You Can Vote Dem or You Can Vote Dem... agogue

Allow us to begin today by reminding readers of one of the most famous "October Surprise" stories in American history. On October 29, 1884, Reverend Samuel D. Burchard gave a speech in New York City on behalf of then-GOP nominee James G. Blaine. And, in an attempt to fire up Republican voters prior to the election, the good reverend thundered: "We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." That was not the wisest thing to say in a city full of Irish Catholics, who all heard the news within 24 hours, thanks to New York City's thriving newspaper trade (there were five successful dailies at that time). Blaine lost New York State by just 1,149 votes, and the election 219 electoral votes to 182. If you flip the Empire State's 36 EVs, then Blaine wins election, 218-183.

The potential relevance of this story is probably evident to most readers without us telling you. But for those who haven't heard, Donald Trump held a rally Sunday evening at Madison Square Garden (which, last we checked, is in New York City). And among the speakers at that rally was a "comedian" (and we use the term VERY loosely) named Tony Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe made his reputation, such as it is, as a "roast" comic. In other words, he insults people, the way Don Rickles used to, or the way Jeff Ross does now.

You can presumably see where this is going (if you don't already know). In view of his personal comic style, and of the crowd he was performing for, Hinchcliffe decided to set his sights on... minority groups. Here's a rundown of the trio of "jokes" that have suddenly made the comedian a household name:

• "There's a lot going on. I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico."
  
  
• "These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country."
  
  
• [Pointing at a Black audience member]: "That's cool, Black guy with a thing on his head. What the hell is that, a lamp shade? Look at this guy! Oh, my goodness. Wow! I'm just kidding, that's one of my buddies. He had a Halloween party last night. We had fun, we carved watermelons together. It was awesome!"

We have a pretty high tolerance for edgy humor, but the humor does have to be, you know, funny. There's nothing here that's even mildly amusing (the crowd at the rally agreed; you could have heard a pin drop after Hinchcliffe's set).

Recognizing that Hinchcliffe's performance might not play too well with the voting public, a campaign spokesperson immediately put out a statement declaring: "This joke [the one about Puerto Rico] does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign." This statement is what is known, in technical terms, as a baldfaced lie. Here is why:

• Hinchcliffe's reputation is well-established. Not only is he a roast/insult comic, but his primary vehicle is a YouTube show in which he demeans and belittles other comics, focusing in particular on their race, gender, disabilities, etc. If you invite someone like that to be part of your rally, you do so with eyes wide open.
  
  
• Initially, the campaign claimed they had not pre-vetted his remarks, and so had no idea what Hinchcliffe planned to say. As it turns out, the campaign not only vetted the speech, but actually reduced the damage that would otherwise have been done, ordering the comedian to remove a "joke" where he described Kamala Harris as a "c**t."
  
  
• The other speakers on stage may not have insulted Puerto Ricans, but they were also full of various forms of angry, hateful, demagogic rhetoric. Rudy Giuliani was there, and argued that Palestinians are born to be terrorists and that they are taught to "kill us at 2 years old." David Rem, who is running for mayor in New York City, said Harris is "the devil" and "the antichrist." Tucker Carlson remarked that Harris would be "the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president." Radio talker Sid Rosenberg slurred Democrats as "a bunch of degenerates. Lowlifes. Jew-haters and lowlifes. Every one of 'em." Stephen Miller decreed "America is for Americans and Americans only." And Trump himself went on yet another "enemy from within" rant. In other words, Hinchcliffe fit right in.
  
  
• While there was SOME effort to distance the campaign from Hinchcliffe's remarks, the overwhelming response, particularly from prominent people, was, "There's no problem here." Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said "the crowd didn't mind." J.D. Vance told a crowd that he isn't sure the jokes were actually racist. The right-wing propagandists were especially assertive; Jesse Watters described the night's speakers as "The Avengers," Greg Gutfeld joked that Hinchcliffe's performance was educational because it brought attention to Puerto Rico's "trash problem," and Matt Walsh, who might be the least funny person on Earth, explained that these "are the kinds of jokes that normal people tell."

