The Senate, where the GOP holds 53 seats, remains a toss-up, the conservative outlet says
For the first time this year, Fox News is projecting that Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.
In its latest power rankings Tuesday, the conservative outlet forecast that Democrats are favored to capture 219 seats — one more than the 218 needed for a majority. Republicans were favored in 198 races, while 18 contests remained toss-ups.
“The House is likely out of reach for the GOP this year,” according to the Fox News analysis. “The Democratic Party has enjoyed a lead in the House all year. Now, as another 20 races shift leftward, this forecast sees the Democrats taking control.”
That will engage their population to vote and put the ‘left’ at ease, maybe not to vote.
What they say doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is for us to vote.
Democrats trailing in the polls = give up chance of flipping seat and don’t vote
Democrats doing well in polls = don’t bother to vote it’s in the bag
Are the only good poll numbers nail biting 50/50?
Fuck poll numbers. I’ve marked every political and polling message I’ve received as spam. They can find out my vote when I cast it. Go vote people, ignore polls.
There are no good poll numbers until after the race has finished
was about to say almost the exact same thing.
Regardless of whatever they say. Don’t get lazy. Don’t get complacent. Get off your ass and go vote, no matter what it takes
I don’t believe it.
These same stories come out every election cycle, especially from right-wing news sources. “The left are going to take the senate” “The dems are going to have a landslide victory”
It’s propaganda with two goals:
- to fire up their base and encourage them to vote against the enemy that is somehow lesser, but also a threat.
- To create placidity in Democrat voters. If it’s in the bag, then I don’t have to skip out on a day of minimum wage work to cast my vote. The landslide will sort it out.
Hit the nail on the head. Same reason I keep seeing polls about how all these places are going to vote blue. Their trying everything they can to keep blue voters at home and or invalidate their mail in votes, don’t be fooled go out and vote!!
Ignore polls, vote.
Vote early if you are able.
Yes. Also try and avoid mailing in ballot, use drop boxes if able.
Or early in person, I’m going on my next day off.
Yeah I don’t believe anything else Fox News says, why would I believe them about this? They may just be trying to motivate.
Yes, motivation… which is actually hatred & greed in this case. These “people” would never admit to failure unless it benefits them, it’s a tactic besharted forth to get the fence sitting MAGATs to vote against their better interests so they can “own the Dems”.
It’s not “hatred and greed”, it’s fear. Fear of losing.
… because if they lose & justice prevails they’ll all face the injustices they have enacted upon the entire world???
…geeze, buy me a drink first before you get me all turned on like this.
Fox News polls are scientifically sound and empirically rigorous. They’ve consistently been one of the most accurate pollsters over the last decade.
Not sure if serious
Dead serious, they’re considered a top-quality pollster by the aggregators and forecasters.
I already voted. County confirmed it was received. Its your turn, vote early if you can!
Polls create political engagement. Silly to ignore them when they juice participation.
The writing’s on the wall and Donald’s starting to lay the groundwork for an “emergency.” He just sued California alleging non-citizen voting. His DHS claimed 16,000 non-citizen votors in Nevada, trimmed the list to 185, and then when Nevada checked all 185 on the list, it went to 0.
Probably trying to rile up their viewers so they’ll go out and vote.
Don’t forget making blue voters think it’s gonna be alright, no need for them to go out and vote, everyone else already has it in hand.
Bingo!
More likely to have the opposite effect. Historically speaking, good poll numbers help a candidate and bad poll numbers hurt them. That’s why low quality partisan polls are always boosting their own side’s numbers and not the other guy. Republicans are already far less enthusiastic about voting in the mid terms this year. Telling them their side can’t win is only going to discourage them that much more.
Fox News is a shit hole run by lying sociopaths, but they do take their political polling seriously. It’s one of the few areas where they have any credibility at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been intentionally vague and overly cautious with their analysis of the data so that they can hide some of that potential blue wave in the big pile of toss up races. But you can only fudge things so much without looking incompetent, especially if they have to resort to more obvious methods of tipping the scales.
Honestly, the actual poll is barely even news at this point. A year and a half ago the conventional wisdom was that the Senate as safely red while the House was going to be tough fight. But for months now the House has been looking like a lost cause for the Republicans, and, especially in the last few weeks, the Senate is looking like an uphill battle for them too. What’s newsworthy here is that Fox is actually reporting it.
See, this is what confuses me about these discussions. You’re saying that it discourages people from voting if they’re told their party can’t win, and yet lots of comments on this post are reacting as if telling people their party is doing good is telling them not to bother voting. I guess we shouldn’t have polls at all, since telling people their oarty has a good chance of winning and telling them their party has a bad chance of winning are both seen as telling them not to vote
At the extremes that’s going to be true. Elections where one candidate is viewed as being unbeatable tend to have lower turnout, while turnout is highest when races are highly competitive. Keep in mind though that there’s sort of a chicken and egg situation there. High levels of enthusiasm and therefore turnout also tend to make races more competitive, while safe seats are often the result of gerrymandering and other forms of political dysfunction that suppress voter turnout and political engagement in general.
