MSG Rally Continues to Dominate the News

We believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said: "What you really want to avoid, in the last week of a campaign, is doing anything that will have people wondering if you are a Nazi." We may have to check our sources on that, but even if it wasn't Old Abe, it's good advice. It's also advice that Donald Trump has failed to heed.

The former president's weekend rally in New York, where he and half a dozen of his closest friends worked hard to put the "big" in "bigotry," was the main story yesterday, its third news cycle. It is the only thing that people seem to be asking Donald Trump about; he's had the following responses:

• He insisted that he does not know "comedian" Tony Hinchcliffe (who made the joke about Puerto Rico being an island of garbage) and that he (Trump) had nothing to do with the performance: "I don't know him, someone put him up there. I don't know who he is."
  
  
• He decreed that this is much ado about nothing, and it's really all a liberal plot to make him look bad: "Somebody said some bad things. Now, what they've done is taken somebody that has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us, said something and they try to make a big deal."
  
  
• He opined that the people of Puerto Rico should actually be thankful for him and all he's done for them: "And we help[ed] you through a lot of bad storms. I'll tell you, we had some really bad ones. You remember you were there when I brought the hospital ship against everyone's advice and we got it in there and took care of a lot of people. But I think no president's done more for Puerto Rico than I have."

These are all well-worn moves in the Trump repertoire. And, on reading them, we have two observations, one big and one small. The big one is that Trump has said nary a word that is critical of Hinchcliffe or what Hinchcliffe said. And the reason could not be more plain: While the former president does not want to cost himself votes with Puerto Ricans, particularly in Pennsylvania and Florida, he also wants to make sure the racists and bigots remain squarely in his column. So, he casts blame on others, and glosses his own record, but never says "That was very wrong" or "That was offensive" or "I'm very sorry I ended up on stage with someone like that."

The small observation, meanwhile, is that reminding Puerto Ricans of how much he has done for them is... probably not the best idea. Presumably, in his head, he's reworked that story to justify his heroic vision of himself. But the two things that most people, including approximately 99.9999% of Puerto Ricans, remember are: (1) The basketball-style paper towel tosses, and (2) that he allowed the island to remain without power for an extended period, without lifting a finger to resolve the matter. In other words, by associating "Puerto Rico" and "my presidency," he's actually helping make the Democrats' case that he and his movement disdain Puerto Ricans, and not the Republicans' case that the attitude expressed by Hinchcliffe was an anomaly.

And there, really, is the rub. If the Hinchcliffe bit had been a one-off, and had come completely out of left field, then one might dismiss it as a non-story, a rogue comedian just trying to get some attention. But it's not a one-off, not by a longshot. The Madison Square Garden event was chock full of various forms of bigotry, from all the speakers on stage, including Trump. Add to that the fact that Madison Square Garden was also the site of a 1939 rally of actual Nazis, where the speakers said things that line up pretty well with what Trump himself said on Sunday (e.g., "enemies from within").

And just as it wasn't only one joke, or only one speaker, it also wasn't only one event or only one day. Trump and his surrogates have been saying this kind of stuff for his entire political career (and, indeed, before that). Let us not forget, since a week is a lifetime in politics, that it has been just 7 days since Trump's former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, said that the former president is very Nazi-curious and is also a fascist. Those sentiments were echoed by Trump's former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper. This is why Trump now feels the need to explain to crowds at his rallies that he's not actually a Nazi. "I'm not a Nazi. I'm the opposite of a Nazi," he explains. We're not entirely sure what the opposite of a Nazi would even be. Maybe an anarchist. Or maybe Mel Brooks.

In any event, we have no doubt that when Trump tells his adoring crowds that he's not a Nazi, and that the Puerto Rican slur was no big deal, they accept his claims without reservation. However, since they are already in the bag for him, they are not the ones who matter. It's the voters who might be converted, either from a Trump voter into a Harris voter, or from a non-voter into a Harris voter. And some of those folks are currently being given a lot to think about.

