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One simple note about the polls, especially if you’re a poll obsessive. There’s little question that trends have moved in a GOP direction since mid-October. But there is an important caveat to this. In key Senate races around the country, the polling zone has been absolutely flooded over the last couple weeks with partisan GOP polls. In some cases, I mean literally polls fielded by GOP committees or organizations. In other cases I mean polls like Rasmussen or Trafalgar which may be nominally independent but are clearly partisan and routinely have poll results more friendly to Republican candidates.
These have helped shift averages and perceptions. In many cases we have little to compare them to because there haven’t been any non-GOP-leaning surveys. So perhaps these polls are right. Or, more plausibly, perhaps they’re picking up a major shift but exaggerating the shift.
(This zone flooding is also apparent in the generic ballot averages but to a lesser degree.)
My general rule of thumb is that when you start analyzing or unskewing polls that you don’t want to be true, you know you’re in trouble. It’s a good rule of thumb. That’s why in my commentary here and on the podcast recently I’ve tried to be transparent about my foreboding. But the concentration of GOP polls — often almost to the exclusion of legitimate media polls — is close to unprecedented here as far as I can remember. In a week we’ll know one way or another. And I suspect in the first half of this week, we’ll get some reliable polls which will clarify things. For now, just leave this as an asterisk over current headlines. As I say, we’ll know soon enough.
