Democrats can be more successful in home races than GOP



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Poll of the week: The New York Times and Siena College have published several polls over the past week. One of the most important results was recorded in the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin, where House Speaker Paul Ryan retires.

He found Republican Bryan Steil topping Democratic Democrat Randy Bryce from 50% to 44%. This aligns well with most organizations rating the race (Republican Lean).

What's the point: Polls produced by Siena and the Times generally indicate a home where Democrats have a slight advantage, though Republicans can still maintain control. Some polls, like that of the 1st district of Wisconsin, have the Republican in mind, while others, like the 3rd district of Minnesota, have the Democrat.

Like Real Clear Politics Election Analyst, Sean Trende noted on Twitter as for the polls, they indicate a net democratic gain of 30 seats. This estimate is largely consistent with the FiveThirtyEight surveys only (or "lite") estimate of a 34-seat gain for Democrats. Both are a little more than the net gain of 23 seats they need to take control of the House.

These polls however tend to give Republicans a better image than other indicators such as national generic surveys and fundamentals such as fundraising. These suggest a gain of more than 35 seats for Democrats.

In other words, there is disagreement.

What's important to keep in mind, is that district polls at this stage of the cycle may underestimate the party enjoying an election by the wave.

I have returned since the election of 2006 and have watched how much the polls were done in about a month during the cycle. (That is, the polls ended about 52 to 82 days before the election.)

The immediate thing that stands out is the side that won the popular vote of the National House has always done better on polling day than the polls currently indicate. The average outperformance was slightly above 3 points.

Democrats did better than their polls in 2006, 2008 and 2012. Republicans did better than their polls in 2010, 2014 and 2016.

The outperformance of the district survey seems particularly important in years of waves. In 2006, the average district poll counted 1.5 points for Democrats. The result in the districts surveyed was to gain 4 points for the Democrats. This is a 5.5 point bias against Democrats.

Go ahead in 2010. When Republicans were on the wave, they were down 3 points in the average district poll at this time. They ended up winning in these quarters by 1 point. This is an outperformance of 4 points for Republicans.

The mid-term election 2014 tells the same story. Republicans got 5.5 points more than district polls suggested at this point.

Now, it would be easy to believe that the reason district surveys are not predictive at this stage is that the polls themselves are inaccurate. This does not seem to be the case.

Look at those same years, but only at the polls in the last 10 days of elections. Polls have a bias of less than one point in 2006 and 2010. In 2014, polls – like all national and national polls – underestimated Republicans (although the underestimation was 2 percentage points lower than two months).

In other words, the district polls were pretty good in the end, but may be a lagging indicator of what other measures are planning for two months before the elections.

Of course, it is not guaranteed that district surveys at this stage will be a lagging indicator this year. But if there was one party that probably has more success in the polls, it is the Democrats, since other factors are more favorable to them.

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