To start, as you might imagine, there is now plenty of stuff out there telling Puerto Ricans that Trump is not the candidate for them. The biggest newspaper in Puerto Rico, El Nuevo Día, which has plenty of mainland readership, endorsed Kamala Harris yesterday. Here's the key passage:

On Sunday, continuing a pattern of contempt and misinformation that Donald Trump has maintained for years against the eight million of us American citizens who are Puerto Ricans, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe insulted us during a Republican Party event by referring to Puerto Rico as "an island of garbage in the ocean." Is that what Trump and the Republican Party think about Puerto Ricans? Politics is not a joke and hiding behind a comedian is cowardly.

Trump has for years maintained a discourse of contempt and misinformation against the island that reveals an obsession and disdain for a people who do not have the power of the vote to defend themselves, since the three million American citizens who live in Puerto Rico cannot vote in the presidential elections. However, the other five million who live in the United States, whom they also labeled as trash, can vote. Let's not forget the paper towels he threw at us while we suffered without electricity for months and let's not forget that the funds did not arrive because Trump—through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development—told them to stop because he considered Puerto Ricans "bums who live begging."

Note the references to the Hinchcliffe joke, the paper towels and the lack of electricity. We do not know if El Nuevo Día was already planning to endorse Harris, and just did a last-minute rewrite, or if, but for the Sunday debacle, they would have sat this one out. They've only endorsed once before, although it was also an anti-Trump endorsement, in 2020. The only thing we are sure about is that the paper is not owned by Jeff Bezos.

Similarly, the Lincoln Project's shock response team has already put together a digital ad, which is being targeted at Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania:

Note that it ALSO references the Hinchcliffe joke, the paper towels and the lack of electricity.

Incidentally, Joe Biden endeavored to wade in, and in remarks to a group of Latino voters said this:

And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage." Well, let me tell you something. I don't... I... I don't know the Puerto Rican that—that I know—or a Puerto Rico, where I'm from—in my home state of Delaware, they're good, decent, honorable people.

The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters'... his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been.

This is pretty reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark, and Republicans have tried to seize on it in the same way, so as to change the narrative. It does not appear to be working, and we tend to doubt it will make much of a dent. First, Biden's meaning was clear, even if he garbled it. In fact, a single apostrophe makes all the difference in the world. It it is "is his supporters," that means something very different from "is his supporters'." We are persuaded, having looked at the various reports, that the apostrophe is supposed to be there.

Second, the Republicans spent most of the cycle tearing him down as a doddering old man who doesn't know what he's saying. It's not so easy to turn around and argue that he, as someone headed to retirement in a few months, is somehow saying what the entire Democratic Party is thinking. Our guess is that the folks who will take notice of this will mostly be Democrats, who will say, "Ah, yes. I am reminded why it was best for him to step down as the nominee."

We will add one more thing here. Nearly all of the attention is focused on the anti-brown-people aspects of Trump's rally, and of Trump's campaign. However, there is a substantial undercurrent of misogyny there, which was also evident on Sunday. And it's not just us who noticed it, either. Nikki Haley and Megyn Kelly are both Trump supporters, and either will cast (Haley) or have cast (Kelly) their ballots for him. And yet, even they are a bit skeeved out right now. Haley said, in an interview:

This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they've got going. Fifty-three percent of the electorate are women. Women will vote. They care about how they're being talked to, and they care about the issues.

Haley did not add the somewhat obvious observation that all the headline speakers at the MSG event were men, but she did note that the Trump campaign has not asked her to campaign at all, and she hasn't talked to Trump himself since June.

Kelly, for her part, had this to say:

I am telling you, even for me—and I voted for Donald Trump last week—it was too bro-tastic. You're trying to win an election in which you're hemorrhaging female voters. Maybe when you present in front of hundreds—thousands at least in Madison Square Garden, you clean up the bro talk just a little so you don't alienate women in the middle of America who are already on the fence about Republicans.

Seems like a sound assessment to us.

And as long as we are on this general subject, we'll note that Elon Musk, who may be Trump's #1 surrogate, is also an enthusiastic misogynist. One of his PACs has uncorked an ad that is so offensive to women, it was scrubbed from YouTube. The "bit," such as it is, is a bit of wordplay in which Kamala Harris is described as "the C-word." Officially, the C-word in question is "Communist." However, it could not be plainer what other C-word the PAC would also like you to think of. If you really want to see the spot, it's still available on Facebook, which has managed to become even more of a sewer than YouTube is.

