Stu Rothenberg is starting to walk back some of his “sky is falling” rhetoric about the House. Here’s an example:
In North Dakota, veteran Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D) is proving that initial reports of his demise were exaggerated. Weeks ago, I spoke with someone who told me that Pomeroy had privately acknowledged that his chances of surviving this midterm were small, and early polling suggested that GOP challenger state Rep. Rick Berg was headed to a relatively clear victory.
While the two parties have different polls showing who is ahead, they agree Pomeroy and Berg are in a dogfight. The cycle still favors the Republican challenger, but the Congressman is not going away.
The only independent pollster polling in North Dakota is Rasmussen. And Pomeroy has out-raised his opponent by over a million bucks, and he’s outspent him 2:1. That’s a big deal in a cheap media market like North Dakota.
The fact is that the indicators in this race always pointed to a dogfight, and that Rothenberg, like Charlie Cook, tend to exaggerate uncertainty early in the cycle to drive subscriptions to their expensive publications. When it looks like they’re going to be wrong, they can always trot out a “little bird whispered in my ear” “I’ve got a secret” explanation that reinforces their positions as high priests in the cult of the savvy.
jwb
I was out call banking on Tuesday, and the posts were full, at times with people waiting in line to get a computer, and the morale was very high. The folks I called were all extremely motivated to get to the polls and planning on voting straight tickets.
kay
If Democrats were the challengers, and the numbers kept shifting back and forth like they are in these House races, you know what the media chorus would be?
Democrats are not “sealing the deal”!
Democrats are not “making the sale”!
There would be grave concern, furrowed brows, hand-wringing.
Instead, it’s that pundits missed some crucial candidate or race-specific factor to explain away any individual Republican’s poor performance.
Comrade Javamanphil
LOLReality iz in ur narrative, killing ur d00dz!
JPL
Who would have thought that after a year plus of the news promoting the tea party and their candidates, they would still have problems closing the deal. Although I’m concerned about the Citizens United ruling, I’m more concerned about the news media.
In GA Isakson’s opponent is not funded and Isakson still continues running multiple ads. His latest ad has to do with whose side are you on. So much for bipartisanship.
El Cid
Anyone see Rachel Maddow last night reminding the pressitariat that when they focus on how Democrats are having a very difficult time reaching white working class voters, and are relying upon turnouts in heavily Democratic black communities, that they therefore aren’t asking ‘why can’t Republicans reach black voters’, maybe because the answers would be completely obvious, displeasing to Republicans, and therefore isn’t worth thinking about?
Chyron HR
But USA Today says the only race that matters is Sharon Apple vs Harry Reid! Unless Reid wins, in which case the only race that matters is Jim Moran vs Retire Jim Moran, I guess.
Linda Featheringill
@JPL:
I’m concerned about the media, too.
The media has failed a large portion of the public they are supposed to serve. Why?
The kindest explanation would be that they were seduced by the idea of being able to predict a major election months in advance. They also have been lazy. So when a likely scenario was fed to them back in August, they bought it and ran with that, with no questions and no investigation.
They might also like the idea that Obama’s presidency is a failure. Of course this chant started about 24 hours after the swearing in ceremony.
In a related note: A guy who reports for the Guardian did a piece on how the US is falling out of love with Obama. The newspaper said he had feet on the ground in the US and was talking to real people. The dude talked to people all right, in Colorado! What the hell? Colorado?
I concluded that there are people who want to say that Obama’s presidency is a failure and just go out looking for evidence to support that preconceived notion.
There is no izvestia in pravda and no pravda in izvestia.
Cat Lady
Shorter Stu: the chances of the House flipping is 50/50.
I can haz pundit $ plz?
debbie
Rasmussen is independent?
Guster
@kay: Oh, god, that’s so true it made me a little sick. I’d forgotten ‘not sealing the deal.’
Jim
Cook and Rothenberg offer absolutely nothing of value over 538, while providing much that is worse.
kay
@Guster:
“The Democrats don’t have a plan. They can’t just be anti-Bush!”
Remember that? In 2006?
Have you heard any of that re: Republicans, who actually don’t have A Plan?
Oh, and if Democrats were running these absolute slash and burn campaigns, like Republicans are, pundits would be insisting Americans want Reaganesque positive campaigns. “All of this negativity. It’s so gloomy!”
There are two sets of rules.
mai naem
@Linda Featheringill: I was listening to the BBC yesterday. They were discussing the governor’s race. While they mentioned that NY Dems had a good registration edge, they mentioned how Palladino’s numbers were up instead of talking about the chances of Palladino winning were next to nil.
