Rolling Stone had a big '"exclusive” yesterday with polling on Biden 2020 voters who sat out the 2024 election. The poll by Celinda Lake was sponsored by Way To Win, leftist group founded by an heiress to the Hunt oil fortune.
The breathless headline invoking AOC was subtitled with a quote from the pollster: “The conventional wisdom is really wrong on these voters.”
The article seeks to counter the consensus on where Democrats need to go in the future:
new research suggests the prevailing wisdom that has guided those efforts — the idea that Democrats tacked too far to the left last year — might be, well, wrong.
Like many such claims, the oil heiress starts by smashing Occam’s Razor. Why rely on the simplest explanation - voters told pollsters Harris was too far left! - when a convoluted, multi-step meandering set of logic with different data points is available.
In this case, the equation is:
Some Biden 2020 supporters did not vote in 2024
Those voters view AOC favorably
AOC is a leftist
Therefore, the Biden 2020 voters who sat our 2024 are leftists
Democrats must actually be more left-wing to win again in the future
This tortured argument happens all the time. Sweet, sweet progressive philanthropy money flows through leftist activists into good pollsters doing credible-ish work with bad implications.
So no big deal.
Only this time … the pollster didn’t even add up their own data correctly.
Centrists have a terrible tendency to actually read stuff. And when you actually read this poll, it shows that these voters are actually more likely to be favorable to generic “Democrats in Congress” than to AOC. The green bars 32 + 32 next to AOC add up to 64, but the total (in blue font) is 67.
67% is actually the share who view the generic “Democrats in Congress” favorably, while 64% view AOC favorably.
The slide just flipped the numbers.
The pollster begrudgingly makes this point in the next slide: These voters are “surprisingly favorable towards Democrats in Congress” and “intensely unfavorable towards MAGA Republicans.”
But liking Democrats and not liking Republicans is not the goal of the leftist factional project. The goal is in the clause after their surprise: “there is not high intensity.”
Well, bowl me over with a feather! Shocked that a sample of people who didn’t even vote in the presidential election are not intense!
But let’s go back to winning.
Fest Haters
This article seemed to pick up where the same author’s hit piece on WelcomeFest ended:
“A lot of you may say you find some of Jared Golden’s votes to be annoying for a Democrat,” Jain said. “Well, guess what? The choice isn’t between Jared Golden and AOC. The choice is between Jared Golden and Paul LePage. So who would you rather have?”
… if the results of the 2024 election have indicated anything, it’s that attitude — the attitude that was also adopted by the Harris campaign — is a losing one: We know that demoralized Democratic-leaning voters who stayed home decided the election.
Well, yesterday the Golden campaign released polling showing that the choice really is between him and MAGA:
the poll’s release comes amid growing speculation that Golden could face a primary challenge from Matt Dunlap, Maine’s auditor and former secretary of state. The survey also tests Dunlap in a hypothetical matchup against LePage.
The state auditor fares worse than Golden, according to the poll, trailing the Republican by 10 percentage points, 37% to 47%.
“The totality of the data makes clear that Maine’s 2nd Congressional District is challenging ground for Democrats, with Congressman Golden one of the only Democrats able to win, and the only Democrat who has consistently won,” the memo reads.
Leftists can’t do addition
Primarying Jared Golden? What is wrong with these people?
Leftists can’t do math, in their polls or in the legislature. And it is hurting the whole party.
Who knows why the summations on either side are wrong. Sloppy work.
But on net, AOC’s +48 and Democrats in Congress are +40. That’s usually how we report approval rating.
And I think it’s relevant when looking at those who didn’t vote that AOC has high “very favorables” and only 4% who view her “very unfavorably”.
As for considering going after Golden. Activists on the Left needs to spend more time persuading the public that its ideas and principles are right instead of attacking Democrats that sometimes disagrees with them. Going after Golden is a big risk for little gain. And the Maine Democratic Party should not be encouraging a challenge. (Although I think sometimes a primary helps candidates and I’m not opposed to them.)