Within the Margin

Anyone following the news of the last week would be expecting some movement toward the Republicans in this Senate update. The past week saw the Fetterman/Oz debate that launched a unsympathetic and generally insensitive national media narrative regarding Fetterman’s stroke recovery and his accompanying difficulties in the debate format, plus a bevy of Senate polls showing pro-Republican movement in several states even as some of the generic ballot House polls showed the opposite. And indeed, I was initially planning to move four races one step in the GOP’s direction – Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire from Lean Dem to Tilt Dem, and Pennsylvania from Tilt Dem to Tilt Rep. But longtime collaborator Matt Clausen has tempered my instincts a bit here. He rightly notes that the preponderance of Senate polling in recent days has come from GOP-aligned polling firms. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong! Trafalgar, for one, redeemed themselves in 2020 by catching a lot of Trump support that other firms were missing. But methodologically they remain problematic, and some of these firms have been far enough out of step on polls this year that we have to view them with caution. I’m thinking here of co/efficient in particular. Add to that stew some GOP-sponsored polls and we don’t have a lot to work with. New Hampshire actually does have a more solid-footing firm that has taken a recent look at the race; Emerson found a four-point lead for Hassan. Does that warrant a move from Lean to Tilt? Let me see more.

And as far as the Fetterman situation goes, we have to combine that lack of non-aligned firms with the fact that Oz made mistakes in that debate, too – most notably, his assertion that the decision to have an abortion should involve one’s local political leaders. Matt is inclined to wait on shifting all four races; I’m still comfortable shifting one of them:

In my view, what’s different here is that Kelly is about to face $5 million in spending on his behalf in a race where Kelly has frequently had the advantage in the air wars, and Arizona’s other statewide races don’t seem to have any organizational strength – so if Kelly slips, he won’t have as much help arresting that slide. He maintains the edge in polling, though, and he maintains the edge in our rating here.

The map, with the lone update:

As always remember that blueish-gray color is Tilt Dem. And click here for the interactive map.