What about KS-04?  Is that polling info right?

The Space-Padgett race (Ney's old seat) is OH-18, not the 15th.

Pryce vs. Kilroy is the 15th.

Zack Space leads Joy Padgett in OH-18, not OH-15.  Deb Pryce and Mary Jo Kilroy are slugging it out in OH-15, which happens to be my district.  I haven't seen any polling on this race in months.

CQ will wait till the last moment, and then move about 30 races into the "no clear favorite" column-- that's how they maintain their "99% accuracy". They favor incumbents above all else in predictions.

It was just revealed that Kellam once assualted a woman in NC or some crap. I'd be shocked if he pulled this one out of the hat.

What is the track record of the different polls? I remember from the 04 cycle that Zogby was never close to the actuals.

How often do they update their predictions?

In their ratings explanations, they always make a big deal out of the power of incumbency and, even more, the power of cash on hand, which incumbents almost inevitably lead in.  They's how they justify many of the ratings above.  But probably an even more important factor is that the weight they place on the presidential vote from 2004.  That's why they weirdly consider IA-02 (Jim Leach, a truly moderate R) in play while they don't consider, say, ID-01 in play.  I doubt that's a very wise way to weight your rankings, considering how much has changed since 2004, but we'll see if they are right come Nov 7.

Additionally, it should be noted that MO-Sen was not a toss-up until the end of September according to CQ.

Because, you know Talent has always had a HUGE lead in the polls.  Everytime.

My real question is what is going on with Zogby?

True,there has been some movement in Democratic favor in race predictions at CQ Politics, but on the whole, I've found their forecasts to be very conservative (from the get-go). Even when they do a write-up stating the Democratic candidate has a decent chance they spin around and award a Leans Republican forecast as if what they just explained meant nada. Or, their wording gives a standard MSM pro-Gop slant IMO.
Don't give up on trying to post, it takes them a while to get it up there. In fact, todayI posted a somewhat scatching one regarding Virginia CD-10 and it was not edited, of course I changed the word "ass" to "buttocks" but I still managed to get the word "Proctologist" in there. Check out their forecast on Feder v. Wolf, they did actually upgrade her, begrudgingly so, it seemed to me.

And re: that crap about Kellam VA-02, its well over a week old, though it certainly got buried by Foleygate, so don't get too concerned about trash circulated by bearingdrift, Thelma's Rove wannabe. LOL.

I used to follow CQ ratings.  Then I realized they are little more than delayed reporting of the polls in the races in question.  They seem to have gotten even worse since 2000.  I follow Cook now instead.  http://www.cookpolitical.com

I also defer to Cook, though the repugs try to diss him as pro-Dem, I think he's even handed and fairly intuitive, versus CQP (very quadrati). I've believed from Webb's entry that VA would be the sleeper surprise pick-up of the year. Thanks to Geo "Macaca" Allen just being himself and, the finesse of Jim Webb, I still am thinking that.

This Pubbie has to agree with you that CQ is way behind the curve or partisan. AZ-8 is a GOP writeoff. Two of the three Indiana House seats are close to a GOP writeoff. I salute you for your House analysis, and find your poll listing a valuable source of information. It is certainly within the ball park. If the election where held today, the Dems would probably get 220-222 seats. I think that will erode a bit (inter alia, I don't think the Foley thing has legs), but the Dems are odds on to win the House in November. But the RINO Northeast contingent is hanging tough, and that cohort keeps the GOP in the game. (Reynolds is not a RINO, and seems to want some new line of work.) Cheers.  

At my last count Democrats had leads in THIRTY-ONE Republican districts (with KS-04 having been upgraded tonight).

That would give Democrats a 235 seat majority.

I watch all the debates on CSPAN and they always quote CQ in terms of the national outlook and specific race. Very often I'm saying "Huh?" when they categorize something.

But I never visit their site. Thanks for pointing out it's a trend.

I'm not persuaded that RT Strategies' polls are worth putting a lot of stock in.  Despite R's and T's separate experience, this company is new and unproven, and a lot of their polls seem like outliers.  

Using them to show that CQ is off the mark seems a little pot-kettle.  (Which is not to say I support CQ, just that I think a better argument could be made than this one.)

Last week, I bumped into Graf (AZ) on a commuter train going north from DC, I was heading home and he to BWI.  He was in town for some GOP shindig, I did not follow the race but he ws on his phone talking in a low voice about "...and we met with Speaker Hastert, etc."  Noticed his tag on his bags.

I tried to say something nice about Tucson, where he said he was from - no indication he was a candidate - and I just remembered thinking "this guy is just like Tom DeLay - is he a lobbyist?"  Looks like him, similar voice, the works.  He seemed grumpy, perhaps Chris Bowers had left him a voicemail telling him he was going to get his ass kicked [snark].

"What's going on in there?"

"Aurora borealis."  

"Aurora borealis?!?  At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen???"

"Yes."

"May I see it?"

"No."  

I feel that way about the Wilson race especially:

"No clear favorite."  

"No clear favorite?!?  In a Democratic year, in a Democratic district, with strong Democratic statewide candidates, and with the Democratic candidate having considerable leads in both the polls and in cash on hand???"

"Yes."  

"Will you explain your reasoning?"

"No."  

Snark doesn't bet better than this. Nice work Chris.

And btw, Mark Foley's making a comeback next week, and is expected to succeed.

In 2004, NC-11 polled independently within the margin of error. (1 point ahead, even, and 1 point behind).

The Dem lost by 10 points.

People lie in these polls or the polls suck. So, right now Democrat Shuler is polling 11 points ahead. As far as I know, that makes it a dead heat. I hope not. But two years ago even polling meant a ten-point margin so . . .

