In the return of the Politicus Pod, Sarah and Jason take on the topic of polls. What part of the polls should you believe before the midterms, and what should you doubt.
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Sarah talked about how Republicans are fighting Democratic voter enthusiasm with fear:
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Of course, Republicans do not have a winning message on healthcare. They don’t have a winning message on their tax cuts for the rich. They don’t have a winning message on Kavanaugh. They might claim that they do, but that’s a very small amount of people who actually want someone who has been credibly accused of rape on the Supreme Court. I would hope. But I also believe that. I think there’s a lot of good men who don’t, who, who are also Republican, who don’t think that that’s a good idea. I mean there are people who don’t believe that as well, but there are, there just whittling away their support in all of these different ways and it’s hard to get people encouraged to come out and vote.
One of the Republican National Committee, a former official, the Republican National Committee said today that Republicans are playing defense in more and more places, and the Democrats’ map continues to get bigger and the Republicans’ map continues to get smaller. That is something we’ve been talking about for years now because while they, Republicans get help and assistance from rigging things in their favor, that is not actual voter support. So the more people who come out and vote, the better it is. And we always talk about this, but they’re doing everything they can to dampen the enthusiasm of Democrats, make them feel afraid, make them feel scared of what’s going to happen.
Jason talked polls:
Well, it is going to be okay, but you have to understand that House Elections in Senate elections are two different animals. It’s possible for Democrats to pick up seats in House districts in states where the Republican is going to win the Senate seat because it’s possible in any particular congressional district there will be voters that are going to vote more Democratic, but there won’t be enough of those voters. They’ll be enough to win a House district, but there won’t be enough of them statewide to maybe win a Senate race. So that’s what you’re seeing as far as, let’s say a place like Missouri where it’s really close, but you know, could pick up a House seat somewhere or to um, that they’re two very different elections. The thing is a lot of the Democratic pickups are going to come primarily in like Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
