Tag Archives: Gallup

House of Reps Makeup Assessed; Crowded Candidate Field Already in Porter’s CA-47; GOP Leads in Nationwide Party ID in Gallup Poll

By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023

Elections

Reassessing Republican Performance — It is a common analysis that the Republicans under-performed in the 2022 election, but a closer inspection of the final US House results suggests such a conclusion may be somewhat unwarranted.

It is certainly clear that the Republicans fell below the congressional leadership and conservative media’s expectations, but the flaw may have been unrealistic predictions instead of candidates falling woefully short at the ballot box.

Several points lead to this new conclusion.

First, the Daily Kos Elections blog conducted an analysis of all 435 districts once the 50 post-redistricting state maps were in place. The DK researchers calculated the 2020 Biden-Trump presidential results for all 435 congressional districts and found that the national Democratic nominee carried 226 seats from the grand total, therefore suggesting that the final redistricting maps actually favored the Democrats and not the Republicans.

Therefore, seeing 222 seats in a new Republican majority when the opposing party had the advantage in 226 seats possibly puts the final result in a different light.

Secondly, the national congressional vote favored the Republicans by a 50.6 – 47.8 percent margin, a spread of some 3.04 million votes. Directly extrapolating this national congressional popular vote number with an overlay of the 435 seats would directly yield the majority party 221 seats.

These latter figures tell us that the new redistricting maps accurately reflect the national vote count, at least in relation to the 2022 election. This, too, shows that the Republicans gaining 222 seats when their national vote would project to 221 was not the poor performance that many believe occurred.

Another common statement surrounding Republican 2022 performance in House races is the party left too many close contests “on the table.” The numbers pertaining to this observation also tell a different story.

In the 25 closest House races, Republicans won 15, including the five overall closest results. Looking at the 10 Democratic wins in this category, there is an argument to be made that the outcome could have realistically changed in only four of these hotly contested campaigns. Thus, if the Republicans won the reasonable “races on the table” their majority would have grown to only 226.

The six tightest races that statistics suggest should have gone to the Democrats are:

• NM-2: Las Cruces City Councilman Gabe Vasquez (D) defeated Rep. Yvette Herrell (R) due mainly to redistricting. The Democratic map drawers changed the 2nd CD from a seat that favored Republicans by 14 points to a new domain giving the Democrats a four point statistical advantage. These numbers are from the FiveThirtyEight data organization calculations. Therefore, the Democratic candidate scoring a 50.3 percent victory is actually a bit below what was expected.

• CT-5: Connecticut Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Wolcott) won a third term, but in a closer-than-expected finish, taking just 50.4 percent of the vote in a seat rated D+3. Again, statistics suggest that this is a Democratic district, and especially so with an incumbent on the ballot.

• NY-18: Another district where the Democrats were favored (D+3) went to 19th District special election winner Pat Ryan (D-Gardiner). He defeated a strong Republican effort from then-state Assemblyman Colin Schmitt with only 50.6 percent of the vote.

• OR-6: The surprise of this race is how close Republican Mike Erickson came to scoring an upset victory in a district rated D+7. State Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Tigard) won the election, but her 50.0 – 47.5 percent margin should have been greater.

• RI-2: Republicans had high hopes that former gubernatorial nominee Allan Fung could upset then-state Treasurer Seth Magaziner (D-Cranston) in a seat rated D+17. Such expectations proved unrealistic, but Fung did hold the new Congressman to only a 50.4 winning percentage.

• CA-47: Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) was always favored to defeat former state Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R), and did so by a 51.7 – 48.3 percent vote spread. She outspent Baugh by a $25.7 million to $3.1 million ratio, thus overwhelming her opponent with resources.

The four races Republicans might have turned around were:
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Winning vs. Ideology

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 21, 2019 — As the 10 Democratic presidential candidates again took the debate stage last night, this time from Atlanta, they all needed recognize a few things: They needed to walk a fine line. The contenders needed to carefully navigate between appealing to their party’s ideological base, which is key to winning the nomination, and preparing for the general election where a more centrist approach appears to be the probable course toward achieving national victory.

The Gallup organization just completed a new national survey (Nov. 1-14; 1,015 US adults from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 437 self-identified Democrats and Independents who lean Democratic) that compared the importance between choosing an ideologically sound nominee with one who is best equipped to win the general election irrespective of where that individual stands on the party’s base issues.

Looking at the current results in the prism of Gallup asking the same questions of Republican respondents when President Obama was running for re-election in 2012, and a Democratic cell group when President George W. Bush was seeking a second term in 2004, this sample skews towards electability over ideology in the starkest proportion.

According to Gallup’s questions asked of Democrats and lean Democrats whether they believed it is more important to find a candidate who can unseat President Trump or one who agrees with the individual respondent on issues, by a margin of 60-36 percent the poll showed that the favored candidate would be the one having the best chance to win the November 2020 election.

In 2012, Republican responses to this choice involving replacing President Obama, surveyed in mid-September of 2011, leaned toward a candidate who could win over the ideologically pure contender in a 53-43 percent spread. Eight years earlier, when President Bush was seeking his second term, the ratio among Democrats at the end of 2003 was 50-44 percent in favor of ideology, but six weeks later, in early February 2004, the margin switched to 55-40 percent toward finding the candidate who was best equipped to unseat Bush.

