Did Minnesota’s Eighth District Really Swing by Almost 20 Points?

I bet Google and Facebook have enough information on all the people in these districts to accurately predict elections.

Articles like this, are a direct response to the 2016 polling debacle, and Hillary's "89% chance of victory". Professionals like Nate Cohn realize the 'blue wave' is never going to materialize (indeed, it's more likely we see a red backlash to the Kavanaugh fiasco), and need to get out in front of the reality that November 6 will see Republicans hold both House and Senate.

Why not poll the voting machine coders instead? I believe his name is Boris something and he works for the GOP.

I live/vote in the MN 8th district and am sick of the ads and phone calls. So when I am asked--I either tell them their American speaking is good for a Russian troll and hang up, or assume it is a fake poll and provide fake answers.

Minnesta's Democratic party is called Democratic Farmers- Labor )DFL) party. The 8th district was highly dependent on the Iron ore that was shipped to the Machine tool and car industry around Lake Michigan and Lake Erie through Duluth. when the Iron Ore was almost exausted, Taconite amendment was passed to keep the iron mining industry alive. But with the rusting of the industrial belt arounf the two lakes, economy in the district is on life support and the democratic party base is no longer in power. What is left there is the aging population that tends to be more religious and isolated and unaffected by the cultural diffusion experienced by the urban areas like the Twin cities. And that is the population exploited by Trump with is xenophobic, bigoted and anti-women rants. unately, population of Minnesta is Lutheran od Scandinavian decent that is tolerant but nw we know even good values have linits.

Could Stauber be leading? Absolutely. However, not because the polling swung. Stauber is likely leading because the case for Radinovich was never strong. Stauber gains a few points. Sandman drains a few points. You throw in the margin of error and you're at 10 points. The shift only looks big because we were assuming the first poll was more accurate than it was. If I had to guess, I'd put Stauber ahead by 2 or 3 points tops. Probably less. Any remaining deficit for Radinovich would have to come from Sandman. The other thing I want to point out. I think Cohn either dramatically underestimates response bias or he misunderstands response bias. The problem with response bias isn't really about partisanship. The problem I've had with response bias all stems from the generational divide. Young people don't have landlines. They aren't in any phone book. They are therefore excluded from most polling. Unless you intentionally weight your sample to include a requisite number of voters under 35, your results are most likely favoring Republicans. Admittedly, young voter turn out will mute the impact some. However, I've found the impact significant enough render decade long baselines completely meaningless. Anecdotally, I received my first polling call ever this year and only after I provided my phone number to a politician. The polling software didn't work properly either. I got frustrated and entered everything I suspected the politician didn't want to hear. Have fun with that data.

All politics is local. In this case, Radinovich is a privileged young pol who has been devastated by a series of TV spots where his past driving record has been "exposed." Now, a a speeding ticket here and there is one thing, but Radinovich has had something like 18 convictions. And he spews the usual Democratic line. This Republican shift is not artifactual.

Watching the NY Times polls is interesting both from a statistical perspective (one of my day jobs before retirement) and a people perspective. We live close to the minnesota district in question and the vast majority of our neighbors refuse to answer any poll for any reason. Caller id and call blocking is free and almost everyone has it activated. The ad buys for Stauber have overwhelmed the airwaves. Republicans are following their usual formula of the best legislator that money can buy. The 8th is also a typical district of urban versus rural and educated versus less educated. From a statistical perspective for the entire country, almost every times live poll shows the undecided's could decide any race if they moved all in one direction at election time.

Very familiar district. Water everywhere, sometimes even liquid. Its Voyager county, wild unruly Canadians who traveled thousands of miles by canoe, and a tiny hamlet, Grand Portage, was the center of it. Voyager National Park is there. The center of the Ojibway world. I am a member. I have fishing and hunting rights in the 8th. The famed Boundary Waters wilderness is there. Its Minnesota’s adventure sport country, with sea kayaking, white water, ice and rock climbing, back packing, canoeing and skiing. Its super liberal at the “North Shore” - Vermont like with quaint back to nature, arts, writers retreats, blacksmith shops and hikers everywhere. Water falls and sea cliffs. “Motor head” to the west, with snowmobilers. The two groups get along like Viking and Packer fans. It's the “Arrow Head”, a mystical place with wild lakes, seashore, and mountains. A hiking trail runs 200 miles along the crest of them. Duluth, in the center, is a beautiful city built on a cliff over Lake Superior, is rust belt and formerly in steep decline - strongly democrat. The most scenic city east of the Rockies, by far. No other city comes close. I-25 freeway is filled with cars traveling from MSP to Duluth and points north - like traffic jams on I70 west of Denver. So if you cant figure out the politics, such is why.

