How Much Of A Rout?

If my onservative readers are having trouble becoming irrationally exuberant about tomorrow's elections, Nate Silver of the NY Times suggests five reasons the polls may be underestimating the likely Republican tsunami.  Let's be clear - he is identifying arguments, not advocating for them, and he has no doubt weighed these issues before forecasting a Republican pick-up of 53 seats in the House.  Put another way, this is the short list of excuses pollsters will offer if Republcans shock the experts and gain 65 or 70 seats.

Still, your mileage may vary - some of these arguments may resonate more strongly with you than with grizzled professionals such as Larry Sabato, who predicts a Rep pick-up of 55 seats.  My personal favorite is this:

5. Likely voter models could be calibrated to the 2006 and 2008 elections, which were unusually good for Democrats. In addition to wrongly excluding some Republican “unlikely voters” (see Point No. 2), it’s also conceivable that some likely voter models based on past voting histories are overrating the propensity of Democrats to vote. The reason could be that some of them are based on past voting history, and a common question is whether the voter had participated in the last two elections.

But the last two elections — 2006 and 2008 — were good ones for Democrats, one in which there was little if any “enthusiasm gap,” or it may even have favored Democrats. This is, in fact, quite atypical: Republicans usually do have a turnout advantage, especially in midterm elections. Their demographics are older and whiter, and whites aged 50 and up are the most reliable voters. If likely voter models are benchmarked to 2006 and 2008 patterns, therefore, they could underestimate the turnout gap, giving too much credit to Democrats who voted in 2006 or 2008 but who don’t ordinarily. Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics makes a nice version of this argument.

With anti-war fervor in 2006 and Barack Fever in 2008, Dems will have a lot of supporters scored by pollsters as "likely voters" because they showed up for the last two elections.  Now we have an escalation in Afghanistan and Barack Fever seems to have broken, so those likely voters are likely to stay home come judgment day.

If the over-under is at 54 for the House, I say bet the over.

Comments

[Clarice]

Looks like Holder's going to lose he case against Az.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/01/AR2010110104018.html>Yutz AG

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

The Patriots were logged on, Slurpees at hand, ....

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

The Patriots were logged on, Slurpees nearby, ....

Enjoying visions of landslides & Dems asking, "Why?"

[Captain Hate]

What are you all going to miss about this election season?

Nothing other than the feeling of hope that I was missing 2 years ago. TBH I think one of the horrible implications of the last two years is an unhealthy obsession with just getting rid of the vermin. I sometimes feel like I'm turning into a mirror image of the Kostards (a force for good but still..) and there's more to life than that; which I know even if those idiots don't.

[narciso]

That's was a good flaying. I can imagine Houseman's Kingsfield, telling Kneedler, you're not suppose to leave here 'with a head full of mush' Hellman's argument that Bea's ethnicity should figure into this, is offensive but not surprising

[Frau Stimmzettel]

Janet, I emailed you with a request. You know, I never mind when smokers smoke near me nowadays even though I don't like the smell. I don't like the way they are treated these days -- as if they were lepers or Republicans.

[DebinNC]

Tsunami Eve Live Blog

[Pagar]

"My kids are horrified that I smoke."
My stepson and my daughter said they weren't
riding in the car if I smoked so I quit when I got back from Vietnam the first time in 66.
Didn't smoke again until I got back on the plane to Nam the 2nd time in 69. Smoked until waking up after a night at the club in 72. With the bad taste in my mouth, I thought - either have to quit smoking or drinking beer. Haven't had one since. It took me another 25 years to quit the beer.

[PD]

Well, I was never a cigarette smoker, but I haven't dropped acid in a few decades.

Cigarette smoke gives me migraines. I admit that, because of this, although I don't like gov't intrusiveness into our lives, I am in favor of no-smoking in public places laws. I guess that's an inconsistency on my part, but I'm really not a big fan of having migraines.

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

Janet, I emailed you with a request.

I don't see it Frau. We have 2 which I put out with Jane's Soylent care pkg list. One is -
theshagams at gmail dot com

[PD]

What is that, "those are some gams" at gmail dot com?

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

yup, close enough! :)

[Frau Stimmzettel]

I used the gmail one, Janet. I'll try again.

[maryrose]

PDinDetroit
I agree with you. I want that Senate too for vindication purposes. West Virginia worries me though.
Sue; Congrats on quitting smoking. My dad quit cold turkey after 40 years of smoking.Stay strong and Go Rangers. Last time I peeked-no score.

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

Here ya go -

[Frau Stimmzettel]

Thanks, Janet, for posting my all-time favorite photo. Reid's posture and the message is too much.
Kisses for the help.

[Sue]

::sigh:: Congratulations to the Giants. 3-1. They were the better team, I'm sad to say.

[Sue]

Marco Rubio is a hunk. If anyone has claimed dibs, I'm fighting you for him.

[Sue]

Thanks to everyone for all the good wishes. I'm very excited to be a non-smoker.

Now, I'm going to slit my wrists, since the Rangers lost. Don't worry if I don't show back up until morning. It will take me that long to sew them back up.

Night all. Going to dream of tsunamis.

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

Any time Frau.

[Porchlight]

Good night, Sue. I'm sorry about the Rangers. Eff the Giants anyhow, I never liked 'em.

See you in the morning. ;)

[glasater]

I'll bet we'd get Maybee back commenting if TM would put up a Dancing Wint the Stars thread.
I think she likes that show:-)

[PDinDetroit]

My sister is up here in Michigan now with her son, so I have a few more conservative votes now!

