It wouldn’t be an election without an October surprise, and sure enough, the 2010 cycle will not disappoint. This time, it’s not some 11th hour accusation about unpaid taxes, illegal nannies or secret love affairs, but an appearance from the Mad Hatter of pollsters whose crazy talk in the final days of the election is making black sound like white and and Nancy Pelosi sound…sane. Well, almost.
Who is the Mad Hatter of the 2010 elections? Friends, follow me on a trip down the rabbit hole…
Dave Schweikert (AZ 5), who I met while in AZ in August and really like, has been ahead consistently by six to eight points against Rep. Harry Mitchell through the first of September.
So I became quite concerned when two polls in October showed him down by seven! A 15 point swing in 30 days!
This is particular bizarre since Arizona is ground zero for voter angst this cycle. My uncle, a retired professor of labor law, has never voted for a Republican in his life. This summer, he started a blog against Harry Mitchell. And it is nasty.
What moved him to do so? His daughter (my cousin) narrowly avoided two rounds of layoffs from a major pharma company, each accompanied by a letter citing “recent changes in health care policy.” His premiums have gone up 15%. Both his kids are under water on their houses.
Polls are moved by news. What could be happening in Arizona to turn Schweikert’s race around and make people like my uncle abandon his blog and let bygones be bygones?
A quick Google news search shows that the University of Arizona is 4-1, but I don’t know if that is vote determinative, and I couldn’t find any Obama speeches on the subject.
But I did find this: the DCCC has cut its spending in Mitchell’s race.
How is it then that Benenson Strategy Group confirms the DCCC poll showing Schweikert 7 points down. One poll is an anomaly, perhaps, but two polls, showing the same thing, is a trend. Should I believe the DCCC poll or the DCCC media buy?
In Illinois, where, as Peter Roskam’s chief of staff, I do most of my work, Randy Hultgren was up by six against Bill Foster according to the Tarrance Group on October 3. On October 4, Benenson Strategy Group – there they are again – shows him down by ten. Sixteen points in 24 hours – someone needs to call the folks at Ripley’s about this one. And the DCCC comes in a week later with a poll confirming the Benenson Strategy Group findings.
Charles Djou in Hawaii, up by ten in his last poll, is shown to be down by four in early October – again, according to a DCCC poll. Last week The Hill came out showing him up by four points.
Now, if this were just a couple of races, I might not be so suspicious. But the D-Trippers have posted a web page boasting of this sort of swing in 12 races.
Meanwhile, Gallup, an organization whose pollsters have PhDs in Statistics rather than MAs in Creative Writing, shows the GOP with a 17 point lead among likely voters nationwide.
Even George Soros says he can’t stop a Republican avalanche. Do you think the Daddy Warbucks of the radical left hasn’t done the research?
With all external signs pointing to sustained momentum for GOP House candidates, we are left with only one lingering question – who the heck is the Benenson Strategy Group? As it turns out, Joel Benenson lays claim to being Barack Obama’s lead pollster in 2008. In 2010, Benenson is a finalist for the Steven Moore Mad Hatter Award for most nonsensical polling.
The Dems would have us believe the results of Obama’s pollster confirming the DCCC polling. Little did we know that the Dem’s push for manufacturing this fall would include manufacturing electoral momentum.
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