Why Republicans are gaining ground in midterm election polls. Report Ft
It would take a big mistake in the polls, but it would no longer be a shock if the Republicans win the Senate. The in-depth analysis of the Financial Times
Survey observers can learn a lot from physicists. Take, for example, the pendulum of a clock. It oscillates thanks to two mechanisms. Weights suspended at the head of the clock convert the force of earth's gravity into energy that drives the gears of the clock. To prevent the weight from falling to the ground by spinning all the gears simultaneously and producing a time-traveling clock, a claw-like mechanism was installed that allows only one tooth of the gear to rotate at the same time.
The pendulum, the second mechanism, is attached to this claw and regulates the rotation speed of the other teeth. Starting from a high point to the left, gravity pulls the pendulum down and inertia pulls it to the right. The claw releases a tooth and allows the gear to move, producing an audible "tick". The pendulum then naturally moves down and to the left, allowing the gear to turn another tooth. The watch emits a “tock”.
Opinion polls work like this too (more or less). This is partly due to the random variation of individual surveys, which can usually be attributed to differences in the demographic and political characteristics of the people surveyed. But polls often approach the long-term average over time. Just think of the 2016 and 2020 elections, when the Democratic lead in the summer gave way to a rapid surge in support for Republicans in the fall – writes The Economist.
Thus, a midsummer "tic" in favor of the Democrats was answered by a Republican "tic" this fall. According to the Economist's poll of US Senate election polls, Republican candidates have gained ground in eight of the ten most contested states.
The Republican advance was particularly evident in Nevada, where Catherine Cortez Masto, the incumbent Democratic senator, defends her seat against Adam Laxalt, a Republican and former state attorney general. Something similar happened in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman, the Democratic deputy governor of the state, is facing Mehmet Oz, a former doctor and talk show host. Our poll index, which adjusts polls for both the historical bias of each pollster and the fact that a poll was conducted by a partisan company, finds the Democrat margin dropped by more than five percentage points in Wisconsin as well. .
Our polling averages currently show Democrats lagging Republicans about one point each in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. In Ohio, they are almost one point ahead. The Democrats are four points ahead in Georgia and seven points in Pennsylvania and Arizona. This gives Democrats a net gain of a Senate seat if the polls are 100% accurate (spoiler alert: they won't be). These numbers come with an important health warning. One month before election day, polls for the Senate are an average of six points off the actual results of the night.
But there is still time for Republicans to break through before November 8, and polls in the latest election have been significantly biased towards Democrats. Republican candidates have a chance to win every ballot box, even Pennsylvania and Arizona, according to the range of errors in our historical Senate polling averages. While it would take a big mistake in the polls, the party's recent advances in key states mean it would no longer be a shock for Republicans to win a majority in the Senate.
(Extract from the foreign press review by eprcomunicazione)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/stati-uniti-elezioni-midterm-repubblicani/ on Sat, 15 Oct 2022 06:58:06 +0000.