Sabato leans left, but he seems to be a fairly good pollster.
“Sabato leans left, but he seems to be a fairly good pollster.”
I don’t think he does much polling. His organization is heavy into data analysis. They use polls other organizations conduct and combine that data with information about early voting, party registration of those voting, demographic trends in states and localities, voting patterns all of the way down to the precinct level. Heavy quantitative analysis combined with qualitative analysis of behavior.
If we go back 30-40 years this would be a wave election. Democrats would break hard for the GOP in order to send a message (like they did in 1980 when they repudiated Carter by voting for Reagan. However, people are more “loyal” to party and tend to stay with the brand they identify with even when they are unhappy. My sense is Sabato thinks it should be a wave, but it may be when Democrats and liberal independents cast a vote, they vote for the D brand. Not unlike what conservative Republicans did when they voted for George W. Bush, John McCain, and particularly Mitt Romney because the Democrat alternative was perceived as worse.