While no one has a crystal ball that can tell for sure what will happen in the elections next week, one thing is certain. There will not be the Republican, or “red,” wave that both the GOP and huge sections of the media are hyping.
Early voting across the country has surpassed all previous records, with almost 25 million having already voted—and among those votes, the Democrats are well ahead.
Most of the polls released this past weekend were actually good for Democrats, especially the Senate polls.
Pollster and political analyst Simon Rosenberg tweeted this weekend: “Ds had good Senate polls last week. Majority of tracks, incl Likely Voter, had us up. We had good youth, Hispanic polls. But then Rs dumped 5 nat’l tracks on Fri, and flooded states with polls, skewing the averages. Media got played, again.
“Then this am the NYT, after dropping a set of encouraging House polls a few days ago, drops 4 really encouraging Senate polls. which show Ds in strong position to keep the Senate, no red wave. This data tracks nat’l polls last week, strong D early vote.
“In the @nytimes writeup of these encouraging new Senate polls, @Nate_Cohn even references what has been a clear campaign by Rs to game the polling averages in the battlegrounds.”
Even more encouraging is that the Democrats are leading in a New Mexico GOP-held Republican seat and well ahead in a Democratic-held seat. Among Latino voters polled in the state, the Democrats are leading 69 to 29%, a 40-point lead. Last week, Republicans were talking about a “red wave” among Latino voters there. The bottom line is that there simply is no “red wave” about rolling over the Southwest.
The narrative that the Republicans are ahead serves another nefarious plan the GOP has. Their intent is to claim, if they lose, that the polls had shown them ahead so therefore the election is a stolen election. That narrative began with Trump and can be expected to be continued by the GOP. Their story is: If we win, we win, if we lose it is because it was stolen.
“As we once again dig ourselves out from false GOP narratives,” Rosenberg tweets, “we have to be open to: – positive D polling nationally, and in places like IA, OH, TX – significance of strong D early vote – Hispanic, youth vote promising for Ds – ignoring all GOP pundits.”
If the polling narrative being peddled by Republicans and picked up by the media is false, and you take into account a likely influx of newly registered voters (with youth expected to turn out in large numbers on Election Day), then the reality could be that Democrats are actually as many as five points ahead of where the polls say they are.
Democrats have exceeded all expectations in recent elections. Turnout is the key, not the polls. While anything is possible, a sweeping victory that keeps the Dems in control of both houses of Congress is as much a possibility as anything else—if there is a full turnout by Democratic voters and independents and even some Republicans committed to the fight for democracy.
This is not a horserace between two parties, as the media and Steve Kornacki on MSNBC like to pretend. It’s a fight for the survival of democracy, and the corporate media’s coverage of it as if it is nothing more than a horse race is itself an attack on democracy.
Vote-suppressing narratives should be ignored. It makes sense when Rosenberg tweets:
“Media needs to course correct now, understand what’s happened. @SteveKornacki has to stop using Real Clear Politics. It’s clearly a GOP propaganda tool.”
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