Never ever, ever believe any polls. any of them. why? 2016 presidential election that's why.

Interesting journalism concept. Live polling, explanation days later.

I do not know a single thing about the main candidates from reading this article other than one is a Democrat and another is a Republican. Shouldn't the race be about who is the better candidate to represent this portion of Minnesota and why?

Minnesota is not Kansas. As a relatively educated bunch, we tend to avoid political mistakes like GWB or Right to Work legislation. However, Donald Trump has masterfully played the poor white male card. This part of the state has many white males who believe they are entitled to resources extracted by multinational countries in order to MAGA. They wear union shirts with a red hats. Hibbing's Dylan wrote about times and changing- perhaps we are becoming Kansas.

I don’t understand how they do polling today. It’s still done by phone, yes? No one I know answers their cell phone unless caller ID shows it’s a friend. I think only elderly people still trust unknown phone calls.

Or maybe that only older, white republicans have land lines while the modern world ditched land lines a long time ago? Or that people who don't want to be bothered with pollsters or people soliciting for money don't answer their phones if they don't know who is calling? Or maybe that you (and all the other pollsters) just don't have a clue?

I lived in Edina, MN is early 90's- it was a perfect pluralistic democratic community. We saw big influx of southern U.S. state movers and I am not surprised that it will one day start saying things that slights non-whites. Well, U.S.A. is the home of white majority and about 60% of them vote. Now all these people are being asked to take their country from Obama likes and vote 100% at the same time make it harder for non-whites to vote. So, how can Democrats win. It is killing democracy with dirty might. I feel sorry for our Founders.

Maybe the district is just getting bombarded with constant ads. The Republicans are buying Marsha Blackburn the Tennessee Senate seat. A couple of weeks ago the ads intensified and the soft money negative ads against Bredesen started coming in like rain in a hurricane and his numbers have dropped.

After the fiasco of 2016 I told myself I'd watch for 3 polling cycles, '18, '20, and '22 and if I saw reasonable success I'd start placing some value in national political polls again. We'll see. I'm no statistician but it seems like the weighting/sample size issue is huge. There is a big financial and time incentive to try to use the smallest sample size that will yield acceptable results. Unfortunately, it's probably near impossible to know what that size is. Based on the 500 figure I see in this article, that sample size is probably grossly too small for the total population the pollsters are trying to capture. Good luck!

I’m proud that Minnesota’s voter files don’t include any data on partisanship. The right to vote in any election shouldn’t be dependent on a public declaration of party. Partisan data in the voter files only help pollsters, PACs, and campaign managers. It doesn’t help the people. I appreciate the article. I’m not sympathetic to your woes with a lack of easy polling data. More states should move away from recording party registration or party primary voting history.

In polls where the fraction of responses is only one percent or less, and where the total number of responses is well under 1000, it is quite straightforward, even trivial, to shift the poll in the direction of any candidate who simply instructs their supporters to "always answer polls."

I admit to following Nate's Twitter and polls more closely than a normal person should but 2 things are clear: 1) There is a small portion of the electorate that is deeply, personally invested in the polling. Maybe it replaced sports in their lives, but it magnifies minor swings in polling by a vocal minority on Twitter when most voters barely know their Rep's name. 2) Despite a huge investment by the NYT and other polling orgs, the quality and veracity of polls continues to decline. Nate admits to <10% response rates, this has the effect of making every 3 point swing a harbinger of some great national trend, when in reality we're talking about 15 people in New Mexico. If Nate and Harry Enten lived 2,000 years ago they'd be applying their analytic skills to reading chicken entrails. These polls should honestly be treated with same level of seriousness.

After the 2016 debacle are we really going to spend the next year or two talking about why the polling was wrong when the GOP holds the House and expands their hold on the Senate?

Minnesota's 8th is a somewhat unique area. Given that most non-metro MN leans Republican, this area has long been a Democratic stronghold, primarily because of the mines and the unions that go along with them. Recently, however, the Dems have been split. With the importing of steel, there is less work at the mines and the workers blame the Dems for allowing that. The other half of the Dems are promoting conservation. There is currently a proposal for copper/nickel mining in the area and the worry is that the environment (in particular, the Boundary Waters Conservation Area Wilderness - BWCAW) will be permanently and negatively affected by such mines. So the convergence of the pro-mining forces with Trump's promise to reduce restrictions on such mines has driven many of the miners to his side of the ballot. I'm not sure how long this will last. The tariffs have apparently caused an increase of output from the mines (local jobs are up a bit), but others in the area are realizing that the costs of manufacturing are going up because of the increased cost of steel and, as a result there is still quite a fight. Current local polls show the race as a toss-up.