A Snapshot of Current Polling

Earlier today, Simon wrote an important thread that took a look at current polling in the midst of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. The thread is here, and an expanded version is below.

A Snapshot of Current Polling

According to FiveThirtyEight over the last few weeks, Trump's favorables have improved a bit and now are at 41.5/52.8 but the generic has worsened for the Republicans and now stands at 49.6/40.9. Both of these results suggest a very good year for the Democrats. My take is that Republicans now have a very low ceiling across the country. Of the 45 top Gov/Senate/House battlegrounds with recent polls, Republicans are over 50% in only 4 or 5 (not including TX Sen or AZ Gov), and have no lead outside of the margin of error in any Gov or Sen battleground. Republicans are not leading in governor's races in FL, GA, OH, PA, MI, WI, IA and NV - all critical 2020 battlegrounds. They could end up winning some but the GOP can't be happy here.

Furthermore, the GOP wipeout in MI and PA deserves far more attention. 4 GOP candidates for MI and PA Gov and Senate are in the 30s. The 30s. Democrats are likely to win these races by 15-25 points in two of Trump's most important states. The very strong showing of Dems in AZ, CA and TX continues a trend we first saw in 2016 - Trumpism is not playing well in this region of the country. There are also very good numbers for Democrats in CO, NM, NV. Keep an eye on this.

Next, the House. According to the Cook Political Report, Democrats are on track to clearly win 205 seats, and need to win 13 of the remaining 57 Toss Up/Lean Rs seats to flip the House. In Nate Cohn's latest polling of 30 of these districts, Democrats have leads outside of the margin of error in 9 races, while Republicans have those leads in only 5. Republicans are at 45% or below in 9 additional races. So Democrats have 9 clear leads and are outperforming Republicans in another 9 races in a lean Democrat year, while Republicans only have 5 clear leads. Being generous, let's say the parties split those 57 districts. The result would be the Democrats ending up with about 230 seats.

But to be very clear - Democrats do not have this thing in the bag. It is leaning their way. But most competitive races for Gov/Sen/House are too close to call, so any late swing either way could be very meaningful. This is why the shakeout on this Kavanaugh fiasco matters so much.