Ultimately, it could not be more clear that the Trump campaign has decided that its best chance is to really lean into the bigotry, and to try to convince as many people as possible that if he is returned to the White House, the former president will offer protection from those scary [fill in bugaboo here]. It's not just this rally that lays bare his strategy, it's ALL of his rallies. It's also his commercials; the one that is airing in heaviest rotation right now (to the exclusion of all others) focuses on how Kamala Harris wants trans prisoners to be allowed to have gender affirming surgery, and trans women to be allowed to play women's sports. Even if you take Trump's side on these questions, is this really among the top 100 most important issues facing the nation right now? And is this really all Trump has to offer?

Trump and Vance also continue to double down on scapegoating immigrants in Springfield. The latest, for those who have not heard, is a Haitian immigrant, who was in the country legally, but who did not have a license to drive in the U.S., and whose car hit a school bus, killing a local child named Aiden Clark. Team Trump, particularly Trump and Vance themselves, decided to weaponize that, and started talking about how Clark was "murdered" as part of a "border blood bath" in an American community that has been "invaded" by "migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World."

Aiden's parents, Nathan and Danielle Clark, did not particularly want their son's death to be front-page news every day. And they really, really did not want his death to be weaponized against immigrants, noting that the 11-year-old's predominant character trait was compassion. So, the Clarks pleaded with everyone to knock it off. And what has been their reward for this? They have been doxxed, and have been slurred as "immigrant-loving race traitors," and have received death threats. They now have a sheriff's deputy stationed outside their home 24/7, while the sheriff has told them that if they really want to be sure of their safety, they should consider leaving Springfield, at least until after the election's over.

So yes, the Trump campaign, in truly vile fashion, is running the demagogue's playbook. It is incontrovertible, and anyone who claims otherwise is just gaslighting. Indeed, as compared to what Trump and Vance are saying about Haitians, the Puerto Rico "joke" is actually on the tame side. It is improbable that any Puerto Ricans will get death threats because some hacky comic said their place of origin is trashy.

That said, the things that catch fire in politics are not usually those that are the scariest or most violent or most venal. And so it is that Hinchcliffe's slur against Puerto Ricans has gone viral, and appears to have roused the community to action. Perhaps most notably, the musician Bad Bunny, who might be the most beloved Puerto Rican in the country, stepped off the sidelines yesterday and endorsed Kamala Harris, telling his 45 million Instagram followers that "there's so much at stake in this election for Puerto Rican voters and for Puerto Rico."

In contrast to Samuel Burchard 130 years ago, Hinchcliffe is not going to change the presidential outcome in New York, which is as safe as it gets for Kamala Harris. However, there are 1,153,880 Puerto Ricans in Florida, per the last census, making up 5.3% of the population. Perhaps more significantly, there are 456,589 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, making up 3.6% of the population. Could the racist "jokes," coming just a week before the election, cause 10,000 or 20,000 Puerto Ricans in the Keystone State, who might otherwise have sat this one out, to get to the polls to register their unhappiness? That is well within the realm of possibility. We could very well look back in a few weeks or a month and decide that this was the October Surprise that swayed the election, just like the one from 1884. (Z)

Trump's Got a "Little Secret"

"It may be little, but that's no secret," you're saying right now. But that is not what we are talking about. Nope, we mean something else said at the now-infamous Madison Square Garden rally (see above). Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was there to participate, and also to remind everyone watching that he doesn't actually care about the values expressed in the Bible (if he did, he would not have remained on stage while the others spewed their bile). When Trump announced Johnson on stage, the former president said: "We can take the Senate pretty easily, and I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House. Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret—we will tell you what it is when the race is over."

It's not too hard to figure out what Trump is hinting at. And in case you are struggling to parse it, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) has you covered. Speaking to CNN, the Representative observed that there is no presidential reason for Trump and Johnson to go to New York, since that state's electoral votes are a lost cause. However, there are, of course, many House seats in New York that could go either way. Trump's message is pretty clearly: "Elect as many Republicans to the House as possible, so they can help us 'win' the election in January."

Over the weekend, Johnson was asked exactly what Trump was talking about, and what secret he and Trump have cooked up. For about 24 hours, the Speaker refused to answer that question. Eventually, when it was clear that the story was not going away, he told reporters that the secret is "not diabolical" and it is about the Republicans' GOTV operation. That Ninth-Commandment-violating statement (thou shalt not bear false witness) does not come close to passing the smell test. First, the Republicans' GOTV effort this year is notoriously inept. Second, that is doubly true in a non-swing-state like New York. Third, if it was something this benign, then why would Johnson refuse to say so for more than 24 hours?