Guster
@kay: Stop, stop! It’s too early for this!
There should be a whole new lexicon for all those phrases that only apply when directed at Dems. The blame game. Upperdown vote.
mistermix
@mai naem: The latest poll has Paladino pulling 26%.
Nick
@Linda Featheringill:
I mentioned this a while back, Before I got laid off from ABC, a prominent political reporter, who out of sake of decency I’ll keep anonymous (s/he know who s/he is) said the best thing that could happen to “our industry” was for “Obama to fall flat on his face. A successful presidency would be boring”
Nick
@kay:
They are.
Any debate that is clearly a Democratic victory, the media spins as “partisan” and “negative”
Alex S.
@kay:
They do have a plan but noone is talking about it either. If they get the House they’ll block just about everything that doesn’t advance their agenda. And if they get the White House they’ll try, once again, to privatize social security, to bankrupt medicare (à la medicare advantage) and to destroy the latest changes in health care. And then they’ll privatize the education field. They’ll start exactly where they left in 2006.
jwb
@mistermix: “The latest poll has Paladino pulling 26%.”
Is Paladino such a loon that he will allow us to get a good reading of the crazifaction in NY state?
jwb
@Nick: And accusations of class warfare is only ever charged from one side as well.
On the other hand, none of this is a surprise if you just follow the money, and not much is liable to change until people in large numbers are in the streets with pitchforks posing a real existential threat to the existing order.
Casey
Rothenberg is spewing an incredible amount of BS here when he says “someone told me.” I don’t have to say “someone…” Earl Pomeroy acknowledged to me himself from the start… and has repeatedly told me in different conversations that “this is going to be my toughest election… even tougher than 94… but I believe we can pull it off if we work hard enough.” That’s a far cry from “chances of survival are small.”
Now… can I get paid big bucks for quoting the candidate himself???
Sentient Puddle
Oh don’t worry…while Pomeroy is in a better position than they thought, they’re making up for it by forcing us to hear crazy shit about how people like Dingell are now in real trouble.
Christ, I know trying to forecast the House is hard, but at least they could try to pretend they’re not making stuff up.
Tom Q
@Linda Featheringill: Just one tweak to your fine post: when you say they’ve had this narrative since August…make that August 2009. That’s when I first heard Charlie Cook say “It’s hard to see how Democrats hold the House”. Given that the number of seats required to switch for that to happen have only turned maybe 2-3 times in the last 50 years, it seemed ludicrous to be making such a call so far out. I’ve been skeptical about all this ever since. Obviously, I could be wrong, but it’s felt like it was groupthink rather than analysis pushing the narrative.
As for why the press has embraced this so wholeheartedly…sure, it could be the corporate ownership factor, or a general tendency since Reagan to believe the GOP is the natural majority and all Dem successes are flukes. But I think another part of it is, the press doesn’t care one whit about policy, only politics. So, once Obama was swept into office with a Dem Congress (which the press did at least somewhat cheer on), the next thing that could happen to interest these folk was for there to be a big political reversal, a la 1994. Every action taken by this Congress has thus been viewed not as what it might do to improve the nation’s state, but as how it might influence the outcome of the midterms.
fasteddie9318
Rasmussen…”independent pollster”! You’re killing me! This place never stops bringing the funny!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@fasteddie9318:
This.
If our press had a working weather machine, they would be lined up around the block each waiting for a turn to press the button labeled “hurricanes, tornadoes, and plagues of locusts so thick that they blot out the sun”. Not because they are subjectively murderous and want people to die, but because “partly cloudy with a chance of afternoon showers” doesn’t sell and baby needs a new pair of shoes. NOAA should give up on naming severe tropical depressions after men’s (in the Pacific) and women’s (in the Atlantic) first names and instead auction off the naming rights for each storm to the highest bidder from amongst our news organizations.
CalD
I really think that Stu Rothenberg has been about the most level headed and least apocalyptic in his predictions of Democratic doom and gloom among all the major prognosticators out there. He was also the only one who finished in the top three in both his mid-October and final predictions in 2006. Cook on the other hand was dead last in both cases. But I’ll note that if even the best of these guys turned out to be as biased in Republicans’ favor in their projections this year as they were in ’06, Democrats would end up losing about 15-20 seats in the House — I’m not counting on it by any means but if by some miracle it did turn out that way, it wouldn’t be the first time.