But regardless of whether a race is competitive or virtually uncontested, you typically want to be the one that’s in the lead. People are more likely to support politicians they view as popular, for much the same reason that they are more likely to pay money for movies and books that can claim to be #1 somehow. The bandwagon effect can be a powerful thing.
And voter turnout is heavily dependent on enthusiasm, and it’s a lot easier to be enthusiastic when your side doesn’t look like it’s losing. And that’s just the voting, there’s also donations, volunteers, media coverage, etc. all of which can be significantly affected by how people perceive the race to be going.
The idea that good poll numbers are somehow bad for that candidate’s voter turnout is largely a product of the 2016 election. Right up to election day the polls almost all said Hillary would win. And then Trump won. There’s a number of reasons for that, but one of the ones that gets mentioned a lot is that Democrats stayed home because the polls all said they wouldn’t need to vote.
The context is very important though. Hillary was deeply unpopular even before the DNC helped her snatch the nomination away from Bernie Sanders. A lot of people would have preferred that Trump lose, but really, really didn’t want to vote for Hillary. Those people might have been more likely to hold their nose and vote for her if they weren’t under the impression that she was practically guaranteed to win.
I mean, who is watching FOX religiously and not voting, at this point? It’s the channel of, by, and for conservative GOTV ops.
I think a better question might be “Who is still watching this channel?” And you’re talking about 2M viewers during the Prime Time peak.
That’s a rounding error, nationally. And out of a pool that’s already heavily engaged.
Fox News still has incredible reach and screens tuned to it all over the place like gyms and barber shops even in my very liberal town. They are experts at the pretense of impartiality and a lot of people fall for it especially the non politically active which is sadly still quite a huge cohort of Americans.
Which is why I unironically wish to destroy them in particular. Not particularly picky either preferably it’d be legalistic or naturalistic but frankly if someone wanted to blare pumped up kicks and go for a walk I wouldn’t care.
I don’t believe anything Fox news reports. People still need to vote.
Polls like this will just galvanize the magats and lull the left into staying home and letting someone else vote.
I’m already calling it for another republican majority. How this is even close is beyond my comprehension, but America.
“We need to let bygones be bygones and not dwell on the past. We need to move forward and work on unity…”
The attempt of voter mobilisation I assume?
Yup
Without the Senate majority no impeachment will go through.
Pretend this is psyop propaganda designed to lull you into a false sense of safety-
AND VOTE ANYWAY.
It worked the last 2 elections. It will work again. I would also expect by the end of this election cycle we will hear once again how there are numerous groups forming on social media who helped form “protest” and “single issue” voters.
Yes, I’m still voting regardless. I don’t believe anything until I see it. And we gotta do it again two years from now.
Maybe it’s because I’m autistic and think differently, I’m legitimately confused when people take news that they have a good chance of winning as telling them not to vote. If anything, shouldn’t it be taken as encouraging you to vote? The opposite is also taken as discouraging people from voting. Are people just that defeatist? You have no chance of winning, you don’t bother voting, you have a good chance of winning, you don’t bother voting
The goal is to lull people into a false sense of security. Voting isn’t necessarily easy for every person legally entitled to vote. You’re supposed to get time off of work, sure, but the actual reality of that especially for shift-laborers, or parents with young children who can’t stand in line for an hour with them, or people who live in remote locations with few voting places can be quite different.
If they keep hearing that their side is likely to win and it’s going to be a pain in the ass for them to actually vote anyway, then they’re more likely to skip the hassle thinking they have the victory in the bag.
Additionally, hearing “the opposition is probably going to win” does a lot to mobilize the maga side to get off their asses and vote, even if trumpster’s approval rating has dropped to pretty much just dedicated magats.
I’m convinced that 99.95% of the time, polls exist and are publicized primarily to impact the outcome and NOT to provide clear or unbiased information.
But don’t people understand that the victory being promised is contigent on them voting? I was motivated to vote liberal precisely because I was told they could win, otherwise I would have voted NDP feeling like it was in vain because conservatives were surely going to win
People were googling “can I change my vote” enough to show up in the data after last election. The average person is stupid as fuck.
No one told you to do otherwise.
We gotta ignore the media because they are just the voices of a single rich asshole family that owns most of it. They want to prevent people from voting.
I hope gas goes up to ten dollars a gallon and Peter Theil somehow has a change of heart and becomes like Jesus and donates all his money to ending world hunger and making sure that tech companies behave ethically and transparently
I also hope they make another video game like deadly creatures where you can play a tarantula who acts like a cowboy sorta
Also dear God please make sure that Republicans fuck up all their shit like they already be doin’ so intensely right now.
Amen.
No shit, everyone knows this. It’s the senate that we should be worried about.
I just hope it isn’t donorcrats who are helming the Democratic ship. They have a tendency of going around in circles.
