Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Yeah, the polls were skewed.

Just in the other directionUpdate: Nate Silver, via TPM.

"Based on results as reported through early Wednesday morning — I’ll detail our method for calculating this in a moment — the average Senate poll conducted in the final three weeks of this year’s campaign overestimated the Democrat’s performance by 4 percentage points," Silver wrote at Five Thirty Eight. "The average gubernatorial poll was just as bad, also overestimating the Democrat’s performance by 4 points."

In almost every key Senate race -- Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Alaska -- the pre-election polls favored Democrats. The trend led to a shocked cadre of political observers as Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D) barely eked out a win in a race that most had written off as an easy hold for Democrats because of the polling.

"Interestingly, this year’s polls were not especially inaccurate. Between gubernatorial and Senate races, the average poll missed the final result by an average of about 5 percentage points — well in line with the recent average," Silver concluded. "The problem is that almost all of the misses were in the same direction.

Texas Democrats couldn't blame it on the rain, either.  It was a much better set of returns than Republicans could have hoped for in their wettest of dreams.  They will believe that it was, you know, ordained.  A gift from God.

It's worse than 2014, particularly here in Harris County, where all the Ds got swept out to sea.  And it's no consolation that it was just as bad in North Carolina, or Georgia, or Wisconsin, or Florida, or...

The best news I can find is that Denton passed their fracking ban.  So there's that.  And there's this, under a teaser subhead that reads: "Patrick supporters get angry with reporters".


"You are being disrespectful!", she's screeching, when the cameras cut to their talking heads just as Ed Young of Second Baptist Church began his prayer for Dan Patrick (currently photos numbered 36 and 37 in the Chron's slideshow).

Update (11/6): Isiah Carey has more and more pictures. And Juanita Jean has a screenshot from Carey's Facebook page with a photo of longtime ABC-13 reporter Deborah Wrigley intervening in the confrontation above.

Comparisons to tsunami survivors, the latest Borg assimilees, and drowning victims aside, the expected gloating has turned into taunting in a few of the usual places.  Doncha hate a poor winner?

Go ahead and tear down the goalposts, start a white riot, burn a few autos and ransack some light retail outlets, Republicans.  The cops don't haul out the tanks and the tear gas when it's white folks.  Nobody's going to shoot you no matter how badly you misbehave.  Here are a few questions for when you finish your bullying and your tantrums; we'll wait.

-- What time do the lynchings begin?  Not the one of Mitch McConnell by Ted Cruz.  I'm asking about the crucifixions of the women who have abortions, of the gays, and the other sinners and non-believers.

Or will they be stonings instead?  Wood timbers cost money, I know.

-- We'll forget about marijuana decriminalization in Texas.  Can we still listen to rock and roll music, or will that lead to dancing and fornication?

-- Should women go ahead and begin registering their reproductive parts for confiscation by the government?  You know, like you constantly complain about your guns and Obama?  "Greg Abbott's gonna git yer koochies" just doesn't have the same ring to it.  Fear simply does not motivate Democrats in the same way that it does Republicans.  For their sake, I hope they can someday find something that will.

-- When do you start replacing "Obama" with "Hillary" and "Clinton"?  Misogyny worked pretty well for you in this election; is it as easy to shift gears into that from overt racial hostility?  Serious question, but I think I already know the answer.

Oh well, we'll try to have some fun and snark as we continue the slow slide to theocratic fascism in Texas.  Coming soon to your state too, non-Texans, so don't consider yourselves safe in Delaware or Connecticut or even Massachusetts, and correspondingly smug as a result.  Your problems are Blue Dogs and neoliberals, which suggests a thorough housecleaning is in order.

Some numbers and appropriate comment about them later.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

So here in Texas, we've now officially it 20 years since a non-Republican has won a race for statewide office. Republicans are so over-confident here that they now run people named George Bush again.

The hell with it. I need a few days off of political headlines...