15 Comments
User's avatar
Ed Ellis's avatar

Excellent analysis. There is a key differentiator this year: the environment is accelerating toward Democrats in an unprecedented manner, because fuel and food inflation is just beginning to be felt, as gas and diesel are up substantially in the past few weeks. Those correlate strongly to the generic ballot and if they continue on the current path, D+11 is at the low end of outcomes. We are likely to see $8-10 per gallon diesel at the pump by Election Day, and $6-7 gasoline, which would imply D+15-18 generic ballot, which is outside the band of elections you reviewed.

Millie Polli Haskell's avatar

That is exactly what I want to hear and Will Happen.

BoomBoom's avatar

Unfortunately this means an enormous house majority and in 2028 and a likely trifecta.. When Dems are then unable to quickly clean up the unfathomable mess inherited 2030 becomes 2010 when the American Public again forgets who to blame for their troubles.

Shawn's avatar

This. We'll only ever have a Democratic government for two years at a time, and spend the next 10-20 years out of power. The expectations for their governance are completely unrealistic (make everyone's lives economically perfect overnight) and the GOP gets to literally destroy the country in every way imaginable and they basically can almost guarantee that they'll be in power again despite it.

My other theory is that this Reality TV generation is addicted to drama. The press definitely is. Biden was boring. Things were good, the economy was good, all the politicians were polite, and that's boring. I think people genuinely, if subconsciously, wanted a return to the chaos and drama because then at least the news would be interesting. There would be doom to fill their doom scroll. It's a weird and very 21st century media-addled phenomenon.

John Kelly's avatar

This is not the time to celebrate..we should be thinking of every possible and not so possible way that MAGA will try and steal the 2026 elections. The nation needs to vote and remove all Republicans.

Matt's avatar

The 8/22 error on generic ballot has averaged 4% in GOP favor since 2014, with only one 0.1% error in Dems favor. I'll believe it's not just another pathetic underperformance by Dems when I see it...

John Kirincich's avatar

“Every predictor supports”? You have presented the generic ballot and two pieces of flimsy ephemera. And ignored so much else. There’s reason for optimism, but your beathlesss certainly is … misplaced.

Anonymous Dude's avatar

That’s what happens when you have inflation and unpopular wars.

Conor Gallogly's avatar

All the data at this point in time is excellent for Democrats. The biggest caveat is that it’s August and the political environment might change. But as of now it is more likely for Democrats to pull of a surprise win in a place like Kansas than to lose a swing state race like Georgia.

Shawn's avatar
1dEdited

We (dems) have to vote and fight in every election for the rest of our lives like we're about to lose by 20 points - absolutely no matter what the polls say. Because we've been misled and gotten complacent before. I was screaming for all of 2024 and some of 2023 that Trump was guaranteed to win the election unless everyone got their asses out and voted for Harris in droves, and well, that did not happen, and I knew it wouldn't. Republicans only lose when there's massive D turnout and shitty enough economic conditions for "independent" (aka, Republican-lite) voters to actually feel a pinch in their wallets when an R is in charge to blame. That second part is something that Ds have to permanently fix if they're ever going to be relevant again. The pendulum cannot keep swinging like a metronome on speed. American people cannot live with the chaos of having rights for four years and having those rights erased for the next four years, all because a tie-breaking proportion of the electorate are spineless amoral fucks who get off on the narcissistic fantasy of being "independent" and jerking everyone else around.

Chris B RRT's avatar

You assume there will be an election!

Zac Hill's avatar

This is one of the reasons why (as @Adam Jentleson always points out) we have to actually shoot for 60 in the Senate.

Jessie christopher Lapinid's avatar

I love the premise of this analysis: Corroboration of data. Quite convincing to be honest. Would be nice to see the probability that all these data corroboration would be false? In that sense we can get a grip of the likelihood that it would be true

BoomBoom's avatar

Great thank you