2022: Death Of A Narrative

People Need To Accept 2022 Will Be Competitive

There are always two very different questions with polls, and one of them is much easier to answer than the other. The first question is whether or not the poll is internally consistent, and the second is whether it is right, and we almost always focus on the latter - especially when it comes to final polls, but too often, the former is disregarded.

Internal consistency isn’t about outcomes, but process - is there a chance the poll is right? Take that Virginia poll that Nuttycombe et al paid for - it is obviously a garbage poll, because any poll which has Terry McAuliffe getting 61% of the Black vote is trash. Now, that poll could end up being correct, in the sense that McAuliffe might end up at a 4% win by election day, but that will not change the fact that it got very lucky to do so. Doing bad work and getting bailed out isn’t a success, it’s luck, and we should treat it this way.

Now, I know I said I don’t care about US polls anymore, and on the whole I don’t. I certainly don’t pretend that I can tell you whether any poll will be correct in the sense of calling the winner right, or hitting the right margin, and given that fact, using US polls to predict winners is a fool’s game. That said, I am a Democrat (shocker, I know), and it does warm my dark soul just a bit to see Echelon Insights - a GOP pollster - showing a 7% Democratic lead on the generic ballot.

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This poll should not in any way affect your 2022 predictions, to be clear. It should not, at all, cause you to rethink your 2022 takes, both because it is 15 months out from the midterms, and because US polling is shit. But when I woke up this morning, I saw some “CRT is causing moderates to flee the Democratic Party” bullshit story floating around on Twitter, and I’m stuck on that fact - that on the same day as the blue checks doom’d over the future of the Democratic Party, a GOP pollster showed a 7% lead for the party. A 7% lead that, for whatever it is worth, does make a certain amount of sense. Dems doa bit better with non-degree whites, GOP do a bit better with educated whites, and the share of the electorate that is white and doesn’t have a degree falls. Am I saying that it is right? God no. But it is, for whatever else you might say, showing the path we know Democrats would need for 2022 to be a good year.

My argument isn’t “Democrats primed for good 2022” because that’s not what I’m saying here, but what I am saying is that the argument for why Democrats may have a good 2022 already exists. I’ve made the argument many, many, many times, and yet, it is still blithely assumed that 2022 will be a disaster, because, well, Biden Midterm or some shit. You can take that at face value, as if we didn’t do this bullshit with “The GOP Always Do Better In Georgia Runoffs” literally last winter, or you can actually reckon with the realities of international political trends, the realignment, and turnout effects. And then, the special elections haven’t shown anything to suggest a particular change from 2020, and the polls haven’t either, and yet, “Biden Midterm Bad” continues to pass for intelligent political discourse. It isn’t.

Do you not think everyone would be taking this poll as gospel if it had Biden at -5 approval and a 3% GOP lead on the generic ballot? Of course it would be. “New poll shows Democrats on brink of midterm wipeout” would be the CNN crawl in a fucking minute if this poll had the GOP in a good spot, and yet, here we are, because of course we are. We are still getting Hotline Josh concern trolling, as if the New Mexico 1st wasn’t supposed to be close and was a bigger win for Democrats than even Biden managed. Remember when California was maybe going to be close in the recall election? I’ve been punting on writing about the race for my political betting column I do for TheLines in hopes some poll would come out showing any hope for the GOP, and it isn’t coming. The GOP are supposed to be on the march to the majority, and yet, there’s no proof anywhere.

None of this means they won’t win the majority, but it does mean that the conceited asshats of the pundit class need to figure out what is up their asses and accept the possibility that things aren’t as dire for the Democratic Party as they seem to believe, and that maybe, just maybe, things have changed now. We have all the evidence - from the increasing role of partisanship and polarization, to the evidence that the realignment isn’t just a US phenomenon to the way that ticket splitting is down - to suggest that things may be different, and if that isn’t enough, then the fact that the last 6 years of US politics has broken every rule we think we knew should be enough. At some point the narrative that Democrats are on the road to imminent political death needs to die, and while this poll shouldn’t be the only reason, if it manages to get some people’s heads out of their asses, then it will have done some good.