The Numbers Racket

A few weeks back, I wrote that for a while my pure guess from watching Special Elections was that Democrats had increased their vote in all Special Elections since Trump took office by 10-20 point.  And then added how I'd heard the excellent analyst Mathew Dowd say that the number was, in fact 16 points.  Smack dab in the middle.  Well, there's an update to that --

On Saturday, Harry Enten, the pollster for CNN, said that the number now is 18 points!!

This really should scare the bejeepers out of Texas MAGOPs and all Red states that are gerrymandering in hopes of picking up House seats.  To gerrymander, especially as Texas is doing, means you’re taking voters out of Safe Red districts in order to turn Leans Blue districts into Leans Red.  But, importantly, what it also means is that you’re turning Safe Red districts to only Leans Red.  And Leans Red tends to mean having a margin of about 6-10 points.  And normally that's pretty safe, too.  The problem for MAGOPs is that with Democrats increasing their margins – right now – by 18 points, then  all those Leans Red districts would seem to be in serious risk.  Including, of course, the ones that used to be Safe Red, before the party took voters away.

And this doesn’t take into consider the 12 districts (I think that’s the number) that have MAGOP representatives but voted for Biden.  It seems highly likely that all of those districts will flip from Red to Blue easily.

On another numbers subject --

There are been a lot of stories lately about how much money is being spent by both sides in California’s Proposition 50 vote on gerrymandering.  And that isn't surprising, since I’ve been seeing a ton of Prop 50 ads on television.  More to the point, thus far there have been an inordinate number of “Vote No” ads, and I'm aware that there are a couple of major far-right billionaires who have given almost $35 million to defeat the proposition.  ($30 million of that has come from one man, billionaire Charles Munger, Jr.  The name may sound familiar to some, though it's not exactly -- he's the son of Charles Munger Sr., who is the partner of Warner Buffett.  This is no aspersion on either of those two gentlemen, since I have no idea what their politics are.)  So, before of all that money raised by the "Vote No" side -- albeit raised mostly from two (or one) men, I was surprised to find out that the “Vote Yes” said has outraised the other by about $80 million to $35 million.  Which also means the “Vote No” side is having a very hard time raising money outside of those two (or even just one) billionaires.  While the "Vote Yes" side has raised much more money from a far more extensive number of donors.

More to the point, I was curious what the polls show on the vote.  My concern is that Californians really like their Independent commission – and many may not be following the news closely about Texas and other MAGOP gerrymandering states.  (Though California faces the same reality of taking votes away from Safe Blue districts for its temporary gerrymandering effort, with the 18-point average Democratic gain in voting, that means making a Safe Blue district Leans Blue significantly less of a problem, of course.) 

Well, I found an Emerson poll – which is a very good polling organization – and their most recent results say it it’s Yes 51%, No 34% with 14% undecided.   So, even if all undecideds vote no – which is improbable – the proposition still passes.  But all the better, when the poll asked the same question to people who are “very likely” to vote, the number became 55% Yes, 35% No.  So, it looks like it will pass solidly, likely with close to 60% of the vote.  Which is about the percentage that Democrats generally get in statewide elections.

So – that's all positive news.  Yes, it’s still a year away from the Mid-Terms, but as I've noted, I think that things will get worse for MAGOPs -- being lead by someone with dementia, which is degenerative, whose starting point is a 38% approval and is surrounded by unqualified incompetents who don't have the skills to get him out of problems, and in fact caused many of them.  And as for the California Special Election, that is only five weeks away. Sample Ballots have already been sent out, and mail-in ballots should arrive any day.