You have to be really deep in the weeds to see it. But if you watch close, you can see it happening.
What am I talking about?
If you’re a political junkie like me, every cycle you know of a few dozen members of the opposite party who are never more than a handful of points ahead of their opposition. 6 or 7 points? Not that far. But of course it’s a million miles. Campaign’s can work like crazy but a member of the House who wins by 55% to 45% generally just keeps on winning by the same spread. Like I say, it’s a million miles.
But not this cycle. It’s no mystery that things aren’t looking good for the GOP this year. But I like looking at numbers in the individual races. And again and again, I’m seeing races that never quite become competitive tip on to the other side entirely.
One I noticed a few weeks ago was Rep. Chris Chocola in Indiana 2. First was a Democratic poll showing him a stunning ten points behind his Democratic opponent. Partisan polls are of course inherently suspect. But, as has happened again and again over the last six or seven weeks, that was followed by an independent poll which showed a smaller but still serious deficit. Chocola with 41% to his challengers 46%.
For an incumbent in July those are very bleak numbers.
And he’s not the only one.
I keep seeing polls showing swing district Republicans either neck and neck or behind their Democratic challengers. Lots of them are polls sponsored by Dems — which makes sense, since they’re the side that wants to preview the level of competitiveness in the race. But in most of the cases I’ve seen, those numbers have been substantially confirmed by subsequent independent polls.
And if you watch closely, the water just keeps rising.