What it boils down to is that the Trump campaign is stuck between the same rock and hard place as usual, trying to keep the extremists and nutters on board, while not pushing away too many of the fence-sitters. And Team Trump has clearly erred on the side of the extremists and nutters, as it is wont to do. We'll find out in a week or so whether that was a big mistake. (Z)

Johnson Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

Speaking of politically unwise maneuvers, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)—who has yet to impress us with his political acumen—uncorked something... interesting yesterday. Speaking before a Republican crowd in Pennsylvania, he declared: "Health care reform's going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we're going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table." And just in case anyone missed his meaning, he added: "No Obamacare. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that."

To start with, we do not believe for a minute that Johnson actually has a plan to replace the ACA. It's possible he might have concepts of a plan, but that's it. And to the extent that he does have thoughts as to what he wants to do, invariably they involve reduced government involvement in the healthcare system. And that, in turn, means poor people losing their insurance. We continue to be amazed that this man looks in the mirror every morning and sees a devout Christian. We are hardly theologians, of course, but can there really be ANY doubt what side Yehoshua ben Yosef would come down on here?

On top of that, even if Johnson does have a plan, or the fragments of a plan, or whatever, his "vision" assumes: (1) Republican control of the House, (2) Republican control of the Senate, (3) Republican control of the White House, (4) Buy-in from nearly every Republican in both chambers. That's a lot of assumptions; the trifecta is a big ask, and then getting all the Republicans, including the moderates, to take people's insurance away is an even bigger ask. It's also possible that Johnson's thinking (his fantasy?) involves getting rid of the Senate filibuster. If so, good luck with that; we already know Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is a no vote among the Republicans. Probably Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), too. (That said, it would be possible to substantially shred the ACA through budget reconciliation, by ending federal subsidies, so maybe the filibuster is not on the table.)

The point is that this is the most vapory of political vaporware we've seen in a long time. And in bringing up something that is almost certainly not going to happen, Johnson has threatened a program that has allowed more than 50 million Americans to get health insurance. Maybe he was playing to a right-wing/libertarian audience, but from where we sit, it seems like his list of political bugaboos is about 10 years out of date, and that he came dangerously close to assaulting what is now a sacred cow of American politics. (Z)

The Judicial Firewall Is (Mostly) Holding

Yesterday, we noted a decision out of Mississippi, where anti-democracy Republicans managed to get their case before a trio of Trump-friendly judges, and to redefine state law so as to exclude mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. These things do happen sometimes but, on the whole, the judiciary has been steadfast this year in protecting people's right to vote. There were three more cases on that front yesterday.

First up is North Carolina, where the RNC and other Republican groups are trying to get 225,000 voters kicked off the voter rolls. The basis of their suit is that those voters used a registration form that did not require them to provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, meaning their registrations are invalid. Be clear, the form was a government-created form, which means that the 225,000 folks are innocent of any wrongdoing or error here. If anyone is to be blamed, it's the government staffers who created the form.

The legal maneuvering here is actually a little complicated, but in addition to making their (very thin) argument and establishing their (somewhat dubious) standing, the RNC, et al., pushed very hard to get the case heard in state court. Officially, that is because states are tasked with overseeing elections. In truth, it is because the North Carolina judiciary is considerably more stacked with Republican-friendly judges. In any event, the "federal or state court" question was decided in favor of "state court" by a federal district judge. That decision was appealed, and yesterday a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the correct answer was "federal court."

The majority ruling from Judges Roger Gregory and Nicole Berner, and the concurrence from Chief Judge Roger Diaz, make pretty clear that the trio is unimpressed with the overall argument, particularly given that the suit was brought very late in the cycle. Diaz also remarked that the plaintiffs achieved standing "by the barest of threads." So, the suit doesn't look too likely to succeed when it is heard by the lower federal court to which it has now been remanded. More importantly, there is zero chance that the case will be fully adjudicated in the next 6 days, and less than zero chance that a federal judge would allow 225,000 people to be de-registered the week before an election. So, it's a fail for the RNC.

