Photos: YouTube
Many years ago I discovered the website https://realclearpolitics.com. It’s a website that every day reports on the latest electoral polls that have come out from a wide range of polling companies. It’s a good way to keep up with the shifting tides of political fortune for candidates running for President, Senate, House and Governor.
What I’ve learned through using RCP for over 10 years is that the most accurate way to understand what is happening as far as voter preferences, generally, is to average the latest polls, of which there are many during times like right now when there’s a major national election happening. There can be a wide disparity between polls based upon their having either a Republican or a Democratic lean, or just the methodology that is used. That’s why it is important to look at not one individual poll but at an average over the preceding week or the last several days.
Concerned about the current media coverage, and actual indications, that the Democrats are in definite trouble, I just looked at what the RCP polls are saying right now about the state of play when it comes to the US Senate, a battle where the Dems have a better chance of winning than the House. Here’s what the RCP average of polls is currently saying for what they consider to be the dozen “top Senate races:”
Five of them, in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Ohio, are toss-ups. No one is ahead by more than 2.1%, within the polling “margin of error.” So those are all races that the Democrats could win, dependent upon voter turnout between now and election day November 8.
In seven of them, in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Washington, Colorado and Connecticut, the leading candidate has at least a 3.3% advantage. The two closest are in New Hampshire and Wisconsin, where the leads are 3.3% and 3.4%. In the remaining five the leads are between 5% and 11%.
So in seven states, there is a distinct possibility the Trump-dominated Republican party could lose if enough people who get it as far as the danger it represents come out to vote.
The election is eight days away as I write. There’s still time for people to join up with the many organized phone calling and other get out the vote efforts being done by many groups. And there is still time for any of us in those seven states to personally reach out to friends, neighbors, co-workers, anyone we know to urge them to come out and vote on November 8.
History is made not by great leaders but by large numbers of people taking action together at a time of crisis. Now is such a time. Si, se puede!
Ted Glick is an organizer with Beyond Extreme Energy, President of 350NJ-Rockland and author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick.
