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Welcome to the last Friday Mailbag before the midterms!
We made it! (OK, we’ve almost made it!)
Below I answered a whole bunch of your questions from the week that was. If I didn’t get to your question, make sure to tune in to my “Ask Chris Anything” livestream on my YouTube channel at 1 pm eastern!
As always, these are real questions from real subscribers!
Q: What happens if Republican candidates do win in more places than expected?
A: Good question!
At the most basic level, it would mean that polling is broken. We’ve known for a while now that polling has lots of issues to it — especially in the age of Trump.
But a significant Republican over-performance would mean that the scads of polling we have seen over months and months and months is wrong. And that would mean that we need to have a much bigger conversation about whether or not the way we do polling can be saved.
Beyond that, it would suggest that voters — unlike in almost every midterm of the last 80 years — viewed the election more as a choice between the two parties rather than a referendum on President Trump and Republicans.
Because we know that the Democratic brand is not in great shape — and, according to polling may well be less well-regarded than the GOP — but have assumed that will matter less in an election that, typically, is all about the party in charge.
I think the chances of a Republican win in four days are slim — less than 10%. But that still means that if we ran the election 100 times, Republicans would have a good night in some of the scenarios!
Q: Chris, can you explain why everyone seems to be treating the NYT Alaska story like a mountain and not a molehill? There are no coincidences in politics, and an unknown teacher with the same name as the sitting senator running would be a gigantic coincidence. Having the NYT confirm something that I thought was assumed, if maybe unsaid, doesn’t seem like a HUGE deal to me. What am I missing?
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