I don't know squat about the races you mention, tho.

You might want to chekc CQ poitics later on. they do have a tendency at times to change their ratings.

Chris,

As the Editor and Web Producer for CQPolitics.com, we'd like to offer a rebuttal to some of the criticisms you offered in your post, "Leans Republican," published on Thursday.

We use many different types of information when evaluating our ratings on a given race. Polling, while important, is just one of them. We also consider financial resources of the candidates, party committees and outside groups; the previous voting history of the district or state in question; racial, ethnic and social demographics; the level of priority and targeting placed on the race by state and national party organizations and outside interest groups that are seeking to influence the outcome; changes in the district's economy or presidential support since the last cycle; and other relevant factors that we discover in our reporting.

Polls are important to provide guidance and benchmarks in determining trends in races. But the individual polls conducted by different independent organizations on a single race can vary greatly in their results, raising serious questions about which one is the most accurate.

Even considering polls from well-known reputable organizations, we have seen instances just within recent days of one poll showing a candidate a couple of points behind, with another poll showing that same candidate ahead by double-digit percentages. If we were to use polls as our guide for our ratings, we could easily have changed the ratings on some of the races a dozen times or more - sometimes on consecutive days. We don't think this would provide the kind of perspective or analysis upon which CQ readers have come to rely over the many years that we have provided this kind of election analysis.

Moreover, we read "own" polls conducted for candidates and their campaigns for our information, but will never base a story or a ratings change on that information alone. We have had way too many instances in which one candidate's own poll show him 10 points ahead, and the other side's poll shows the same candidate 10 points behind. There are only two possible conclusions in situations such as that: either one of those polls is way off, or they both are.

The most important element in evaluating a rating is the work done by our reporters trying to assess the situation on the ground in each district. With 435 House districts and 33 Senate races split mostly among a remarkably small staff of editors and reporters, this can often take some time. Thus, you will not see our rating change immediately after what you might consider a watershed development (unless it's something cataclysmic like we saw in Mark Foley's Florida 16 this week).

While some might see this as a hindrance, we consider it a strength, since it allows us to not get caught up in the moment, but instead maintain a focus on the big picture. We are well aware from our experience that whatever the "game-changing" event that occurs today, another can occur tomorrow that shifts the race back in the other direction. And that will continue to be true right up through Nov. 7.

We have made it clear in every way possible that this is an extraordinarily difficult political environment for the Republican Party and its candidates, and that the party's control of both the House and increasingly the Senate is at risk. In fact, if you'd care to read how we define "Leans Republican," we clearly state that is a category of highly competitive races in which an upset is a very plausible outcome. Several contests this year have already been moved from Leans Republican to No Clear Favorite, with a couple even going into categories more favorable to Democrats. If the trends evident today continue through the end of the campaign, we would expect an additional number also to be moved in the Democrats' direction.

When we set our ratings, though, we also have to take into consideration several factors that could mitigate against huge Republican losses across the board. These include the GOP's enormous overall advantage in campaign funding; a well-oiled Republican voter turnout machine that by all accounts remains superior to the Democrats' organization; and the by-now legendary redistricting mastery that just takes more than 160 Republican districts off the boards, and makes dozens of other races extreme uphill climbs for the Democrats, regardless of the overall political atmosphere and the quality of the Democratic challengers.

If you think that the Republicans are just going to run up the surrender flag and yield to a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate - including even in districts and states that currently show Democratic challengers in the lead - we believe you are mistaken. We're even more certain that the Democrats' campaign chieftains, Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel, harbor no such illusions: They know they are going to have to fight for every seat, and that if they do win Senate and House majorities, they will have totally earned it.

That is not to say that it would be impossible for our scorecard to suddenly reflect a large shift toward the Democrats. This wouldn't be a "cover our ass" maneuver. Rather, it reflects the reality of elections: While people who read MyDD, CQPolitics.com and other sites are already engaged in the election, many Americans aren't. Thus, it only becomes clear in the closing weeks what's really going to happen in a given race.

Finally, we cannot think of any better way to prove a lack of Republican bias, or any bias, than CQ's analysis of the 1998 House elections. Everyone else was then predicting gains - some thought huge gains -- by the GOP because of President Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal. However, because of our district-by-district, state-by-state approach, we felt confident when sticking our necks out to predict Democratic gains. We think you know how that turned out.

If you have any other questions about our site, feel free to reply to this e-mail, or leave a comment on the site. We can assure you, unless a post is a rant irrelevant to the story at hand or compares someone to Hitler, it has virtually a 100 percent chance of being posted.

That said, David Miller, the only person who is assigned on a regular basis to clear comments, doesn't work a 24-hour day, so it might take some time before a comment appears on our site.

We would be happy to continue this conversation if you have any more questions or thoughts about how we can improve our Web site.

In fact, we sure would like to have had that conversation with you before you posted such a sharp criticism of our analysis. This is the blogosphere, so we'd assume you should have been able to find us.

Sincerely,

Bob Benenson
Editor
CQPolitics.com

David Miller
Web Producer, CQPolitics.com

maybe the 'leans Republican' label is just meant to be a guide to the races that are deemed fixable by voting machine (or other) fraud ?  Though I'd be surprised the Republicans would try stretching that by more than a few %, but if they can start fudging polls too, they can stretch even further.....in this case not even fudging a poll, just describe it as leaning, forget the %'s and no one will be surprised when they win.  Where was it that exit polls were discounted ?  late 2004, a Ukrainian election (that forced a redo), or in Ohio ?

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