Next up is another North Carolina decision, and one that makes clear that the state's judiciary is not entirely in the bag for the Republican Party. This one involves the ongoing case (in North Carolina; there are also cases in Pennsylvania and Michigan) to block a bunch of overseas votes from being processed. The RNC already lost that case at the North Carolina superior court level. And yesterday, they lost at the appeals level. The RNC could take a shot with the NC Supreme Court, but again, with less than a week before the election, the chances of getting calendared are poor, and the odds of winning are poorer still. And even if the GOP pulled a pair of rabbits out of the hat, the result would just be appealed to the federal courts, on the basis that it violates both the Voting Rights Act and the Uniformed And Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, and the decision would be stayed. So, count this as a second fail for the RNC.

And finally, it's another overseas ballot decision, this one involving the Pennsylvania case. This suit was brought by several Republican members of Congress, and yesterday it was tossed by District Judge Christopher Conner. In his ruling, Conner not only rejected the plaintiffs' argument, but he also gave them a bit of a spanking, chiding them for the "inexcusable delay" in bringing the suit just weeks before the election, and telling them their argument is based on "phantom fears of foreign malfeasance."

For those keeping score at home, that's three strikes and the GOP was out, at least yesterday. Again, we concede there are some federal judges willing to prioritize their Republican politics—James Ho, Aileen Cannon, Trevor McFadden, Neomi Rao, etc. But there are also plenty of Republican-appointed judges who prioritize the law, including two of the four jurists listed above (Gregory and Conner). We end with the same basic observation that we make a lot in these pieces: If Donald Trump is going to try to steal the 2024 election through the courts, there is no reason to think he'll be any more successful at doing so than when he tried it in 2020. (Z)

PollWatch 2024, Part VIII: Choices Must Be Made

We had an item on this already, but we wanted to go back and take a closer look. In short, as we have written a million times, each pollster has their own "secret sauce"—their model of the electorate that helps them decide how to adjust the raw data that they collect. And small differences in opinion (or big differences, or an aggregation of a whole bunch of differences) can have a huge impact on the results.

To try to illustrate this in a useful way, we looked at every pollster who has produced at least five national opinion polls testing Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump, and we averaged their results. Doing it that way should serve to even out most variances caused by local wonkiness (which might affect state polls) and/or by a wonky poll sample (it happens to every pollster once in a while, even to Ann Selzer). Here are the results, ordered based on the average net difference between the two major party candidates:

Pollster	Polls	Harris Avg.	Trump Avg.	Undec. Avg.	Net
BigVillage	5	50.4%	45.0%	4.6%	Harris +5.4%
ABC News	6	50.5%	46.5%	3.0%	Harris +4.0%
MorningConsult	16	48.9%	45.5%	5.6%	Harris +3.4%
RMG Research	6	50.2%	47.8%	2.0%	Harris +2.3%
New York Times/Siena College	5	48.1%	45.8%	6.0%	Harris +2.3%
YouGov/The Economist	5	48.3%	45.9%	5.6%	Harris +2.4%
Reuters/Ipsos	7	45.4%	43.1%	11.4%	Harris +2.3%
TIPP	8	49.0%	47.0%	3.0%	Harris +2.0%
ActiVote	10	50.6%	49.5%	0.0%	Harris +1.1%
CBS News	5	50.0%	49.0%	1.4%	Harris +1.0%
Emerson College	6	48.3%	47.8%	4.2%	Harris +0.5%
Rasmussen Reports	15	46.0%	48.5%	4.2%	Trump +2.5%
Forbes/HarrisX	5	47.2%	49.8%	5.7%	Trump +2.6%
Average		48.7%	47.0%	4.4%	Harris +2.4%

If someone who had only a passing familiarity with American presidential politics were to take a look at this, it might not seem like much, but the gap between the extremes is huge, with the various pollsters often telling very different tales of the election. And this is surely being replicated at the state level. In fact, states are harder to get right because their electorates are harder to predict. So, the spread could well be wider.

Anyhow, let us imagine that polling aggregations (including ours) basically reflect the current consensus. In this case, that means Kamala Harris is up by about 2.5 points. Now, imagine that one of the Harris-friendly pollsters is actually the correct one, and she's being underestimated by, say, 2 points. If so, as you can see if you click on the link above, that would shift around 100 EVs in Harris' direction. On other hand, imagine that one of the Trump-friendly pollsters is actually the correct one, and HE is being underestimated by, say, 4 points. That would shift about 115 EVs in HIS direction. So, this admittedly crude math suggests the pollsters have a variance of more than 200 EVs, nearly enough to win the presidency all by itself.

