July 7 Poll Report

            Good morning everybody.  Yesterday’s Poll was truly nothing happening, as it almost perfectly matched our expectations based on previous polling:

            Weld took one point away from Buttigieg; otherwise these candidates appear to be exactly where we thought they were.   Removed from the data was the poll of May 17, which was Castro (35%), Gabbard (35%), Flake (17%), and Bennet (13%). 

            Watching the Sunday morning news shows as I am writing this.  Man, these people have NO clue what is happening in the race.  They’re just dense.  Willfully ignorant.   I’ve been defending Chuck Todd, but he’s now making no effort to understand other people’s positions. I must have seen 20 experts on the various shows.  Maybe three or four of them have some idea what is going on.   It’s the exact same feeling I had in the 1970s, early 1980s, listening to sportscasters analyze baseball games based on batting average, base stealing and batting with runners in scoring position.   Martha Raddatz is OK; Howard Kurtz makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for a reason. 

90% of the morning "analysis" is just competitive Trump-bashing; I hate Trump more than you do.  No, I hate Trump more than you do.   I hate Trump WAY more than either one of you.   Not that I am asking them to stop hating Trump; what I want from them is actual understanding.  Buttigieg beat Biden in fund-raising; they just completely write it off; Buttigieg has some appeal among coastal elites, one genius said.   But he’s only at 4% in the polls. 

            Biden was stupid to apologize for Kamala Harris’ silly attack on him; I haven’t seen an analyst yet who recognized that.  They’re all saying that he should have apologized two weeks ago.  Harris attacked him with an essentially indefensible approach because there was political advantage in it.   What he should have done it make her defend it.  But he didn’t, because frankly he is old and clueless and playing a game he doesn’t understand.   You’re in a political campaign, Joe; people are going to attack you.  They’re not attacking you because you have made mistakes; they are attacking you because you are in a political campaign.  His apology merely invites more attacks. 

            OK, back to the actual analysis.  Since yesterday, given the poll which matched expectations and thus doesn’t change anything, only three candidates have moved by as much as six points:

            Julian Castro is up 12 points due to the removal of the May 17^th poll.   This is how I say it, but what it really is that Castro has done BETTER in the polls since May 17; thus, when we remove the May 17 poll from the relevant data, he looks better.

            Michael Bennet is up 6 points due to the removal of the May 17^th poll, and

            Tulsi Gabbard is down 16 points due to the removal of the May 17^th poll.   The standings on the morning of May 17 had Gabbard at 176 and Castro at 194; thus, Castro and Gabbard tying at 35% in that poll was pretty much the expected result.  Gabbard is still in that range while Castro is about twice that, so recognizing that that poll is now irrelevant helps Castro, hurts Gabbard. 

            The updated standings:

            In the poll that is currently running Kamala Harris is outperforming expectations by 10 points, so there may be bigger news tomorrow.  Thanks.