The Reason Pollsters and Others are Overcounting GOP Wins in the Unresolved House Races

Much has been made of this election’s R+4 generic vote not translating into a Republican Senate and a red wave in the House — especially by pollsters and those who analyze polls.

In the last two elections, collectively, pollsters overestimated the number of Democratic support, while in this election, pollsters were much more accurate about the amount of Republicans turning out, but the Dems still appear to have won the Senate, and if the Republicans take the House, their seat total will be much closer to the magic majority number of 218 than virtually everyone except me expected.

My guess is that the pollsters and those who analyze the polls are not accounting for those GOP voters who would either vote for the Democratic candidate or did not vote for the Republican — the GOP voters I call the minus 1 voters.

Minus one voters are voters who did not vote for a mini-Trump candidate.   Minus one voters are also the Trumpers who would not vote for a non-Trumper candidate.  Also, some of the minus-one voters who would not vote for a mini-Trump candidate voted for the Dem.  Regardless of the voter being a non-Trumper or a Trumper, the effect was the same on the Republican vote — it was minus one for the Republican, obviously helping the Democratic candidate.

Everyone keeps being surprised the Dems are still in contention to win the House.  But many in Washington look at a district that has a Republican majority, and simply count it in the GOP House pile of seats.

These folks are not accounting for the minus one Republican voters, mainly because these voters refuse to talk to pollsters — they are among the R voters who just clammed up — likely because they were sick of arguing with their fellow Republicans about how insane and crazy the Trump candidates were and Trump had become.  And destructive to the country Trump had become.

The Trumpists and many in the GOP would not listen — plain and simple, so the minus-one Republican voters just shut their mouths and voted for the Dem or refused to vote for a mini-Trump candidate.

I am certain these Republican voters refused to vote for the Republican for fear of encouraging the Trumpist wing.

Here is an example of more than a dozen races the Dems lost because of minus one voters: every single Trumpist the Dems supported financially in the Republican House primaries lost in the general election.  These losses were produced by minus one Republican voters.

The GOP voters concerned about the Dobbs decision on Roe v. Wade played a huge role.  The GOP political class kept citing polls showing abortion as an issue was 5 points.  They found little evidence in their polls because GOP voters concerned about Dobbs were not talking to pollsters.

So if, as I believe, the Dems win control of the House, it will be because of the minus-one voters that the pollsters and other professionals are not accounting for among the Republican voters, and these non-counters of the minus-one Republican voters will continue to be surprised at the gains the Dems make as these House races resolve.

The reason that pollsters missed these voters is there was no evidence of them in polls, mainly because these voters refused to talk to pollsters.  Faced with non-responsive GOP voters, the pollsters extrapolated from the responses they had, and presto — the Red Wave was born.  The GOP was ascendant! They will win everything — 53 Senate seats and have a majority of 35 seats — House leadership was telling everyone e who would listen that if everything went sideways they’d have a majority of an absolute minimum of 17 seats

The fundamental problem was the GOP voters who did not answer the polls wanted the maximum f@&k you effect — a psychic shock and awe on the GOP to get them to listen   And it worked.

I’d tell my pals about these voters, and they’d say the polls don’t show this — and I’d say they are lying in the weeds, and they would dismiss it out of hand.

And I would say, so your position is that the behavior of The Seditious Bastard and what he has said and done will have no impact on the midterms?

They’d say yes, it will have no impact.

I remember telling one GOP operative that the only place I thought Trump’s rallies helped the candidate was in Ohio; everywhere else, he was helping the Dems.  They were so agast they sputtered.

And my position was they were wrong and they were clearly captured by a lemming and herd-like mentality among pollsters and GOP operatives that was, in fact, actually a massive case of Groupthink — and the day before the election, I told a bunch of them just that, they were suffering from Groupthink.

Go on to Georgia, you seditious bastard, and have your rallies; see what happens.