Polling guru Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium has some words of wisdom for us in the wake of Comeygate:
1. The national race will not change meaningfully. Maybe by 1 percentage point when aggregated…2 points max. It doesn’t change the high likelihood of a Clinton win.
2. Journalists and pundits will continue to feed hysterics by fussing over the Comey story. They may even attempt to use polling evidence to justify their coverage. However, note that national polls had already tightened by 1-2 percentage points, even before Comeygate. This is a phenomenon known as regression to the mean, and is a central assumption of PEC’s model.
3. Keep your eye on the ball, which is downticket. In the Senate, key races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada, and North Carolina will determine control of that chamber. Small changes mean a lot: early voting, get-out-the-vote, bad weather…maybe even the Comey story.Wang generally chalks up the static nature of the trend lines to political polarization. Well, we can certainly attest to the fact that Comeygate (had we not already early voted) would have propelled us to the polls in righteous, polarized anger at the events of the last 48 hours. In fact, just the thought of neo- fascist moron Donald "Rump" Trump gaining any ground from this bungle would be motivation enough to re- double our efforts to see that he's defeated, and we think that goes for tens of millions of Democrats and other sane people.
BONUS: Professor Hubbard (who has a better record than 538's Nate Silver) has more to soothe the troubled soul. Caveat: we need to get out the vote to make this reality; it doesn't happen because someone's calculations said so.
