Pollsters Do Their Autopsy

· Reason

A word from the pollsters: In the most recent round of primary results, polls basically indicated that Francesca Hong had the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary on lock, when she did not (as we learned yesterday). Other polls had indicated that Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left progressive running in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, might not do so well—but he managed a victory last week. So what's going on here?

One possible explanation, per The New York Times: "Hong faced a barrage of negative press in the election's final days, after six-year-old social media posts surfaced in which she called to defund and abolish the police and 'cancel Thanksgiving.'" It's almost like words have meaning, and more moderate voters didn't absolutely love Woke 1.0. But polls being kinda wrong about both Hong and El-Sayed can't just be about that.

It's possible that open primaries made a difference—Republicans and independents got to have their say in the Democratic primary, and a candidate as radical as Hong freaked them out and mobilized them to turn out. There appears to have been fewer young people voting than Team Hong hoped for, so that possibly affected the results too. And the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary was plagued by weird dysfunction: Hong's opponent, David Crowley, had exited the race back in July to endorse a different candidate, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who was then undone by a campaign finance scandal. Crowley, realizing he still had a chance, secured the endorsement of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers and reentered the race to serve as a viable, more moderate option to Hong's radicalism.

One would think, conceptually, that open primaries would result in somewhat more moderate candidates being elected—as appeared to be the case in Wisconsin. But Michigan's Senate primary, which elected decidedly not-moderate Abdul El-Sayed, was also open, so that complicates my hypothesis a bit. (Political science research is somewhat mixed as to the effect of open primaries, and some people posit that open primaries can affect parties differentially.) It's possible we can't glean takeaways from mushing the different race results together, and that they ought to be judged on their own terms.

But is there anything we can reasonably extrapolate from the early results, and what they might mean for the midterms? "Some elections fill me with a sense of existential dread. Even the most carefully designed models, which dutifully consider not only how to forecast each state but also how to calibrate the degree of uncertainty in the forecast, will have trouble evaluating the impact of a once-in-a-century pandemic like in 2020 or a major party switching candidates midstream like in 2024," writes Nate Silver. "The next tier down from this are elections that seem relatively normal on the surface, but where typically reliable indicators are contradictory.…The 2026 election is not in either of those categories. It looks like a pretty normal midterm, to the extent anything can be normal in American politics these days. And normal midterms mean bad news for the incumbent president's party, especially when the incumbent is as unpopular as President Trump. Polls, historic trends and leading indicators are all fairly consistent in pointing toward Democratic gains."

Scenes from New York: Posting these signs in my neighborhood.

QUICK HITS

  • "America's worst-governed city has begun breaking the grip of the peculiar political machine driving Chicago's decline," writes George Will for The Washington Post. "The Chicago Teachers Union's cupidity in enriching itself, and the dismal results of Chicago's public schools, have drained the public's reservoir of goodwill. Among the reasons for the CTU's downfall is a school named for someone who, as a slave, taught himself to read — a skill poorly imparted by Chicago teachers, when they teach."
  • "Bowling Alone is fixated on the idea of social capital—that associational life is the way that communities build social networks and norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness. As a result, if people aren't joining bowling leagues anymore, they're slowly squandering the collective bank of social capital, with dire consequences for all. I think it's trivially obvious to point out that people are spending more time alone. Being alone is a lot easier and more fun than it used to be," argues Jerusalem Demsas. "But the leap people take from that fact to speculating about mass loneliness and disconnection, the end of democracy and liberalism, and generalized unhealthiness seems half-baked to me. Being alone, feeling lonely, and lacking social capital are related but distinct conditions." I disagree with Demsas' thesis, but think the article is interesting.
  • "In the decade between 2014 and 2024, the number of egg freezing cycles grew to 38,930 from 6,090, according to Dr. Jennifer Eaton, president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology," reports The New York Times. "Many women see egg freezing as a reflection of the times, as they search for ways to navigate their education, careers and relationships. In interviews, they described a personal decision, which could be both empowering, but also defensive, in case their hopes of finding suitable life partners do not materialize." But many of the women profiled in the article have not yet tried the process of actually conceiving with the frozen eggs, which can be fraught. "I'm friends with a lot of really successful seven, eight, nine-figure female founders—they all do it," Avni Barman told the Times. "To them, it's like getting a designer bag—freezing your eggs, they cost the same—and that's kind of the mentality around it."
  • "The vast majority of women who freeze their eggs never come back to the clinic to have them thawed and fertilized," writes Caitlin Flanagan for The Free Press. "Perhaps they have become pregnant in the interim; perhaps their desire wasn't so much to have a baby as it was to put off the decision. Either way, if we are to start talking more about egg freezing, we should probably do the truly feminist act of sharing the full news of everything we know about it, so women can take power back from the industry that sells it."
  • The White House press secretary has decided it's time to Leavitt behind. (Forgive me.)
  • Someone tell Aella that the hard work is what builds the bond:

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