Now I'm totally confused because I thought these were elected judges. I voted No only on 4 out of 15 or so, but I have to admit that I did not do the research and instead went with what my in laws said. They are both liberal and pretty active politically (attend rallies, drive people to the polls, fundraise for dem candidates, etc) so I trusted their judgment.

Side note, I feel for people who have conservative in laws. I'm glad my in laws and even my wife's 98 year-old grandma (who still votes!) are all liberal.

Texas election officials confirmed that voting machines used in 30% of its counties (including its biggest) are switching people’s votes

Would like to see the stats on how the actual votes changed. lol at that ever happening though.

Susan Collins and civility:

Can people still donate to that “fund Susan Collins’ opponent whoever that might be” fund?

John Oliver just crashed the vote411 website by telling viewers to visit it. Hopefully they all convert to actual voters.

Hot Takes:

Arizona: I thought McSally (R) was moving ahead but the most recent poll has Sinema (D) back up. It's basically even in the average of polls. I thought a fighter pilot Republican would do great in Arizona and am surprised McSally isn't opening up a lead. Perhaps voters think Sinema is a future Fox News host? She sure looks like one.

Floirda: I don't know why the polling has been a bit erratic lately. But, I guess it's an advantage to Nelson (D). Nelson has alwasy benefited from weak opponents, though I guess Scott (R) has improved over the past eight years.

Indiana: Braun (R) has moved ahead in the two most recent polls. This coincides with a typical late collapse of a third party (Libertarian) candidate. The three-person nature of the Race had been propping up Donnelly (D) who usually polled at 43 or 44. This looks like a Republican pickup more than ever before.

Missouri: Hawley (R) seems to have moved ahead. I'm surprised McCaskill (D) managed to keep it so close.

Montana: Tester (D) should win, though I don't think its locked up. Tester's campaign must be doing something very right in Trump country.

Nevada: Heller (R) is up in the polls. But Nevada polling has been underrating Democrat numbers since 2010.



Texas & Michigan: Cruz (R) and Stebanow (D) keep seeing thier leads shirink. However, they're polling over 50% and should be safe. Democrats had a best-case-scenario in Texas and can only get to -5 in the best poll so far.

New Jersey: Would Democrats trade a loss here for a win in Texas? That seems like a good deal for both sides.


Republicans +3 (with win in North Dakota too) seems the most likely net result.

Republicans +3 would be an unmitigated disaster. 538 is still saying R + less than a seat in EV. Right now it's R+.6.

D+1, push, R+1 are their most likely three outcomes and add up to 49.2%.

They're giving a 19.7% chance of Republicans +3 (or worse).

So R +3 seems like far from the most likely net result.

Looking at 538's projections, they currently have Heidi Heitkamp with a 31.9% chance of winning in North Dakota.

That's using their "Classic" forecast.

Intuitively, that feels much too optimistic.

538's "fundamentals" adjustment is really pumping up Heitkamp's numbers. For example, she gets a +6.6 for her fundraising advantage.

However, it seems that advantages in fundraising and even incumbency and maybe the generic ballot should lose their influence as Election Day gets closer.

At some point, polling results should be event more dominate in the projections.


When the "Lite" version of 538's projection is used (that's adjusted polls only), Heitkamp's chances drop to 8.8%.

Overall, the "Lite" version only has an average of R+1. It still gives the edge to McKaskil in Missouri (50.7%) Donnelly (63%) in Indiana and Sinema (65%) in Arizona.

Trump being 30% on 11/7/2016 felt, intuitively, much too optimistic, no?

The TN election is absolutely maddening.

You've got Blackburn going FULL TRUMP, build the wall, stop the caravan, PHIL BREDESEN LOVES THE CARAVAN, etc. and Bredesen running MARSHA LOVES OPIATES, MARSHA IS A SWAMP CREATURE, etc 24/7.

In the governor race, meanwhile, the two guys are trying to out nice each other. They are both running ads about how their opponent is a decent human being. It's bizarre.

I didn't at the time. They have three models at 538, and Dynasty is not wrong to point out the large discrepancy between their polls based model with their classic model which incorporates fundamentals. Someone trailing by double digits in polls a week out from the election having a 30% shot is indeed counterintuitive. And not merely counterintuitive, but also at odds with other measurements of the race. Hard to judge these things definitively, but I'm very confident in saying that betting on Heitkamp with 3:1 payoff would be a bad bet based on all of the available info.

On the plus side for ND, native americans are PISSED. Don't know how many ID's they can print in time, but they're gonna try.

Trump was only down a few points, she's down double digits. He was within the margin of error, she is not.

538 gives a 10% chance for Dems picking up more than 2 seats (that means Cruz loses) which man, I'm skeptical at that being 10 but whatever.

The Donnelly/McCaskill races were the 2 most important this cycle to hold on and the attention was all at TX/TN, GJGE. Nothing we didn't know, both are very tight races and they have to hang on otherwise both seats will be red for quite awhile.

in 2012, heitkamp was down consistently, one poll had her down 10, the rest around 5, very last one had her down by 2, she won by .9. So there's something, but this is further back than that was. Last 4 (didn't adjust to compare vs the unadjusted 2012 ones I looked up) 10/12/16/9. That is not good. I'll take the other side of that 30% if you really believe and hope I lose.

There's no reason to throw fundamentals out the window, though. They help the model. Nate has consistently said that Deluxe should be > Classic > Lite for predictive ability.

There was waaaaay more polling of the 2016 presidential race than the 2018 ND Senate race. Using polls recognized by 538, there have been two polls conducted entirely in October: Trafalgar Group and Strategic Research Associates. There have been eight non-partisan polls this year. There has been one poll this year that sampled >1,000 people. The last poll sampled 70% GOP, 18% Dem, 13% no party registration. Pew has the state at 50 R, 33 D, 18 I as of 2014.

The last poll sampled 96% white, < 1% each Asian, Black, Latino and 1.6% other. The state is 90% white, 5.4% Native American, 1.2% black, 1% Asian, 1.8% 2+ races, .6% other.

So how much weight should we put into the polling versus fundamentals? With such sparse polling, and it's not exactly from the NYT, Quinnipiac, Gallup, etc, how much more likely is a polling error? 25% could be a very realistic amount of equity for Heitkamp.

I'm seeing 4.1% chance of +3, 1.4% +4, .2% +5. So thats a 5.7% chance of picking up more than two seats. It's similar to being dead to two outs going to the river. You really think their odds of picking up 3 or more are worse than that?

Last but not least, on ND, we're talking about a small state in terms of population. If the polling is accurate, and based off historical turnout, we are looking at a margin in the neighborhood of 25-30K votes. What if the voter ID thing pissed off the Native American population so much that their turnout spikes? That could be a huge swing in this race. There are 30K+ Native Americans in North Dakota. So something like that, which polls can't account for, and being on the leftward edge of the MOE could all of a sudden make it very close. That's the type of variance that is built into the ~25% they're now giving Heitkamp.

Guys Heitkamp isn’t winning. Of all the “close” races she’s going to lose by the largest margin.

Joe Donnelly furiously shooting himself in the dick for the stretch run

It's nice to see that your are overlooking the NJ race. Reports of internal polling have this a dead heat.

people are saying ...

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...-in-new-jersey


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ace-poll-finds

It's been discussed at length

Nobody's ignoring it. It's been heavily polled and, shockingly, the GOP internals may be a little biased... https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...te/new-jersey/

Cool man, how much can I get down on Menendez -105 vs you?