Is the Right Side of the Rainbow Right?

Is the right side of the rainbow right?

Excerpt:

Doom and gloom for the GOP here, here and here.

A sample of it from the Washington Post:

Democrats have regained a commanding position going into the final weeks of the midterm-election campaigns, with support eroding for Republicans on Iraq, ethics and presidential leadership, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Well, maybe. And maybe not:

The Demographics of the WP poll are even more ridiculous. In that poll, Democrat respondents outnumber GOP respondents by a full 11% (38-27%). Plus, 3 of the 4 nights in the WP poll are weekends, and the poll director of the WP has previously admitted that weekend polls favor Democrats. And yes, the numbers in both polls are dismal for the GOP, except that these polls are meaningless because we don’t know the Congressional districts of the respondents. Only about 40 CD races are competitive. Where are the respondents in these polls from?

Also, for the Washington Post-ABC survey, pollsters used a random “national sample of 1,204 adults.” That kind of sample cannot predict the outcome in any of the 435 House districts.

In the first place, it doesn’t matter what “adults” think. Many adults are not registered to vote, making their political opinions operationally irrelevant. It often doesn’t matter what even “registered voters” think since many of them don’t vote. In fact, in in an off-year election, half of them may not vote.

Oh, the Democrats will win narrow control of the House next month. We know this from district-level polling of likely voters, not from national polling of adults. So far, the evidence indicates the Democrats will pick-up fifteen to twenty House seats; they need fifteen for a majority. When a liberal media outlet uses a national poll of adults to run the headline “Poll shows strong shift of support to Democrats,” it’s trying to stampede the election. Rock steady.

On the other hand, some of our Republican brethern are resisting political reality. Hugh Hewitt writes:

The Dems need 15 seats to change hands, and no credible list is ever produced to back up that number …

You can decide for yourself whether it’s “credible.” But here’s a list of Republican-held seats that are set to switch hands:

* Pennsylvania 6
* Pennsylvania 10
* Colorado 7
* Iowa 1
* North Carolina 11
* Ohio 18
* Texas 22
* Indiana 2
* Indiana 8
* Indiana 9
* Connecticut 2
* Arizona 8
* Florida 16

That’s 13.

And here’s a list of Republican-held seats that are no better than toss-ups:

* Ohio 1
* Ohio 15
* Kentucky 4
* Virginia 2
* Illinois 6
* Connecticut 4
* New York 26

That’s 7.

It’s not unreasonable to believe that Republicans will lose two of these seven. They might lose all of them. Again, Democrats are positioned to win between fifteen and twenty seats.