The generic ballot shows the Democrats up by 10 percent or more. And the Gallup Poll’s wrong track/right track poll shows that a majority of voters think that the nation is on the wrong track.
That means a Democratic win in the mid-term elections in November, right?
Actually, it doesn’t, according to political science candidate Jay Cost.
You can’t trust the generic ballot directly, he writes.
If you correct for the systemic pro-Democratic skew inherent to the generic ballot, you will see that - as of today - it is essentially predicting a draw. And, much more importantly, the generic ballot is not to be trusted anyway because it violates certain assmptions necessary to use it to make a prediction.
The right track/wrong track question is also unreliable.
Between 1984 and 1986, voters started to feel nice and sunny about the state of the nation. Net positive ratings rose by about 15%. Did that help Reagan and the GOP? No. Their share of the two-party House vote dropped by 2.3% - and they lost the Senate.
The fact is that elections are won on election day. Will voters be voting against $3.00 gasoline? Will they be voting against the mess in Iraq? Will they be voting for better health care benefits? Will they be voting for a tougher war on terror?
We don’t know. That is why we are going to hold an election.
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