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Tracking Trump’s Approval Ratings
Against Electoral College Results

2016 Electoral College Results map (270toWin)

By Jim Ellis

Feb. 26, 2019 — Already beginning to project where the states might fall in the 2020 presidential election, the Gallup organization released a 50-state survey tracking study Friday that summarizes their cumulative research collected throughout the past year.

Gallup finds President Trump slightly improving his standing over a similar project conducted from their aggregate 2017 data. Meanwhile, the Civiqs polling organization projects, as do all other pollsters, that Trump’s job approval remains upside-down. In the good news category for the president, however, the latter organization finds that he is viewed more positively than either of the national political parties.

Nationally, Trump carries a 44:52 percent job approval ratio according to the Civiqs poll of registered voters (polled continually from Oct. 12, 2015-Feb. 23, 2019; 181,729 responses during that multi-year tracking period). The Democratic Party, however, posts a lesser 39:52 percent rating, while the Republican Party lags behind both the president and their political party counterpart. The GOP registers a poor 26:60 percent index.

But these numbers are not particularly unusual because the same trend among the three polling subjects has been consistent for many months. The more telling conclusion is that the deviation factor among the approval ratings has remained constant for well over a year, suggesting that the electorate continues locked in a highly polarized and negative status.

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Democratic Enthusiasm: Overblown?

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 20, 2017 — In attempting to objectively look at the current electorate now one year before the next election, is Democratic enthusiasm about the party’s prospects of capturing the US House majority accurate or does their optimism exceed what the numbers actually say?

Several points need to be dispelled before examining the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll that gives the Democrats a 10-point advantage in the “enthusiasm gap.”

First, let’s remember in looking at the current cycle’s House special election results that neither party lost a seat they previously held. This is particularly significant when Democrats use the argument in reference to the Kansas, Montana, and Georgia special elections that they over-performed even though failing to win any of the seats.

While they may have over-performed in relation to the Trump presidential percentage in Kansas and Montana, when looking back to the last time those particular seats were open the 2017 Republican special election performance was actually within the consistent realm. Therefore, as the Democratic strategists often say themselves, and correctly so, it is the Trump percentage that is generally the political anomaly and not the historical results.

” … a one-point victory in an election with such a flawed candidate, irrespective of Alabama’s voting history, simply cannot be considered the emerging beacon of a coming wave for the 2018 midterm elections.”

In Georgia, the Democrats and their allies spent a record $35 million on that particular special election campaign and still lost by four percentage points. The one seat where they unmistakably over-performed was the only special election where the party’s political apparatus didn’t target: the three-point Republican victory in the South Carolina electoral contest.

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Fox Poll: A Mixed Bag

By Jim Ellis

July 21, 2017 — Fox News this week released the results of their regular benchmark poll (Anderson Robbins Research and Shaw & Company Research; July 16-18; 1,020 US registered voters) and find President Trump to be showing some weakness, but not to the degree that the Democrats and media would think and hope.

The polling sample tilts Democratic, and badly under polls Independents. This particular sample features 44 percent Democratic respondents, 37 percent Republican, with just 19 percent self-identifying as politically independent. According to the latest Gallup national party affiliation survey (July 5-9), 28 percent consider themselves Democrats, 25 percent Republican, with 45 percent declaring as Independents.

Overall, the president’s job approval rating is 41:53 percent favorable to unfavorable, which is a little lower than during most of his short tenure in office but still better than the 35:63 percent ratio Trump scored on the Fox pre-election poll (Oct. 10-12; 1,006 US registered voters). Therefore, his favorability index, though seriously upside down, is actually better today than when he won the 2016 election.

While his overall job approval is low, his management of various issue areas is better. In terms of handling the economy, 45 percent approve and 46 percent disapprove. This result represents a slight dip from Fox’s March, April, and June surveys. His best ratio during that time was 48:43 percent (June).

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Trump’s Approval; More Montana

By Jim Ellis

March 6, 2017 — In the early part of Donald Trump’s presidency, a wide chasm has opened surrounding his job approval polling ratings.

From the past 10 surveys, presented through seven different political pollsters over the period stretching from Feb. 21 thru March 1, the various results span from a plus-5-point differential all the way to minus-12. This is an incredibly large answer gap for one consistent question, but a simple explanation for the discrepancy is becoming evident.

The pollsters: Gallup (3 surveys), Rasmussen Reports (2), YouGov/Economist, Ipsos/Reuters, Politico/Morning Consult, Survey Monkey, and Public Policy Polling, were many of the same firms that continually tested the 2016 presidential campaign. As we remember, most of the results predicted a small national margin in Hillary Clinton’s favor, which is exactly what happened, though the individual state polling, particularly in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and even Florida was badly flawed.

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Polarized, or Not?

By Jim Ellis

March 1, 2017 — Much is being made about President Trump’s early job approval ratings. Almost across the board, they are low, and particularly so for a new national chief executive, which has naturally attracted media attention.

In their late February report about political polarization, the Gallup polling organization, which began testing presidential job approval back in the Truman Administration and has regularly continued the practice ever since, argues that polarization among the self-identified Republicans and Democrats is a major obstacle for President Trump to overcome. They further make the point that this is not a new phenomenon, as partisan approval polling detected similar numbers for presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

The Gallup analysis, on and around the Feb. 20 time frame, found President Trump’s job approval rating to be 42 percent. When they looked at the two previous presidents, also hitting 42 percent approval rating at certain points in their own presidencies, Gallup found the level of partisan support and opposition among Democrats and Republicans for the president of their own party was virtually identical.

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