That said, while it is worth pointing out, this may still be a nothingburger. First, even if there is a scheme, Trump and his underlings have shown themselves to be particularly incapable when it comes to successfully executing their chicanery. Second, it's entirely possible Trump was just talking out his rear end, because he likes stirring the pot. Let's hope so. (Z)

The Lawsuits Continue to Fly

If you are a federal judge, particularly in a swing state, or on the Supreme Court, or in one of the far-right districts that people like Texas AG Ken Paxton tend to run to, you're going to earn your paycheck over the next few weeks, as the lawsuits are coming fast and furious.

Yesterday, we noted that the current state of affairs in Pennsylvania is that voters who cast problematic ballots—no date on the envelope, no envelope at all—have to be given an opportunity to rectify the situation, either by "curing" the ballot, or by casting a provisional ballot. Republicans don't like it when people are allowed to vote, so they threatened to take the matter to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, they made it official.

We mention this because the Pennsylvania Republicans were actually beaten to the punch, by a few hours, by a group of Virginia Republicans with a similar agenda. In the Old Dominion state, the current state of affairs is that Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) issued an order calling for the culling of voting rolls, resulting in 1,600 people getting booted. Then, a federal court found that the move was too late in the process, and said that the 1,600 folks have to be left on the voter rolls, at least until the full case is heard (well after the election). So, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) filed a request with the Supreme Court yesterday, asking them to lift the stay, and to keep the 1,600 people from voting. If SCOTUS is going to give the Virginia GOPers what they want, they will have to move fast.

And then there's yet another case out of Mississippi, one that could end up before the Supreme Court at any time. This one flew under the radar, perhaps because it only applies to Mississippi at the moment, or perhaps because the three-judge panel just so happened to release its decision on Friday afternoon, thus burying it. In short, what happened was that—wait for it—a bunch of Magnolia State Republicans decided that they do not like it that mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day can be counted (assuming they arrive in a timely manner). So, the plaintiffs asked the federal courts to put a stop to that, and to decree that once Election Day is over, all further mail ballots are null and void.

The Mississippians got the case before the ultra-conservative Fifth Circuit, and managed to draw a panel of three very Trumpy judges, including one of the most questionable Trumpy judges of them all, James Ho. And the three judges stood on their head to come up with a ruling that gave the plaintiffs what they wanted. Writing for the majority, and disregarding over a century of precedent while also inventing a brand new and atextual reading of the law, Judge Andrew Oldham decreed that a vote is not actually "cast" until the state receives it. Ipso facto, if the state does not receive your mail-in ballot until after Election Day, you "cast" it late, even if you filled it out and sent it BEFORE Election Day.

At this point, the ruling doesn't matter too much, since it only applies to ruby-red Mississippi. That said, there is now a federal court on the record as saying that post-Election Day mail-in ballots can and should be rejected by their states. Can you imagine a Trumpy lawyer—or a hundred of them—making that argument in other states? Say, after the election is over, and they know in which states the late-arriving ballots could be decisive? We certainly can. So, as we note above, this one could also end up on the Supreme Court's docket, either now, at the request of Democrats who want to see the Fifth Circuit's ruling nipped in the bud, or in a week or two, when and if Republican operatives try to take advantage of it.

And finally, it may seem that only Republicans can initiate election-related lawsuits, but that's not so. Yesterday, Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner sued Elon Musk over the billionaire's $1 million giveaways, which sure look like an effort to buy votes. Republicans are crying foul, decreeing that Krasner is a liberal Democrat (true) and that he's doing this to advance his party's goals and/or his own career (maybe true, we don't know). However, it is also clear that what Musk is doing is either illegal, or is in enough of a gray area that it's well worth taking a look. The DA's suit claims it amounts to an illegal lottery. (Z)

Bezos Tries to Defend the Indefensible

We have unhappy news: Jeff Bezos thinks you are an idiot. Don't feel too bad, though, because he thinks we are idiots, too. Facing a rebellion from the staff of The Washington Post, not to mention an exodus of subscribers, he published an op-ed yesterday explaining why he spiked the paper's endorsement of Kamala Harris. In short, it was about integrity:

We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn't see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, "I'm going with Newspaper A's endorsement." None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one.

