As I expected, the explanations on why the polls were wrong have already begun. As of this writing, the GOP has 217 confirmed House wins. I will just guess, given that there are still several races too close to call, that they will control.
That means the polls were right.
The polls were right about the Senate staying in Democratic hands. The polls were right about new governorships for us. The polls predicted we barely had/have a Chinaman’s chance at holding the House.
One can say that in a sense they were off, because of the margins they were suggesting that the GOP would win the House by were fairly high (though again, we do not know that yet).
But that still means they have probably called the winning party in each category-and ergo, all these amateur pollsters running around on social media who said the Democrats were going to win were even wronger even if their numbers were closer.
I like Seth Abramson, but this is kind of what you’ll be seeing as this week drags on:
Let me take this moment to say how much I loathe the term “narrative”. It is a Republican paranoid nonsense word, and lefties need to stop using it. But fuck it, let’s run with it-why did they drive this narrative…that is pretty much the question Abramson wants answered.
You won’t like some of the dumb armchair psychology being used to explain it. I’m too lazy to find you some examples( I promise I have seen plenty), but trust me when I say that, if I may, the “narrative” is that the pollsters, in collusion with the GOP, wanted to drive down turnout and discourage Democrats from bothering to vote.
I am hoping you realize how stupid that sounds. You may not. You may be stupid, stubborn, or conspiracy-minded, take your pick.
If anything, that will generally make your average Democratic voter more determined than ever to show up and show out. We hear we are on the wrong end of a battle, we wake up and do shit. I don’t know who is profiling us as gloomy mopers who give up the minute they hear about troop strength on the other side, but this is a bullshit “insight” into the Democratic mindset.
And us showing up was exactly what the fuck happened. So indeed, if there was any plan to depress turnout in the manner Abramson is suggesting, it backfired wildly and was a really dumb plan. We fucking took it to them on Election Day. We were never not going to, regardless of what the polls and the media were saying. Democratic voters had the signal and weren’t listening to the noise. We saw the Christian fascism coming over the hill and we said NO. Maybe he’s referring to a possible attempt to shape independent minds, but that is a fool’s game because independents are stupid and you never know what they are going to do no matter what feedbag they choose.
Stop listening to the polls, you say? Stop listening to the people who say stop listening to the polls. More data is better than less, and if you really need to drill down on a poll because its numbers seem hard to believe, the methodology is out there.