I took her shooting for the first time in many years. We found the Sig Sauer P238 HDW a fine fit for her, with small hands and recoil sensitive. LUN for the JOM ladies here.

[Clarice]

JPod--woo woo tomorrow--like Rick he's seeing a blowout. (So does Carville BTW)
< href=http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/jpodhoretz/379812>LIKE NOTHING EVER SEEN

[Clarice]

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/jpodhoretz/379812>Like nothing ever seen

[PDinDetroit]

Clarice - get out the broom, sweep out the trash.

[Clarice]

OMG
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/11/you-have-24-unanswered-messages.html>It's IOWAHAWK

[BR]

Oh, the smoking jokes are sooooooo funny!

Here's more: I told myself I'd stop smoking when I got pregnant. So I never got pregnant. Great contraceptive!

The only sex advice my mother ever gave me was don't drink and smoke together, you may get pregnant. (And she's a non-smoker :)

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

I believe that the Gallup model will be blown due by an additional 2% due to its release last night. Why should Dem voters show up tomorrow when Gallup (and Charlie Cook) say they're dead meat? JPod is saying what I said last night but I didn't consider the impact of an early release. We won't know the full impact for 36 hours but I believe you could walk across Chesapeake Bay right now.

You'd better hurry though - you want to be well up a far away hill within eight hours.

[Clarice]

Rick,Rick,Rick--I have put SCAM's every lst sou into DC Movers and Storage,Inc.

[daddy]

Threadkiller,

Just watched that PopaDich video of the debate highlights you linked up above. Wonderful stuff. Had heard him on Dennis Miller, bit great to see him in anction.

Man, was that Marine motivating! OooRah!

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Good luck to everyone tomorrow. I'll be celebrating the nationwide win, even if there is little to celebrate here in California. Of course, my own Congressman Darrell Issa will win in a landslide, but that was a given.

Jane: I'm adopting MA just for tomorrow.

[Threadkiller]

--"Marco Rubio is a hunk. If anyone has claimed dibs, I'm fighting you for him"--

If you can, on your first date, please check if his parents naturalized before he was born. I don't want to fight you for him, but I might have to save you from him.

[Threadkiller]

daddy, I am glad you enjoyed that! This one is personal. I hope Filner gets what he deserves.

By the way, did you end up in Alaska or do you have lineage tied to there?

[daddy]

I still don't want to go out on a limb and make any predictions at all, but it seems to me that the real loser out here these last few days is our local Media.

First there was the Friday Fagan suspension abetted by well known Lisa supporter and Liberal Channel 2 talking Head John Tracy. That story was major. This was followed almost immediately by the release of the Channel 11 "Corrupt Bastards" recording of CBS TV Reporters yucking it up about how to slime Joe Miller just when the media hacks were attempting to paint Talk Host Fagan as partisan and corrupt. And finally we had the spectacle of the ADN refusing to cover that last story for almost 24 hours, while the tape itself was being played all over the networks and National News sites, and commenters on unrelated ADN stories were linking the story and recording themselves in their comments, while demanding that the ADN quit being cowards and cover the story.

So with all that going on, I think serious, unexpected damage was done to local Media, and the beneficiary of that loss of credibility can only be Joe Miller.

So I am cautiously optimistic, and if I was to use the anecdotal enthusiasm evident in the number of supporters of the candidates waving signs up and down the streets of chilly Anchorage, I have to give the nod to Miller. Fingers crossed everybody!

[daddy]

JMH,

Great to see that Clarice posted your ">http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/the_five_stages_of_democratic.html"> The Five Stages of Democratic Grief at American Thinker.

T'was fun to watch Kirsten Power's tonight on Hannity trying to say that ObamaCare and his policies are not far left wing, but are mainstream and simply haven't been portrayed properly.

By my read that's numbers:

(2) "Goal-Post moving,"
(4) "Passive-aggressive amnesia," and
(5) "Everyone knows that Democrats have been victimized, yet again, by the Vast [insert slurs] ..."

Couldn't take any more than a few sentences from her, so if she got around to numbers 1 and 4, I missed it.

[daddy]

"What are you all going to miss about this election season?"

Nothing. Haven't had a drink since my last trip about 10 days back. Have to have a physical and I want my blood pressure way, way, down, so I am postponing the physical until after the Election, and the drinking till after the Physical. Ughh.

[daddy]

TK,

Up here due to work, not family.

I love it, kids like it, momma tolerates it.

[not_bubarooni]

looks like a good turn out at my polling place this morning.

there doesn't seem to be a lack of interest in voting.

[Ric Locke]

not_bubarooni: I voted early, last Friday. I'm in a red state, carmine district :-)

The poll worker said they'd already had more voters than they did for the Presidential election in 2008. Toss out all the "low turnout" models.

Regards,
Ric

[not_bubarooni]

Heya Ric,

I hope that high turnout holds true across the country. I think it'll benefit the conservative cause this time.

I'm in Indiana's 4th Congressional District. I didn't see any hippies at the polling place this year either. The place was crawling with the vermin last time around.

Things looking pretty good early.

[PDinDetroit]

Remember...

Republicans vote on Tuesday, November 2nd, between 6:00 AM and 7:00 PM, and Democrats vote on Wednesday, November 3rd, between 6:00 AM and 7:00 PM.

[B H Obama]

Well, clearly the Republicans will have to come to me.

[cheap car hire]

Hey guys! have you seen that Media Matters got Breitbart pulled from the ABC coverage?