The Tightening of the Senate Races and The Politics of A Storm
Hello Hackaroos!
We’re thinking of all of our readers and listeners impacted by Hurricane Ian. And having both been involved in hurricane responses in the past, we start with the politics that come from a terrible storm and then turn to a grab bag of the latest big state polling on our radars. Lots of interesting moves as we get even closer to Election Day. Plus, some tidbits.
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Let’s begin!
The Politics of a Storm
Members of the Florida National Guard look for stranded residents in a flooded neighborhood in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian yesterday in Orlando. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
MURPHY: So the secret to the hurricane caper is to be ready with really good disaster management infrastructure. My friend and former client Jeb Bush got a lot of well-deserved credit for being on fully top of that as Florida Governor. (It’s no secret both California and Florida are considered tops in the nation in the disaster management area; both states face trouble – wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes on a regular basis.) The best test of a Governor and the hurricane management team is after the storm; how fast can rebuilding start, aid get where it needs to be and vital services like power be restored. This will be the true test in Florida for Gov. DeSantis, and on behalf of the Floridians in peril during Ian, I am hoping he succeeds.
GIBBS: The Governors of Florida and Georgia were both quick to declare states of emergencies well before the storm came, so that they could be prepared for the worst. Now that list includes South Carolina, too. After all, campaigns are always about things you can't control, but Mother Nature is an entirely different beast. Obviously, when you look at hurricane response from a national perspective with the Federal Emergency Management Agency top of mind, you're always reminded of “Heck of a job, Brownie” and the real disaster of the response around Hurricane Katrina. Don’t forget that there were also big failures at the state and local level in Louisiana that made for bad emergency response. Doing all the right things in the days directly before and after is one part of an effective response, but it’s having an infrastructure ready to mobilize in that pre-storm declaration that’s important. It’s no surprise, that Barack Obama nominated Craig Fugate, Jeb Bush's Director of Emergency Management in Florida, to head FEMA when we got there in 2009. That leadership and infrastructure paid off when Hurricane Sandy in 2012, just days before the election. Before we leave this topic, the challenges for Gov. DeSantis that will test his leadership skills are just beginning from Hurricane Ian. This story is just one of them.
Our Latest Polling Grab Bag… Was Murphy, right? Shocking… He Thinks So…
GIBBS: So our pollster friends Fabrizio and Anzalone are out with a new AARP poll from Wisconsin and, well, it’s not good for Democrats. It has incumbent Ron Johnson above 50, leading with independents and leading in the suburbs. Not good for Mandela Barnes five and a half weeks out. Right now, the campaign is playing out to each party’s strengths with the GOP’s Johnson running ads about crime and immigration and Barnes countering with abortion rights. It's a scenario that’s happening all over the country right now. Pennsylvania continues to be very interesting. Over the past week, there have been 5 public polls. In the Governor’s race, Shapiro maintains an average lead in them of 11.8%. However, it’s gotten tighter in the Senate contest where Fetterman’s lead in those same 5 polls averages 4.6%. While there’s been movement for both candidates, I’m guessing that Dr. Oz is finally consolidating the GOP vote in the Keystone State. There’s, of course, what we’ve been telling you for a while that swing state Senate races were always going to get tighter as we got closer to the end and that’s certainly playing out in Pennsylvania. Finally, in our Georgil-Vania theme, the Fox News poll this week there (and yes, I actually think Fox does relatively good polling) has Kemp up 7 points in the Governor’s race while also showing Warnock ahead by 5. Murphy, maybe there really are some old school ticket splitters?
Source: Fox News
MURPHY: Gibbs, let me save you some time here: you can just shorten all of that to Murphy was right.
GIBBS: 🙄 Honestly Murphy since you’re right once every 10 times, I suppose I’d yell about it too!