If you would like to see a rundown of the various factors that can affect a pollster's "secret sauce" in a general sense, Good Authority's Josh Clinton has a nice primer. In short, there are four issues: (1) whether the sample matches the demographics of the electorate (errors in this area were the primary reason for mistakes in 2016); (2) whether the sample matches the political breakdown of the electorate, in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans vs. independents (errors in this area were the primary reason for mistakes in 2020); (3) whether or not a respondent will actually vote, and (4) whether the data collection process was truly random (e.g., was there some "type" of voters that was particularly likely to be undersampled or oversampled, such that, for example, the Chinese lesbian Republican women you got on the phone were much less Trumpy than Chinese lesbian Republican women as a whole).

Note also that Clinton's piece uses the current election as a case study, and shows the impact of various reasonable choices a pollster might make. Whereas our little number-crunching exercise above suggests a possible swing of something like 6 points is within the realm of reason, he puts the number at 8 points. If you're interested in playing around with these sorts of questions, remember that FiveThirtyEight has a tool that lets you see how the election outcome changes if you, for example, increase the women's vote by 2%, or decrease the number of college-age voters by 5%.

So, this year's polls are subject to a bunch of methodological challenges, as in any year. However, there's also one additional X-factor this year that should be taken under advisement, and that is weighting the responses based on recalled vote. The New York Times' Nate Cohn has a detailed breakdown, with lots of nice charts, here, so we'll just cover the basics. Weighting by recalled vote is exactly what it sounds like. The pollster asks a person who they voted for in the 2020 election, and then uses that to make sure their sample is accurate. Most obviously, since 47% of the electorate voted for Donald Trump in 2020, a pollster wants to make sure that they weight their sample to give 47% of the weight to people who say they voted for Trump in 2020. This is a clear effort to compensate for past underestimates of Trump's support.

As readers will recall, pollsters did not make a point of weighting for education level in 2016, and so missed on many states (and nationally) because that turned out to be an important marker of "Clinton voter" vs. "Trump voter." So, in 2020, that was added to pollsters' questionnaires. Weighting by recalled vote might seem like a similar sort of adjustment, but it's actually not. It is not the case that it did not occur to pollsters to weight by past vote, it's that weighting by past vote is generally considered bad practice, at least until this year.

Why is that? Well, for most questions pollsters might ask, respondents can reasonably be expected to give an accurate response. Everyone knows what their age is, or what state they live in, or whether they went to college or not. On the other hand, asking people how they voted 4 years ago is subject to all kinds of issues that can introduce inaccuracy. People can, and do, forget. Or, they might not want to admit they did not vote, so they could lie. And among those who DO remember, there is a strong bias in favor of the winning candidate. Donald Trump did not win in 2020, but he did in 2016, and so that might well carry over.

Weighting the numbers by recalled vote most certainly makes the 2024 numbers a couple of points more Trumpy, on the whole. Looking at polls that do such weighting (around 2/3 of them, right now), versus polls that do not makes that clear. Whether it makes them more accurate is a very different question. It certainly could, if only to make up for the Trump undercounting of the last two cycles. On the other hand, for what it is worth, if the technique had been used in any of the presidential cycles since 2000, including the two with Trump as a candidate, it actually would have made the polls more wrong, on the whole (not all of them, but more often than not). The average amount of additional wrongness would have been smaller in the two Trump elections (around 1.5 points in 2016, around a point in 2020), but it still would have been there.

Here's the upshot: Because Trump is sui generis, and because pollsters struggled to find a rigorous method for correcting for that, they are now using a non-rigorous method with which they have little experience. It's not throwing darts at a dartboard, but it might be in the same ZIP Code. Beyond that, because the specific goal here is to correct for undervaluing Trump in 2020 and 2016, it is improbable that is happening again. They might be valuing him correctly, or they might be overvaluing him, but they probably aren't underestimating his support. Oh, and because this kind of weighting is based on the 2020 electorate, it would be thrown further askew if this year's electorate were to be markedly different, particularly if Democratic turnout was higher than it was 4 years ago.

