Great enthusiasm filled the David Garcia for Governor Rally in the main gathering room at the Arizona State University Student Pavilion on October 23, 2018 as approximately 700 people heard speaker after speaker (including Dr. Garcia and Senator and 2016 Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders) electrified the crowd and passionately called for everyone to vote for progressive Dr. Garcia and other Democrats and get family, friends, and co-workers to the polls as well.
In this 9/1/18 interview on the John C. Scott Show broadcast on KVOI 1030 AM, Blog for Arizona writer Larry Bodine reveals his insights about the August 28 Arizona primary races. Topics include: Who turned out to vote in the primary election? Was it Millennials and Latinos? Astonishingly, 100,000 people voted for a convicted racist crook. … Read more
First, a word from Sam Wang from the Princeton Election Consortium. What constitutes a good poll?:
Holidays are over. I see that journalists, including poll aggregators, are still focused on the Presidential horserace. As Zenger at Electoral-Vote.com has pointed out, sites such as FiveThirtyEight are under economic pressure to attract traffic. And there is nothing to attract eyeballs like a crazy Presidential race. Still, from a substantive standpoint, it might be more appropriate to spend efforts on, I dunno…issues? See this excellent critique of media coverage by Jeff Jarvis, which includes a good hard whack at the media obsession with “balance” and polls – basically, tricks to let reporters escape engaging head-on with substantive issues. If journalists insist on horserace coverage, at least focus on downticket races in Senate, House, and even state legislatures – and maybe write about some issues along the way. These races will determine the power dynamic in 2017 under the new President, whoever she may be.
Just to remind everyone, variations in this year’s race are quite narrow, consistent with the last 20 years of partisan polarization. Polarization has made both the GOP and Democratic nominees unacceptable to nearly all supporters of the other party. In addition, Donald Trump is radioactive to about one-fifth of his own party. As a result, this year’s race is full of melodrama, but numerically stable. In 2016, the Princeton Election Consortium’s state poll-based aggregate has only varied between a median outcome of 310 and 350 EV for Hillary Clinton.
The Meta-Margin, which is defined as the front-runner’s effective lead using Electoral College mechanisms, is a very low-noise and stable measure – as opposed to single polls, which can be all over the place. You should generally ignore single polls, especially ones that surprise you. The Meta-Margin has varied between Clinton +2.5% and Clinton +6.5%, and is now at Clinton +4.0%, close to the season average of 3.8%. If it left the 2.5-6.5% range, that would be interesting. That has not occurred yet.
Oh, who are we kidding? The lazy media only does horse race coverage. Just as a thought experiment, I would love to see one election cycle where no polls are allowed, and the media is forced to actually report on something other than polls and the horse race. It’s never going to happen.
By Craig McDermott, crossposted from Random Musings
Note: All results are tentative and subject to change as late-arriving mail in ballots and provisional ballots are counted. Most races seem settled, though there are a few that may flip. And at least a couple seem headed for recounts…
Note2: Results from Maricopa County-specific races are from the website of the Maricopa County Recorder; results from races that cover other counties or the entire state are from the website of the Arizona Secretary of State.
Note3: The geographic descriptions used are for reference only, to give a general idea of where a district is located. They are not, nor are they meant to be, definitive descriptions of the geographic area covered by a particular district.
I actually think that the a few of the primary results will serve to help Democrats make some gains, but this is turning out to be a weird electoral cycle.
In other words, no predictions.
On the Democratic side…
By Craig McDermott, crossposted from Random Musings
Note: there are a couple of changes to adapt this post to BfA’s format.
It is far too early to gloat – Arpaio has a seemingly uncanny ability to weasel out of trouble, often by throwing others under the bus.
He did that a lot this week, only to see many of his “throwees” drag him under the same bus.
First up: a primer (see the video linked above).
Note: it isn’t perfectly accurate (for example, the infamous nativist bill SB1070 became law in 2010, not in “the 2008 – 2009 time frame“) and most lawyers will cringe at it (much of the terminology used is for laymen, not those with JDs). However, it effectively explains the factors that lead up to the current situation.
Second up: what happened this week in federal court in Phoenix.
A. A civil contempt hearing looking into possible violations of a court order by Arpaio took place.
B. At the hearing:
1. Arpaio threw his lawyer under the bus.
2. One of Arpaio’s senior officers threw Arpaio under the bus.
3. Arpaio’s lawyer withdrew from the case.
4. Arpaio admitted, under oath, to news broken last year by Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times – that he had the wife of the judge in this case, Murray Snow, investigated.
Personal observation: I don’t know if Arpaio is a praying man, but if he is one, he should give a heartfelt prayer of thanks that Snow is the judge hearing this case. Upon hearing that admission, most other people, including many judges, would have simply turned to the nearest court officer and ordered that Arpaio be taken to the darkest, dankest hole in the federal prison system and dropped in it.