JONATHAN CHAIT JULY 20, 2010
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Last month, the Gallup poll a six-point advantage for Republicans in the House "generic ballot" question. Former Bush administration Minister of Propaganda Pete Wehner undertook his characteristic gloating spasms:
Gallup’s generic ballot poll (courtesy of the indispensible RealClearPolitics) shows a 49-43 percent lead for the GOP, the largest lead for Republicans since the poll started in the midpoint of the last century. The fact that this is almost unsurprising is evidence of the dangers facing the Democratic Party, and the modern liberal agenda, this November.
Among the problems for Democrats is that the narrative of the election — a bad economy, profligate spending, misplaced priorities, and the Obama administration’s general incompetence — is just about baked into the cake, absent some extraordinary intervening events. And the news for President Obama and Democrats continues to get worse rather than better. Even David Gergen is turning on the president. ...
The political noose continues to tighten around the necks of Democrats. Cheerleaders of the president — and there are still plenty of those in the political class — will explain all this as the result of bad luck or blame it on the previous administration. The rest of America considers this the results of a president whose agenda is failing virtually across the board.
Buwahahaha!
Anyway, I bring this up because today's Gallup poll shows Democrats jumping into a six-point lead:
Let me be clear: this is all just statistical noise. There has not been a 12-point swing in the House race since June. And even if Democrats do manage to hold onto the House, they will not win the total House vote by six points. But it's worth keeping some of this in mind when some hack cherry-picks a poll outlier and presents it as an accurate gauge of the public mood.
8 comments
When will you LiberalFascistSocialismCommunistObamis learn to stop drinking the Kool-Aid? Everyone knows - it is as axiomatic a principle of politics in this country as any - that any poll that demonstrates anything positive about the Democrat Party, and that includes the alleged "real" poll in November, is cooked by the UN and the Liberal Islamofasist media. Only polls by Rasmussen and other polls that demonstrate Democrat Party decline are correct, and only where they clearly show a downward momentum at all times. In reality, the Democrat Party has no support, aside from some Welfare Queens in Harlem, anywhere in the country. Soon, the Democrat Party and its illegal President will be consigned to the ashheap of history.
- icarusr
July 20, 2010 at 10:32am
Wow Ic, that was good. You wrapped up every stereotype in one post. Well, most all of them; you forgot the Volvos and Birkenstocks. Maybe the French and some French food.
- tnmats
July 20, 2010 at 11:19am
Peter Wehner is the consummate hack. Is there any one worse than him to the starboard that has any readership at all? You should run a Wehner contest to that would answer my question, Jonathan.
- liberal reformer
July 20, 2010 at 11:34am
from your pixels to the electorate's voting apparatuses... In the end, it's going to be a turnout and I just don't think all those first time voters are going to get up again. And thus the losses will be construed as policy referenda. But really, polls not withstanding, there are more Democrats/Democrat-leaning independents in the country and even with the electoral college, Dems should always win the general elections. Boots on the ground people--boots on the ground (translating into people in the booths)
- ericad
July 20, 2010 at 2:15pm
oh yeah, and Icarus--awesome!
- ericad
July 20, 2010 at 2:16pm
But you forget. This spike in the poll is just noise. Every spike that leans Republican is a true measure of the broad support for the conservative agenda.
- JEFF FREY
July 20, 2010 at 3:50pm
It's the new BP well cap, silly! And the fact that many people are starting to see the benefits of the new health insurance regulations. Great post, Icarus.
- desertdog
July 20, 2010 at 4:36pm
"this is all just statistical noise." A few points is statistical noise, at least the sampling error kind, not 12 points. What you may mean is this is just due to temporary fluctuations in attitudes and choices among the less decided, not something more lasting. One thing I've thought about is that perhaps in some situations, no news is good news. I have an MBA from your alma matter, and I've completed all of the coursework and written exams for a PhD in finance, so I know the finance research very well, and there is a behavioral branch. That said, I think it may be lately that if there's no bad news, not even any good news, just nothing bad, then the market tends to float up. I wonder if this is also true to an extent wtih Democrats. If there is no bad news for a while, not even good news, just no bad news, no oil spill, no death panel lies, their approval starts to float up.
- RHSerlin
July 20, 2010 at 7:06pm