As you can imagine, we get asked a lot who is going to win the election. We'll say a bit more next week, but because of the issues outlined above (and others), (Z)'s current answer to people who ask that is this: "33% a close Trump win, 33% a close Harris win, 33% a not-that-close Harris win." Another way you could put that is this: "If the polls are basically accurate, it's a coin flip. If not, they are probably underestimating Harris." (Z)

Better Just Walk that Ballot Over

On Monday, the U.S. Postal Service issued a press release. Here is the important part:

With eight days remaining until Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, the United States Postal Service recommends that voters who choose to vote by mail do so soon.

As we anticipate an uptick of ballots in the mail over the coming days, Postal Service employees are working to ensure the ballots of every individual who chooses to vote by mail are delivered quickly and securely. As in past elections, the Postal Service is ready to deliver your ballot on time. But don't delay. If you choose to vote by mail, please mail early as every day counts.

We continue to recommend that it is a good common-sense measure for voters who choose to mail in their ballots to do so before Election Day and at least a week before their election office needs to receive them. If a ballot is due on Election Day, the Postal Service recommends mailing the ballot by this Tuesday (October 29).

The executive summary: "We are doing our best, but if you want to be safe, get your ballot in the mail by Tuesday."

We are not going to get conspiratorial about whether or not Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is trying to put his thumb on the scale for the Republicans. As we have written, that's a complicated story, and there's plenty of evidence he is putting duty before party.

No, the only reason we are taking note of this press release is because the "optimal" window for voting by mail has now closed. So, if you absolutely must vote by mail (you're rural, or you're disabled, or...), then please do get your ballot in the mail TODAY. Otherwise, and for everyone else, it's time to move on to Plan B: Deliver your ballot to a drop box, or polling place, or your local registrar of voters/hall of records (depending on what is appropriate in your municipality). (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Take a look at Michigan as an illustration of what we are talking about in the item on polling today. That's a 6-point spread between the two pollsters. At least one of them is way wrong, and they might both be way wrong. Also note that today we have 13 polls from YouGov that were in the field Oct. 1 to Oct 25. These were done by YouGov, which is a legitimate pollster and sponsored by CES which is an academic group studying elections. The middle date here is Oct. 13, so these polls will have aged out, except in states not polled since then. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	47%	51%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Arizona	48%	47%	Oct 21	Oct 26	SSRS for CNN
Florida	44%	53%	Oct 19	Oct 27	Florida Atlantic U.
Florida	46%	52%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Georgia	46%	51%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Massachusetts	60%	37%	Oct 23	Oct 25	Emerson Coll.
Michigan	49%	50%	Oct 25	Oct 27	Emerson Coll.
Michigan	51%	46%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Minnesota	51%	43%	Oct 24	Oct 28	SurveyUSA
Minnesota	53%	43%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
North Carolina	47%	47%	Oct 23	Oct 26	SurveyUSA
North Carolina	48%	50%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
New Hampshire	52%	45%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Nevada	47%	48%	Oct 21	Oct 26	SSRS for CNN
Nevada	51%	47%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Ohio	45%	52%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Pennsylvania	49%	48%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Pennsylvania	49%	49%	Oct 22	Oct 28	YouGov
Texas	47%	51%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Virginia	52%	44%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov
Wisconsin	50%	47%	Oct 01	Oct 25	YouGov

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

Today's Senate Polls

It's shocking how poorly Sam Brown is doing; he was supposed to make it a nail-biter. Can any Nevada readers tell us, at comments@electoral-vote.com, why he's not competitive? (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	Ruben Gallego	51%	Kari Lake	43%	Oct 21	Oct 26	SSRS for CNN
Florida	Debbie Mucarsel-Powell	46%	Rick Scott*	50%	Oct 19	Oct 27	Florida Atlantic U.
Michigan	Elissa Slotkin	48%	Mike Rogers	46%	Oct 25	Oct 27	Emerson Coll.
Nevada	Jacky Rosen*	50%	Sam Brown	41%	Oct 21	Oct 26	SSRS for CNN

* Denotes incumbent

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