MURPHY: For the last two months or so there has been a Democratic confirmation bubble about this midterm “being different.” I’ve been saying maybe a little different based on GOP mis-steps, but don’t bet on the midterm protest vote factor going away. And here we are. Now that the election is weeks away, summer fantasies are fading as the election seems to be settling into the classic midterm pattern, let alone a midterm with inflation, rising interest rates, an unpopular President and now, a crashing stock market. The Democrat hopes for something different this time were fanned, or course, but the media’s silly obsession with the generic Congressional vote question on polling. It’s the dumbest question ever and a bad long-term predictor. (National opinions about the vote for local Congressional races doesn’t correlate well.) So put me down as unsurprised that Johnson is ahead of Barnes in WI and Walker is very much in the hunt in GA, and Cortez-Masto is still in big trouble in NV (though I thought she’d be able to use the abortion issue to creep ahead a bit; so far, no dice). While the GOP’s hapless squad of Senatorial candidates are mostly stumble bums, the focus of the election is moving back to Biden as the finish looms, and that’s bad news for the D’s. Soon we’ll see if weak GOP candidates or a surge in young turnout will save Senate Democrats… it’s possible, but then again it's not for nothing that just about every big, closely contested Senate election is creeping back toward the GOP.
@hacksontapnewsletter: At least Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is pleased.
GIBBS: One interesting tidbit from our friends at @MediumBuying, there are at least five GOP campaigns in swing states that are off the air currently, including Senate candidates Blake Masters in Arizona and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire plus Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Dan Cox in Maryland, and Darren Bailey in Illinois, all running for Governor. It’s stunning with five and a half weeks left. In each race, it's not that there isn't some advertising happening for some of these candidates, like Masters, who’s getting GOP Super PAC help. But the campaigns themselves aren't on TV, which means those Super PACs, if they are there, are paying a lot higher ad rates translating to more money and fewer eyeballs seeing the ads. No TV is also why Josh Shapiro is cruising in Pennsylvania. The cycle is certainly a strange one for candidate quality and campaign quality. Finally, speaking of television, we’ve talked about the dearth of debates. If you're in Texas, and have nothing to do on Friday night, you can catch the one and only Beto vs. Abbott debate happening at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Interesting that the week we celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, we still don’t see a lot of debates scheduled in a lot of these bigger races.
MURPHY: Interesting debate… but I think I’ll wait a few years for the ice show version. One prediction: Beto, looking for media and clicks, will work blue. (What’s working blue? Search YouTube for the late and legendarily filthy and offensive ventriloquist act Otto & George. Beloved, naturally, by many comedians. Adults only. Kids, go do your homework!)
@hacksontapnewsletter: How does Beto O'Rourke relate to this ventriloquist?
Gibbsie, you’re right about the paid TV disadvantage, it’s one big reason that the GOP’s grim phalanx of clown shoed gubernatorial candidates will way underperform the party’s Big Opportunity this year (it’s harder to nationalize Governor’s races).
Saw an interesting article yesterday about the curious civil war inside the Libertarian movement. Seems like rather un-libertarian kooks are invading the Libertarian party. (Makes me sad. I never joined up, but I miss the old school very little government needed Libertarians. There was a charming Believers innocence to them and a commendable whiff utopian good faith. There were other strong whiffs around them too; I got a first-rate contact high at the Libertarian hang out tent during the last Iowa GOP straw poll. Anyway, I still have a #TANSTAAFL t-shirt from the ‘80s!).
And finally, in some very, very good news Leader McConnell has announced his support for the vital Democracy protecting Electoral Count Reform Act, essentially guaranteeing its passage (probably in the lame duck session after the elections.) This super important measure tightens up the electoral college system to help kook proof the next President election. Sad we now need such a measure, but we do and this is a big step toward protecting our Presidential electing mechanism from bad actors, orange and otherwise.
GIBBS: Yes, great to see! Finally, one last shout out for this week’s podcast. Come for the Auburn fight song, but stay to the end and listen to a doctor of polling tell you how you can be a good connoisseur of public polling.
MURPHY: Polling nerds will love this as Dr. Hill explains why polling, well, just isn’t as good as it used to be. Not the pollster’s fault, it’s yours dear voter! Learn more by listening in.
Have a great weekend! Stay safe and we’ll see you next week.
Murphy and Gibbs