The thing is, there actually is a reasonable argument here. Newsrooms across the nation concern themselves, on a regular basis, with how much they should be "making" the news, whether in the form of endorsements, or high-profile confrontations at press conferences, or voting on sports awards, or whatever. However, in Bezos' case, he is arguing in bad faith, because he's responding to a bad faith argument, and he damn well knows it. The right-wingers who claim "bias" are really just saying "we don't like negative coverage of our candidate(s)." There is absolutely no chance they are going to be assuaged, certainly not by killing one single editorial.

Indeed, as far as "integrity" goes, Bezos did about as much damage on that front as is humanly possible. Now, with very good reason, it looks like the line between "business" and "editorial" (and there's no more important line in the newspaper business) does not exist at the Post, and the money men (well, money man) will dictate coverage decisions from here on out. After all, the money man just did that very thing. How can a reader have confidence in any future stories about Trump OR Harris, not to mention myriad other subjects? If the Post writes a story critical of Wal-Mart, is that on the level, or is it really just a press release for Amazon? If the Post has a negative report on SpaceX, is it a legit news story, or is it really just a press release for Blue Origin?

And indeed, the news broke yesterday that Donald Trump met with the leaders of Blue Origin the very same day that the op-ed was spiked. Sound like a quid pro quo to anyone? Bezos, it should be noted, addresses this in his op-ed:

I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn't know about the meeting beforehand.

Uh, huh. Given how dishonest the whole op-ed reads, we do not believe this for one second. There's also the fact that Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung strongly implied that there was a quid pro quo. It's not too often that we believe a member of the Trump campaign over someone who is not a member of the Trump campaign, but there are exceptions to every rule.

All of this said, we think Bezos did a very bad job on the cost-benefit analysis here. To start, has it EVER been the case that giving in to a bully makes them go away and leave you alone? The message that has been sent to Trump is that the campaign of threats and intimidation is working, and can be expected to continue working. If he becomes president again, what else will he force the Post to write, or not write?

Meanwhile, 200,000 subscribers have already canceled. That's about 8% of the total subscriber base of the paper (2.5 million), and the number will surely keep growing. There has also been a wave of resignations from staffers, along with contributors and op-ed writers who declared they will not be writing any more pieces for the newspaper. These writers might be replaceable, over time. But the 200,000 subscribers? That hurts, especially since nearly all of them were digital subscribers. That money comes straight out of the paper's bottom line (as opposed to losing print subscribers, which would at least be partially offset by reduced paper and delivery costs).

Despite all the blowback that The Post got (and that The Los Angeles Times got before that), other newspapers are jumping on board the no-endorsement train. Yesterday, USA Today announced that it, too, will forego an endorsement. Instead, they said that readers will have to make "informed decisions" on their own.

It's not going to be pretty if Trump regains the White House, if the mere possibility of recrimination is enough to cow three different newspapers, all of them owned by billion-dollar concerns. And even if Trump doesn't reclaim his old job, it's pretty clear that his techniques, aided by the right-wing mediasphere, are working. Do you really think the NEXT Republican nominee won't try to mimic Trump's approach? We're not optimistic. (Z)

PollWatch 2024, Part VII: The Senate Gap, Redux

We are hoping to get at least five more of these written before the election, because we have a lot to say. That said, they do take a while to put together, and that's on top of the other content, not to mention other responsibilities.

Anyhow, we certainly appreciate folks who read what we write, and agree with us. However, our single-greatest reward, since we are educators first and foremost, is folks who read what we write, and it inspires them to think about some question or issue we raise. Last week, we had an item on how Donald Trump is largely running way ahead of his fellow swing-state U.S. Senate candidates, while Kamala Harris is largely running a bit behind hers. We noted that the gaps we're seeing would be considerably larger than the ones for the first two Trump elections, which could indicate some wonkiness. We got a couple of very interesting responses to this that we thought we'd share. So, first up is reader B.C. in Alexandria, VA:

I have been following your site for most of this election year but hadn't previously commented. However, I happen to be looking at some data last night which aligned with your comments on the Senate gap, as that also stood out to me as unusual.

I took a comparative look at the 2016 states where there appeared to be a significant gap between Trump's polling around this time, and the Senate candidate. Unsurprisingly, most of the swing states were included, with the exception of Michigan (as you noted, no Senate race that year). I was using October 20 as a point of reference. I looked at the polling numbers for each presidential candidate vs their opponent, compared this to the final percentages that they got on Election Night per Wikipedia, and noted gaps between the candidates on both sides.

