Hopium AM - Michigan Senate Still Too Close To Call, Some Notes On Why The Polling Was So Off In Michigan, Let's Go Win The Midterms Everyone

I will be on live with the Contrarians at 915am ET this morning, paid subscribers gather tonight at 7pm ET

Morning all. A little bleary-eyed after a late night but here’s the first of several posts today…..

First, I will be live with the Contrarians at 915am ET this morning to go through the election results. Join us here.

Our paid subscribers will gather tonight at 7pm ET to go through what we’ve learned from the elections last night. Register here.

My initial take on last night - as both the Establishment and progressives/new left had wins last night the most important news continues to be that we have a real, legit shot at winning both the House and Senate this November:

Three Months Out Democrats Have A Legit Shot At Taking Both The House And Senate

This data continues to remarkable, impressive, inspiring no matter how many times you see it:

Sensing the opportunity in front of us the DCCC announced last night they were expanding their list of targeted GOP seats from 46 to 58.

The Michigan Senate race remains too close to call this morning (elections are not called until the Associated Press makes the call):

What happened with the polling? Here is what I wrote to you on Sunday:

Many of you have asked about the Michigan Senate primary. I have no idea what is going to happen but my guess is that the primary will be closer than some of the polling we’ve seen this week.

Here’s something I posted on Twitter last night:

Here’s the full analysis from Sunday. Lots in here to chew on:

…….Many of you have asked about the Michigan Senate primary. I have no idea what is going to happen but my guess is that the primary will be closer than some of the polling we’ve seen this week. As we have gotten a lot of polling in recent days, including a new one this morning from a highly regarded pollster EPIC-MRA, let’s see what we can make of all the data.

In the past few days we’ve gotten three general election polls in the Senate race. All three have Stevens leading Mike Rogers, all three have El-Sayed trailing Rogers. Stevens outperforms El-Sayed by an average of 7 points in these three general elections polls:

Here’s how I break down the primary polling we’ve seen since the beginning of June:

Let’s assume El-Sayed is ahead in the primary despite the lack of high quality, independent polling here. That El-Sayed is polling better in the primary than the general would be consistent with what we’ve discussed here - there are no examples of “new left”/Bernie progressives winning in a battleground race for governor, Senate, or the US House in recent years. While we know this politics can win in Democratic primaries in deep blue areas those of us in “the establishment” have concerns about how well it will perform in battleground general election campaigns for it appears to be built for Democratic primary audiences and not the broader electorate.

As I said in my talk this week Stevens has been endorsed by Michigan elected officials who have won statewide general elections. Those who have won those tough races there believe Stevens to be a better general election candidate, something the polling here seems to confirm.

In these general election polls El-Sayed is performing way below the partisan lean of the state, as Platner did in Maine even in his best polls, and DSAer Francesco Hong is in Wisconsin right now (she trailed in a recent general election poll). El-Sayed is running far behind Jocelyn Benson, our candidate for governor, as Platner trailed our candidate for Governor in Maine, Hannah Pingree, before dropping out:

So what this polling suggests is that if El-Sayed were to win the primary he will have work to do to bring the party together - a party that he has repeatedly attacked - and forge a better general election message if he is to beat Mike Rogers this November.

I also want to note the El-Sayed campaign and their allies have deployed a tactic in this race that’s been used by Republicans in recent years, and not by us - flooding the zone with favorable polls to shape the narrative of the race. In the past month 5 of the 12 primary polls released in Michigan have come from the El-Sayed campaign or their ideological allies - almost half. In those polls he leads by an average of 15 points. In June they released three additional general election polls. So if I counted correctly El-Sayed’s world released 8 of the 18 polls we’ve seen in Michigan these past two months - 44%, again almost half. This was a major effort to shape the understanding of the race. I’m not sure there has been anything like this on our side of the game in recent years.

As we’ve discussed here the decline of legacy media means that our understanding of elections will be, unfortunately, increasingly shaped by partisan or ideological actors using polls, prediction markets, and on-line manipulation to ferociously manufacture “consent” or as Renee DiResta called it recently a “majority illusion.”

For more on this new wild west of narrative shaping polls see:

• This smart analysis from Bill Scher in the Washington Monthly, The Platner Collapse Is a Cautionary Tale About Polling

• This NYT deep dive into the fake Republican polling in 2022, The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed A False Election Narrative (gift link)

• My review of the failed effort to flood the zone with juiced GOP polls to red wave the NJ Governor’s race last year

More as the day unfolds - Simon