Free Republic

John McIntyre couldn’t believe it. The publisher of the Real Clear Polling National Average, America’s first presidential poll aggregator, woke on October 31st to see his product denounced in the New York Times. Launched in 2002 and long a mainstay of campaign writers and news consumers alike, the RCP average, he learned, was part of a “torrent” of partisan rubbish being “weaponized” to “deflate Democrats’ enthusiasm” and “undermine faith in the entire system.” “They actually wrote that our problem was we didn’t weight results,” says an incredulous McIntyre. “That we didn’t put a thumb on the scale.” The Times ended...

On the eve of the midterms, President Donald Trump’s approval is falling, young voters are energized, and Republicans look poised to lose their House majority. It’s enough to make Democrats nervous, miserable wrecks. Haunted by memories of 2016, liberals around the country are riven with anxiety in the campaign’s homestretch. They’re suspicious of favorable polls and making election night contingency plans in case their worst fears come true. Some report literal nightmares about a Democratic wipeout. “We're kind of just in the bed-wetting phase now," said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, a Hillary Clinton campaign alumnus who spent election night 2016...

Former Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) might run for Congress in 2014 — possibly as a Republican. BuzzFeed reports that the conservative Democrat is looking at challenging Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) in 2014. The Fix reached out to Davis via email and the man who sought the 2010 Democratic nomination for governor in the Yellow Hammer State was very careful to leave the door open to another bid — possibly from the other side of the partisan aisle. “I do receive encouragement from friends to join the Republican Party and to get into politics in the [northern Virginia] area, but I...