With 48 hours to go until votes begin to be counted on Tuesday night, I don’t really have time for anything other than full transparency.
asserted
I → go → transparency
We’d planned to probably publish a second post today — please see our fun morning post with 13 quasi-randomly selected FLIPR maps — and this second post was originally slotted in as a relatively naked advertisement for our Election Night coverage, which we’ll be co-hosting with the good folks at The Argument, GD Politics and Slow Boring.
asserted
we → plan → Argument
If everything goes to plan, we’ll have both a (free) live video stream and a paid-subscribers-only liveblog.1
asserted
we → go → stream
I’m mostly going to be focused on the liveblog component, but we’ll have plenty of insightful contributors for you on both channels.
asserted
we → go → channels
I figured the post would start by talking about some of Sunday morning’s more interesting polls.
asserted
post → figure → polls
But surprise #1: there weren’t many polls, nor were any of them all that interesting.
asserted
any → be → them
Incentives in the industry are changing, and not necessarily in a good way.
asserted
Incentives → change → way
Sundays used to be big days for politics coverage back in the era of Sunday newspaper print editions and when shows like Meet the Press were incredibly influential.
asserted
shows → use → Press
Now, the conventional wisdom seems to be that you fire out your best stuff on weekdays instead.2
asserted
you → seem → weekdays
Plus, high-quality polling is expensive, and pollsters may feel like they’re in a no-win position where they’ll either get accused of herding or risk publishing an outlier-ish poll that will surely get them criticized if they’re wrong — or who knows, maybe even sued by the president?
uncertain
who → feel → president
But then early this afternoon, we got a real surprise: Haley Stevens, whom Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated in the August Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, endorsed his Republican opponent Mike Rogers.
asserted
Sayed → get → opponent
I’m going to be honest that I thought this was a fake headline when I first came across it on Twitter, sort of like I originally worried I might be hallucinating when I first heard about the Luka Doncic trade.3
uncertain
I → go → Twitter
I’m also going to be honest that I’ve sort of tuned out stories about the Democratic infighting in Michigan.
asserted
I → go → Michigan
Don’t get me wrong: we love talking about Democratic infighting at Silver Bulletin, love it, love it, love it.
asserted
we → get → it
But it’s pretty much the only thing that anyone is going to be talking about in politics from early next year onward, when candidates begin to declare for the 2028 race, until the DNC in Boston, Denver, or Philadelphia in August 2028.
asserted
candidates → ’ → August
You can watch the Stevens video for yourself, but to me at least, she comes across as fairly petty and vindictive.
asserted
she → watch → me
To be fair, though, so has El-Sayed, who disinvited Stevens from campaign events.
asserted
who → have → events
If Democrats had to do it over again, maybe they’d have nominated Mallory McMorrow, or begged Gary Peters to run for another term.
asserted
they → have → term
But could this actually swing the race?
uncertain
this → swing → race
Not that you should necessarily trust my instincts on this vibes-based stuff, but I’m of mixed minds here.
asserted
I → trust → minds
Let’s start with the polls, where there’s good news and bad news for El-Sayed.
asserted
’s → let → Sayed
Good news for AES part #1a: he’s actually been expanding his lead over Rogers in recent surveys.
asserted
he → expand → surveys
Part #1b: he already has almost 50 percent of the vote.
asserted
he → have → vote
In fact, Michigan has among the fewest undecided voters4 of any Senate race at 4.8 percent; the lowest is Maine at 3.5 percent.
asserted
lowest → have → percent
But even when they are wrong, it’s relatively uncommon for a candidate to finish with a lower share than their decided vote in the polls.
asserted
candidate → ’ → polls
Even Hillary Clinton didn’t do that: in 2016, she got 48.2 percent of the popular vote, versus 46.8 percent of the decided vote in the polls.
asserted
she → do → polls
(Donald Trump gained more ground, though still lost the popular vote.)
asserted
Trump → gain → vote
Indeed, FLIPR accounts for the number of undecideds.
asserted
FLIPR → account → undecideds
It’s a bit more confident about its forecasts when there are less of them, which is one of the reasons it’s had a pretty bullish forecast for El-Sayed.
asserted
it → ’ → Sayed
He was actually trailing Rogers back when he and Stevens were fighting in the summer before the primary was complete.
asserted
primary → trail → summer
So there’s at least some evidence that voters in Michigan are sensitive to Democratic unity, or the lack thereof.
asserted
voters → ’ → unity
To summarize my understanding of the impact of endorsements: the political science literature generally says endorsements aren’t that important unless they’re surprising, and this one was surprising.
asserted
one → summarize → endorsements
Or at least surprising-ish: tensions between the candidates had already been escalating and, as I wrote above, it hadn’t seemed to hurt El-Sayed in the polls; in fact, he was gaining ground.
asserted
he → escalate → ground
There’s also the fact that roughly 1.9 million Michiganders have already voted, which might reflect something like 40 percent of the eventual turnout there, not counting voters whose ballots are in the mail but haven’t been counted yet.
uncertain
ballots → ’ → mail
Now, generally speaking, undecided voters don’t vote early: rather, committed partisans do.
asserted
partisans → speak → ?
But that blunts the effect, to some degree.
asserted
that → blunt → degree
It would probably have been worse for El-Sayed if this happened last weekend, in which case there would also have been more time for the story to metastasize in the national media.
asserted
story → happen → media
But now, newsroom resources are stretched thin as everyone prepares for Tuesday.
asserted
everyone → stretch → Tuesday
Even if this hurts El-Sayed with some voters, could it help him with others?
uncertain
it → hurt → others
I won’t precisely share my Michigan mom’s reaction to hearing about the news today, but it did help to clarify one question for me.
asserted
it → share → me
…and 68 more, not listed.
The Aporia
