain why he found Emerson particularly offensive. Emerson has Trump and Harris at a tie nationally.


“If a pollster never publishes any numbers that surprises you, then it has no value,” he said.


Silver blasted most other pollsters except for the New York Times, saying the rest were “just f–king punting on this election for the most part.”


One of the things the NYT/Siena is showing is that Trump is leading with huge numbers for new voters in the battleground states — the folks with no or low propensity voting records.






That included people who may have only voted in the 2020 election.


Then, as far as the other folks who aren't "herding," there's also Atlas Intel, who doesn't have them at just a tie or 1 point up.




Plus they have more polling between now and Election Day coming.


We'll know soon, but obviously, get anyone you haven't got out yet to vote so we can make it happen.

Kathianne
11-01-2024, 09:20 PM
Another:

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/11/01/its-looking-pretty-good-for-trump-says-n3796574


It's Looking Pretty Good for Trump, Says ... NYT?Ed Morrissey 8:40 PM | November 01, 2024



AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Talk about a statement against interests. Or perhaps this analysis from veteran Democrat adviser Doug Sosnick in the New York Times intends to be a final warning call to the Kamala Harris campaign.


In fairness, this reads more straightforwardly than a partisan panic-porn blast. Sosnick only allows himself one bit of partisan editorializing while noting that the data he sees suggests that Donald Trump has the clearest path to an Electoral College win. "Clearest" is a term of art in itself, as he rightly observes that the partisan trench warfare over the past two decades has made American presidential elections a constant vigil on the same seven states.


Unless, that is, Trump does something to change the race in his "increasingly erratic" state:


I have been working in politics since 1980, and in every single presidential election, at this point in the campaign, I had a clear sense of the winner. (OK, I got it wrong in 2016.) Heading into the final weekend of the race, it is not clear which candidate will win.


Given Mr. Trump’s resiliency and his advantages in the Sun Belt states, I believe he has a more plausible path to winning the Electoral College than Ms. Harris does. Still, I would not count Ms. Harris out, because of the potency of the issue of abortion, her superior ground game and the fact that a majority of Americans do not want four more years of Mr. Trump as president. Not to mention that in the closing days of the campaign, Mr. Trump has become increasingly erratic, which may magnify any concerns voters have about his return to the White House.


Ahem. Trump hasn't been "increasingly erratic." The mainstream media coverage of Trump has become increasingly hysterical and now has gone all the way to unhinged. A bad joke from a warm-up insult comic about Puerto Rico being an "island of garbage" was a NATIONAL CRISIS and A SIGN OF MAGA XENOPHOBIA ... right up until Joe Biden called Trump supporters "garbage." Suddenly, context, stutters, and the West Wing Apostrophe become the story, as well as all of that nasty Republican pouncing®.


As for the "majority of Americans" that do not want four more years of Trump, I suppose that's why we have elections, as well as the Electoral College. The issue isn't that a majority opposes a return to the Trump presidency, it's that Democrats haven't been able to gin up that majority, despite their increasingly erratic and hysterical rhetoric.


Once readers get past that, though, Sosnick's analysis and maps look pretty solid, given the data on hand at the moment. Trump has been solidifying his advantages in the Sun Belt, but all Harris has to do is hold all three Blue Wall states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin They have voted as a bloc since 1992, so that makes it more plausible a path to 270 ... but only to 270. Sosnick thinks Arizona and Nevada are likely to tip to Trump, and both Georgia and North Carolina are leaning in that direction.


What happens if Harris loses PA, though? That certainly looks possible, thanks to GOP voter registration gains in a state Joe Biden only carried by 1.2 points:


Pennsylvania has outsize importance for Ms. Harris since six of the most plausible paths for victory require her carrying the state. But the Democratic voter registration advantage there has dropped to a margin of 4 percent from 7.4 percent in 2020.


If Harris does lose PA, she has to hold the other two Blue Wall states and win at least two of the Sun Belt states. If she loses only Michigan or Wisconsin, Harris can make up the difference with either Georgia or North Carolina. If she loses all three Blue Wall states, well ... welcome to 2016.


Most of us can and do play with these scenarios at 270toWin, so they will be familiar to readers. Sosnick really hits the nail on the head on what could end up driving those scenarios, and it's basically a gender gap that Trump is winning:


The foundation of Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 — and a central part of his strategy for winning next week — is centered around white non-college-educated voters. Notably, they make up over 50 percent of all eligible voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Within this demographic, Mr. Trump is particularly focused on men, which is why he spent three hours doing Joe Rogan’s podcast. In the NBC poll, he is carrying white non-college-educated men by 42 points.


The Harris campaign is taking a similar approach, focusing on white college-educated women, who currently favor Ms. Harris by 29 points. She is also trying to elevate the stakes of the campaign in hopes of increasing the turnout of occasional voters by settling on a closing argument that calls out Mr. Trump as a threat to our democracy.


She and Biden flogged the "threat to democracy" argument for two years, and it hasn't dented Trump's momentum. In fact, that's pretty much all they've argued, as Sosnick concedes. He astutely argues that Harris never got a chance to develop the political muscle for campaigning, but that's because Democrats short-circuited the process to anoint her to the top of the ticket.


As far as the gender gap, it goes beyond the split in those specific demos. There are a lot more non-college males than college-educated females, white or not. The pool is just larger, especially in Blue Wall states which means Trump can leverage that more where it matters in the Rust Belt. And it probably didn't help Harris much for Mark Cuban and other surrogates to claim his week that only stupid and weak women support Trump, fueling even more turnout potential against Harris.


Sosnick doesn't offer a prediction, and neither does Harry Enten at CNN. Enten tries to put any sense of polling momentum into context, and he's right about the data:




As I have warned over the last couple of says, the polling data show that this could go either way. Other data, such as party ID, voter registration, and early voting as compared to four years ago, offers the GOP reasons for optimism. Betting markets are still favoring Trump. But with less than four days to go, keep in mind that the margins of error still could hide other trends that will only become apparent after the ballots have been counted.


So get out and vote, and bring some friends with you too.