AJC:
‘They’re desperate’: Herschel Walker denies abortion reports
“I just can’t do it,” said Vince Jantz, an east Cobb County resident who recently told Republican volunteers at his doorstep he planned to vote for every GOP candidate on the ballot except Walker. “Everything that’s been reported about him concerns me.”
There is anecdotal evidence that trend is intensifying. Martha Zoller, a conservative commentator and a Gainesville-based radio host, said she’s received many calls from Republicans with concerns about Walker.
“They don’t know if they can believe him or the allegations,” Zoller said. “I still believe that ultimately people are going to vote based on their pocketbook. And I think that means this is likely to go into a runoff.”
Herschel Walker’s campaign won’t collapse. But like Roy Moore’s did before him, the air will slowly leak out. And you’ll see it in GA before you see it in DC, which is why Gov. Brian Kemp is running away from him.
As for the [not up for election] lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan:
While those fundraising dollars can be viewed as buttressing Walker’s campaign, Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan, says the Republican Party is growing tired of Walker as a candidate. “I think every Republican knew that there was baggage out there,” Duncan, a fellow Republican, said of Walker in a CNN interview on Wednesday. “But the weight of that baggage is starting to feel a little closer to unbearable at this point.”
Natalie Jackson/National Journal:
Horse-race polls are not fixable
“Likely-voter” screens are useful educated guesses at what might happen, but we don’t know who will vote. We can’t change that.
The biggest “problem” with horse-race polling isn’t fixable.
The entire concept of polling depends on having a set population from which one can take a random sample and get a generally representative snapshot. Pre-election polls have no existing population—the election hasn’t happened yet, and voting isn’t compulsory in the U.S., so we simply don’t have a population of who voted until all the polls have closed on Election Day.
We can’t remedy that. The population of voters will never exist prior to the election. Expecting polls to be able to consistently, accurately predict an election is asking more than is statistically and theoretically possible. Yes, we (pollsters) have a lot of information from past elections to help figure it out. But it’s gotten harder to poll a representative sample of the entire American adult population over the last few decades. Just in the past couple of election cycles, we have seen candidates activate people who typically don’t vote, so is it really surprising that the error rates of horse-race polls have increased?
Still, it’s the best tool we have to gauge public opinion. Just don’t expect them to predict the outcome.
Chris Smith/Vanity Fair:
WHY DEMOCRATS HAVE A GOOD SHOT AT NORTH CAROLINA’S OPEN SENATE SEAT
Cheri Beasley is in dead heat against Republican Ted Budd, giving Democrats renewed hope in a high-stakes Senate race that has gone under the radar this midterms cycle.
The strategy makes complete sense. Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, is trying to win a US Senate race in North Carolina, a state that in 2020 went for Donald Trump while reelecting a Democratic governor, and a place where the crucial voters this time are unaffiliated with either of the major parties. The most politically “dangerous” scenario, a national Democratic operative says, is if her Republican opponent successfully turns the Senate race into a “Republican-or-Democrat battle.” So Beasley keeps her tone sunny and her outreach wide. She’s a progressive, but low-key; when she wades into partisan politics, it’s usually over policies like health care or veterans’ benefits that she can position as regular folks’ issues. “We have the most wonderful people here in North Carolina. I just am thankful every single day that we’re able to do this work,” Beasley tells me. “I’m running to represent all of North Carolina—Democrats, Republicans, and independents. I mean, if someone you love cannot afford prescription drugs and they are missing doses and skipping pills, these are not partisan issues.”
Not to take anything away from the excellent coverage of Ukraine here at Daily Kos, but it’s nice to hear from other perspectives, sometimes:
Michael Weiss and James Rushton/Yahoo:
Putin is losing the war in all 4 Ukrainian regions he 'annexed'
According to a conversation said to be between Russian soldiers intercepted by the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security service, the use of U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) has been as devastating in the south as it has been elsewhere along the frontline. One Russian soldier is allegedly recorded saying, “Here the legs are shaking. [The HIMARS] hits, the earth is shaking. Here, ours are all trembling.” In another intercept, a Russian soldier calls his father back home encouraging him to avoid mobilization. Eight of his comrades, the soldier says, recently left a hospital in Kherson without arms and legs. And Ukrainian advances on the west bank of the Dnipro have now brought the majority of the Kherson Oblast within range of Ukraine’s supremely accurate Western-supplied artillery, giving them a host of new Russian targets to destroy.
...
According to Joel Rayburn, a retired U.S. Army colonel and Washington’s former special envoy for Syria, “The Russians won’t be able to support anything on the right bank of the Dnipro. Those guys will be trapped and will run out of ammo. I’m discounting Russian cross-river fire support, including aviation, because they don’t appear to be able to use it. A hasty defense is very vulnerable to armored forces. The Russians apparently didn’t prepare any fallback defensive lines, and now it’s too late. They’re not dug in.”
Nate Hochman (NRO) on Twitter:
Every time I do reporting that requires talking to normal voters outside the beltway, I’m reminded of just how ideologically incoherent the average American is. Good reminder of why attempts to explain mass political trends in terms of elite left/right ideology are so silly
…
Voters who, by any elite definition, are conservative are fiercely loyal Democrats—and vice versa. A Latina woman I talked to at a gas station here recently told me she goes to Catholic Mass 3X/week, is opposed to abortion in all circumstances…and will never vote for Republicans
I’ve talked to voters in the past who are hardcore partisan Republicans but describe themselves as “feminists,” strongly pro-choice, etc. The normal American’s voting habits are so much more instinctive/visceral than those of us who opine about politics for a living often imagine
Just want to be clear here: None of this is meant as a pejorative in the slightest. Speaking as an avowed political addict, I actually think it’s sort of beautiful how politically complicated—and defiantly resistant to ideological categorization—the average American is
Dan Froomkin/Press Watch:
The facts need a bullhorn
“The facts speak for themselves.”
That is what the political reporters and editors in our top newsrooms keep telling themselves — long after it has become clear that they don’t.
The lies are louder.
The facts are not getting across.
If the building is on fire, you need to raise your voice. You need to convey the urgency and the threat. You need to be heard. You need to be heeded. So you shout. You don’t stop until everyone understands the danger. And you don’t take the bullhorn from the firefighters and give equal time to the arsonists.