I noticed a recurring pattern: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania all featured races where (1) the Republican Senate candidate was leading while Trump was trailing; and (2) there was a significant gap (+4 to +10) between senator and Trump. In all five cases, both ended up winning, and Trump not only improved substantially, but ended up with a number within 1% of where the Senate candidate had been polling. This was the case regardless of whether the Democratic Senate candidate improved by roughly the same amount as the Republican (Florida, Pennsylvania), matched their polling (Arizona), or did worse than their polling (Georgia, Ohio). In those states, Hillary Clinton improved on her polling by 4 (Arizona), improved by 1 (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania) or matched her polling (Georgia). In all of these states except Florida, Clinton was within a point or two of the polling for the Senate candidate, which was also the case for Nevada and North Carolina.

Given this was the election where the supposed "Quiet Trump Vote" effect was in place, this trend seems suggestive, if not definitive. In states with strong Senate candidates, Republican voters who were vocally in support of their candidates but less openly in support of Trump in the home stretch seem to have consistently come around to Trump, regardless of how the margins moved otherwise.

How does this compare to the current election? At first it looks murky. As your data shows, Harris is within 2% of the Democratic candidate in every uneven state except Arizona, while Trump is running 3%+ ahead in every state except Texas and Wisconsin. Additionally, you don't seem to have mentioned Florida, where Trump is running 4% ahead of Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) while Kamala Harris is 3% behind Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL). This would suggest that Harris is in Clinton's position, with polling more or less accurately reflecting what she's likely to get, rather than having a large number of supporters who are lukewarm about her that she needs to bring home. Wouldn't that leave the presidential races at a nailbiter margin, with potential for the Senate candidates to collect stray Trump supporters?

Actually, I think there's a strong chance the 2016 scenario is reversed. The social pressure most likely responsible for the "Quiet Trump Voter" phenomenon in 2016 was a negative bias against saying you were supporting Trump, because he wasn't viewed as serious, or held opinions offensive even among Republican voters. It does not appear to have been correspondingly positive towards Clinton, who matched her polling closely. However, the possible "Quiet Harris Voter" equivalent doesn't seem likely to be a negative bias against supporting Harris, who again seems to be capturing what you'd expect from her party. Instead, it is a positive bias towards saying you are voting for Trump, an affirmative requirement to not only support him, but do so openly. In other words, the people who say they are voting for Harris probably really are voting for Harris, but some of the voters who say they are voting for Trump might not be telling the truth.

It is almost incontrovertible that Trump is the defining figure of the current Republican Party, despite being out of office. This is evident in the way other current Republican politicians have been forced to bend to pressure from Trump, both legislatively in terms of pursuing his goals and also in terms of lining up behind him publicly despite having in the past been vocal critics (Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC; primary opponents Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-FL, and Nikki Haley; and his own VP J.D. Vance being prime examples). More tellingly, we can see what happens when people within the Republican sphere break ranks. Darlings of MAGA social media such as Kyle Rittenhouse and Joe Rogan, upon wavering in support of Trump, were immediately barraged with attacks from the right. Both walked back their statements quickly. One would expect that everyday voters who don't have their own cachet would have even less defense against such attacks, at least in their personal lives, if not on the same public scale. It strongly behooves people to maintain ranks publicly.

On the other hand, no other candidates appear likely to have their numbers goosed by this same enforced loyalty. The majority of the other Republican candidates are not incumbents who have accumulated support by default from their party members, and the ones who are (Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, and Scott) have among the lowest approval ratings in the Senate, with Cruz being among the bottom 10, as well as being famously despised by many of his colleagues. There is very little impetus for a voter to vocally claim support for Ted Cruz that they are actually questioning. Among the Democrats in these races, only Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) ranks among the least approved (more on this later).

So what happens if a reverse-2016 occurs, with Trump being dragged down to the level of his Senate candidates, as he was carried up previously, while Harris remains steady or gains a bit? Unsurprisingly, a complete blowout, with Trump losing every state you listed, and quite likely North Carolina as well, if Mark Robinson is similarly representative. Only Florida and Texas would remain red, and even they would be vulnerable to a scenario where Harris improved on her numbers as much as Clinton did in Arizona. Even if Trump was only brought down by half his current gap, he would still lose all of the same states. Even if only a few states played out this way it would swing the election. Swing Nevada, Arizona, and North Carolina, where the gap is largest (aside from Minnesota, which seems hard to call a swing state), and Trump has to win all of the others to win (winning all but Wisconsin would end in a tie).

