We start our roundup of the week in electoral politics with another Republican who voted to impeach Trump and has been at the forefront of anti-Trump Republicans in Congress: Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
I’ll jump right in and say it will take a little miracle for Cheney before she wins the Republican primary on Tuesday for Wyoming’s only seat in the House. Statistically improbable things are happening, but Cheney has both the polls and history against him.
The truth is that Cheney has been an underdog for reelection since she voted to impeach Trump in early 2021. Trump is the dominant figure in the GOP and voting to impeach Trump has proved a sin in the minds of voters that many have not forgiven.
For Cheney specifically, you can see this in the CES polls of Wyoming voters taken in late 2020 and then late 2021. Cheney’s disapproval score in this deeply Republican state went from 26% before her vote to impeachment to 72% after.
Cheney’s high unpopularity led to a rush of primary challengers. Whoever emerged from the pack and secured Trump’s approval, attorney and former Republican National Committee woman Harriet Hageman, appears to be a firm favorite on Tuesday.
Based on my reading of all the data out there, Hageman will most likely win by somewhere north of 20 points. The betting markets put Hageman over 95% favorite to become Wyoming’s next House member.
You can see the momentum behind Hageman in Wyoming in other data points as well. While Cheney has raised more than $9 million out of state to Hageman’s over $1 million, Hageman has more than doubled Cheney’s fundraising in-state (nearly $800,000 to over $300,000).
It could be argued that Cheney would have had a better chance had she not been consistent against Trump. She is, after all, the vice chair of the House selection committee on January 6. However, I’m not sure if it mattered what Cheney did after her vote to impeach Trump.
There were 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. Four announced their retirement before facing voters again. Three have been defeated in the primaries and two have made it to the general election.
A look at the two who made it to the general election (California Rep. David Valadao and Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse) doesn’t give Cheney much encouragement. Both got about 25% of the vote and advanced to the general election in the primary systems, where all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, ran on the same ballot, with the top two votes going for November — meaning there were a lot of candidates . vote for non-Republicans.
Only one candidate will advance to the general election in Cheney’s primary, and 25% of the vote probably won’t be enough to win.
And unlike California and Washington, Wyoming’s primaries are partisan. You must pick a Republican ballot to vote in the primaries. Cheney has tried to encourage non-Republicans to take that vote, but more than two-thirds of registered voters in Wyoming are Republicans. The effort is almost certainly in vain.
The fact is that about two-thirds of Republicans across the country have said the party should be totally or unacceptable to Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, according to the Pew Research Center.
Unless something dramatic happens in the coming days, that number, more than anything else, will tell the story of why Cheney’s days in Congress are numbered.
Democratic turnaround in special elections
You may have noticed that in our last section I mixed polls and real world data. That’s because I’m always looking for examples of what we see in the polls that take place when voters cast their votes.
When it comes to whether Democrats have gained national momentum, recent special elections seem to confirm what the polls are showing. Both show the Democrats in better shape now than they have been in a long time.
Last week, Republican Brad Finstad defeated Democrat Jeff Ettinger in Minnesota’s 1st District House special election. However, his win was only 4 points. Trump had won in the district by 10 points. This was, in other words, a 6-point outperformance for the Democrats compared to the 2020 baseline.
Interestingly enough, this was the second special election since late June where Democrats had some encouraging news. The Democratic candidate outperformed the 2020 baseline by 6 points in the Nebraska First District special election on June 28.
What makes this election unusual is that, overall, Democrats underperformed the 2020 baseline in this Congress’ special election. Instead of the Democrats doing 6 points better than the 2020 baseline, as they did in the last two special elections, they did on average about 6 points worse in previous special elections.
It would be easy to dismiss these data points as outliers, but Democrats getting a sudden boost in support match poll data and events.
The Democrats were an average of 3 points behind the national generic congressional vote a few months ago. That vote is now correct.
This comes as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which polls say was an unpopular decision. We saw that in Kansas, where voters in that scarlet state overwhelmingly decided to uphold the right to abortion.
In addition, the unpopular Trump is dominating the headlines because of the January 6 House Selected Committee hearings and now the search for Mar-a-Lago.
Whether the Democrats can sustain this momentum in the coming weeks and months is unknown at this time. However, we’re going to get some tests this month, with Alaska’s lone House district having special elections on Tuesday and two New York congressional districts holding special elections every week beginning on Tuesday.
For Your Short Encounters: WNBA Playoffs Begin This Week
It may be hard to believe, but the WNBA started 25 years ago. This week, the regular season of the women’s professional basketball league comes to an end as the playoffs begin.
The ratings for the WNBA playoffs last year reached their highest level since 2017, averaging more than 500,000 fans. We’ll see if that can be topped this season.
As with their male counterparts, the highest-rated professional endgame is actually surpassed by the college finals. About 5 million people watched the NCAA women’s basketball final earlier this year.
Remaining data
Facebook is no longer cool: Only 32% of American teens say they ever use Facebook, according to a new Pew study. From 2014 to 2015, 71% said yes. The sites and apps with more than 50% usage among teens are YouTube (95%), TikTok (67%), Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%).
Americans are not cool with e-cigarettes: A new Gallup poll shows that 61% of Americans want e-cigarette laws and regulations to be stricter compared to 7% who say they are less strict and 30% who think they should be enforced as they are now. to be. A majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans believe they should be stricter.
More hunger worldwide: Gallup now predicts that by 2021, about 10% of people will be malnourished. If that forecast materializes, it would be the highest percentage globally in more than a decade.
