@SeanTrende

Sr. Elections Analyst, @RCPolitics, Visiting Scholar, @AEI, Lecturer, @osupolisci. Recovering Attorney. Husband, Dad. Writes about elections, history and more.

Joined March 2010
  • Tweets89.2K
  • Following1K
  • Followers74.5K
3.2KMedia
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Sean T at RCP retweeted
David Byler
@databyler3h
Polling always survives this stuff bc it's unique There is no other reliable way to - ask an arbitrary question - of giant, complicated population - get a representative answer - relatively fast, any time Survey data isn't perfect. But, for a lot of purposes, it's the only game in town!
Jake Rubinstein
@Jlrube4h
There are way too many otherwise knowledgeable people on this site asking questions like "how does polling recover". Pollsters didn't do anything wrong! A bunch of people did fraud and got caught by pollsters!
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Don’t sound so surprised!
ShowDog@ShowDog341h
Replying to @SeanTrende
That was actually a pretty helpful article
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What I think @NateSilver538 was getting at in footnote 9 of his good piece on poll errors. If not, still worth a read! (link next tweet)
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pollvault.substack.com/p/wha…
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In short, poll error isn't always random, but you still don't get to unskew.
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If I'm JD Vance and Acton wins? I don't think I run for president in 2028. I move back home "to let my kids have a normal childhood," run against Acton in 2030 (possibly during a Democratic midterm) and then run for president in 2036.
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Sean T at RCP retweeted
Chris Cooper@chriscooperwcu4h
Thanks to a couple of helpful folks, I learned that the #nc11 ⬇️ poll comes from @SeanTrende's recent polling (available at the Poll Vault Substack to paid subscribers only). In related news, I'm now a paid subscriber to Sean Trende's Poll Vault Substack. #ncpol
Chris Cooper@chriscooperwcu5h
This is a 👀 topline as reported (or tweeted) ⬇️but does anyone have a link to any poll details? #nc11 #ncpol
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Sean T at RCP retweeted
Tom Wood@thomasjwood6h
Useful for students interested in the '26 midterm elections -- nationalized senate voting is historically recent:
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Thank you everyone! Poll Vault is officially a Substack Bestseller! Subscribe here: pollvault.substack.com/?best…
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Sean T at RCP retweeted
John Couvillon@WinWithJMC8h
For DIYers (like yours truly) who like having poll data available for ad hoc analysis
Sean T at RCP
@SeanTrendeOct 21
This is super-exciting. If you go to the RCP website, you'll see the "RCP + AI" button. Signing up (which you should do with whatever email you use for AI) will send you to instructions on how to add a connector that you can then use for research into RCP's poll database.
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I got 10/15 on Marginle. That's more like it. 🇺🇸 🟡🔵🟢 🏛️ 🟡🟡🟢 👨‍⚖️ 🟡🟢 Can you do better? marginle.com/

Marginle: A daily election guessing game.

Three races. Five guesses.

marginle.com
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Every elections analyst trying to decide which pieces to write and which pieces will never get done in October:
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I wrote about Troy Jackson, whose campaign combines left populism on economic issues with hyper-progressivism on cultural ones. Jackson emphasizes his working class bona fides, but like Platner before him, his maximalist politics cater to laptop job progressive suburbanites. 1/
The Atlantic
@TheAtlanticOct 21
Troy Jackson is courting working-class voters in Maine—while championing a set of policies that many of them don’t support, @Tyler_A_Harper argues. theatlantic.com/culture/2026…

The Contradictions of Troy Jackson

The Democratic Senate candidate for Maine is courting working-class voters—while championing a set of policies that they don’t support.

theatlantic.com
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*sigh* It's not like we don't consider these things. The AR-02 poll backs out to Cotton +17 which . . . seems reasonable given other signals? And most of these back out to roughly D+10-12 nationally which is a bit hot IMO, but not inconsistent w/ national #s.
Eric Flores Stan
@smith_cade917h
This one seems... slightly more reasonable. I think it ends up heing 1 pt either way, but still ridiculous looking considering there is a poll in AR-2 showing French Hill only up 4! In no way shape or form is Hill winning by 4, Cognetti winning by 4, Lawrwnce outperforming Cognetti at 8, and Ager winning by 13. Straight up coal.
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At the very least, the fact that we are putting out these polls should help convince you that there isn't some giant "suppression poll" psyop. Polls can be wrong, and there's a story to be told this cycle on why, but this is what the data show, from a very good polling company.
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These are the three I thought might be too hot on Ds. But it isn't crazy that an even PVI district would have a flawed Dem up 8 in this environment. I expected 4. At a certain point, we do the social science for a reason.
Eric Flores Stan
@smith_cade918h
LMFAO, ok, disregard that post I just made about their poll in MT-1. This is a fucking joke. In no world is William Lawrence winning by 8. Even if it was Maasdam or Brink they wouldn't win by that much. Like cmon. And Ager up 13? Ann Wagner down 5. Yeah bullshit. Just a complete joke.
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Sean T at RCP retweeted
armin
@Thorongil1621h
TX IPEV IMPORTANT COUNTIES: Day 2 was good for Dems, though significantly less so than Day 1. In 16 counties representative of the state, the implied 2024 partisanship is still well-left of where the first two days of EV were 2 years ago. If I had all of the remaining 238 counties the recalled vote would probably be something like Trump +6 (8 point shift left from 2024). Best points for Dems: Hispanic voters (Hidalgo, Cameron) Worst points for Dems: non-college whites (Hardin, Randall) are barely budging. But... their turnout is terrible so far. Lots of non-voters that are skewing young/nonwhite. White voters are really punching below their weight even in urban areas. Indians in Collin/Fort Bend are possibly beginning to pop off in turnout/bluer recall. More updates will be made - but here is where we are in day 2 of IPEV. Interactive here: claude.ai/artifact/QSaAiFYUj…
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On our polls: I'd recommend watching the briefing I did yesterday (and I'll probably write things up later today). There are a couple of polls that I think are hot on Dems, but overall they tell a story consistent with other public polling. 1/
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It's *okay* to recognize that modern polling has problems and that error margins are real. But at a certain point, you turn into the people who saw stronger-than-expected Trump showings w/ minorities in 16/20/24 and said "it cannot be." We do the social science for a reason. 2/
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RCP is a qualitative race rater who has had Democrats up at around 235 seats for a long time now. Because of the distribution of seats, if the wave falls short even a little bit, a lot of seats will miss. But for today, it is what it is.
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