And it's funny Wisconsin should come up there. Turning back briefly to the three other 2016 states in question, none of them are really in line with the main trend. In both North Carolina and Nevada, all four candidates in the state were polling within a few points of each other, and the final results had both Senator and Trump move by about the same, with North Carolina's more Republican-favoring population bringing both Trump and Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) up to comfortable leads, and Trump actually beating would-be senator Joe Heck (R) by a bit, but not quite enough to beat Clinton. Wisconsin though, was a strange one. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) went from being by far the furthest behind of the Senate candidates to winning fairly comfortably, and Trump likewise going from his worst polling to a narrow win. Presumably there are other significant factors at play there. But it does serve as a reminder that close polling doesn't guarantee victory, and even significant deficits can be reversed.

A funny last note: As I mentioned, Tammy Baldwin is the only Democratic Senator to be in the bottom 10 approval ratings (per Morning Consult). However, Ron Johnson was even worse, with only Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Susan Collins (R-ME) being further underwater. McConnell is in the lose-lose situation of being disliked for both his successes and failures, and Menendez has already resigned. As for Collins... well, in the case where Harris wins but faces a 51-49 Senate, she could have some very interesting questions to ask herself.

And here is reader J.S. in Minneapolis, MN:

I'm curious whether some of the president-Senate gaps we see in the polling and election data come from under-voting or under-responding (i.e., declining to make a choice for either president or Senate), either instead of, or in addition to, ticket-splitting. So I spent some time analyzing the data you shared (21 observations). I found some possible evidence of this, but I think we'd need to look at individual-level data rather than aggregate data to be sure.

The following chart shows the gap between the Republican presidential candidate and the Republican Senate candidate on the Y axis, plotted against the difference in undecided voters between both major presidential candidates and Senate candidates on the X axis (calculated based on the total Rep + Dem president percentage minus Rep + Dem Senate percentage).



There does appear to be a correlation between the observed gap between Republican president and Senate candidates and the gap between the sum total of president and Senate candidates. In other words, the more the Republican presidential candidate is running ahead of the Republican Senate candidate, we see more undecideds/undervoting for Senate than president overall. Conversely, when the Republican senator is running ahead of the president, then we see more undecideds/undervoting for president than Senate. The slope (0.86) is statistically significant at p<0.01, and the R-sq is not trivial (0.58), though aggregate models and a small sample size require some caution.

This kind of makes sense: Think of low-engagement Trump voters showing up to vote for Trump and nobody/nothing else. But what's interesting is that we do NOT see the same pattern for Democratic candidates. The slope is 0.14 and not significant, and the R-sq is 0.04. It's plausible that this type of low information, president-only voter doesn't exist (at least not in the same numbers) on the Democratic side.

Thanks, J.S. and B.C.!

Although the two items are looking at different questions, they reach some similar conclusions: (1) That the wonkiness in the data appears to be on the Republican side, and not the Democratic side, and (2) It's possible that in some races, or many races, Donald Trump's support is not as strong as it appears. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

We will be pretty surprised if Wisconsin is really this close. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Florida	45%	50%	Oct 23	Oct 25	St. Pete Polls
Kansas	43%	48%	Sep 26	Oct 16	Fort Hays St. U.
Michigan	47%	44%	Oct 22	Oct 24	Glengariff Group
Minnesota	48%	45%	Oct 16	Oct 22	Embold Research
Nebraska	40%	55%	Oct 03	Oct 26	Siena Coll.
Texas	42%	52%	Oct 03	Oct 26	Siena Coll.
Wisconsin	47%	48%	Oct 20	Oct 23	Suffolk U.

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

Today's Senate Polls

Ibid. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Florida	Debbie Mucarsel-Powell	46%	Rick Scott*	49%	Oct 23	Oct 25	St. Pete Polls
Nebraska	Dan Osborn	46%	Deb Fischer*	48%	Oct 23	Oct 26	Siena Coll.
Nebraska-special	Preston Love	38%	Pete Ricketts*	56%	Oct 23	Oct 26	Siena Coll.
Texas	Colin Allred	46%	Ted Cruz*	50%	Oct 23	Oct 26	Siena Coll.
Wisconsin	Tammy Baldwin*	46%	Eric Hovde	44%	Oct 20	Oct 23	Suffolk U.

* Denotes incumbent

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