I was recently speaking with a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a Californian in a tight race this year. I mentioned the fivethirtyeight.com prediction for him, and he said “fivethirtyeight.com? What’s that?”
I was recently speaking with a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a Californian in a tight race this year. I mentioned the fivethirtyeight.com prediction for him, and he said “fivethirtyeight.com? What’s that?”
This has to be Jerry McNerney, (D-Pleasanton). About to be retired by the citizens of CA-11.
That's a good guess. Looking at the win probabilities for the House races at Stochastic Democracy here, we see only one race not near the end points of the probability scale, CA-11.
I attended the Harmer-McNerney open debate in Tracy on Saturday, and watched McNerney crash and burn. He's generally terrible at public speaking and this event was no exception. I found it painful to watch someone someone self destruct. Moreover, we found many in the McNerney cheering section were students who were given extra credit by their teacher to attend the debate and cheer for the Democrat. I think that teacher is in for some trouble. It also looks like the McNerney campaign paid people to attend the event. It was all quite raucous but fun despite the dirty tricks.
I'm a little surprised that McNerney had never heard of fivethirtyeight.com. He ought to be interested in the quantitative aspects of polling, since he has a PhD in mathematics and is running for office. Nevertheless I know a lot of people who are interested in politics who have never heard of fivethirtyeight.com, and I get a blank stare when I discuss it. This includes my theoretical physics group.
You're right, Jim; I guess it wasn't that hard to guess, since there's only one competitive race here according to fivethirtyeight.
CA-11 is a funny district, often cited as an example of gerrymandering. About half of its residents are very liberal, the other half very conservative. Until the liberal McNerney was elected a couple of terms ago, it was represented by arch-conservative Pombo, so it basically swung all the way from one pole to the other. Now it looks like it will swing back. I haven't been following the race, but I do like this quote from the Republican contender, Harmer: ""When McNerney was elected, unemployment was 5 percent," Harmer said. "It's now double that nationally … and more than that in this district. That is no coincidence. " I suppose this sort of thing is effective to his red-meat conservative audience; I think it's hilarious.
McNerney vs Harmer follow-up: Election night totals were McNerney 82,159 vs Harmer 82,025. They still have some absentee ballots to count, which could easily switch it. I suppose it's possible that there will be a lawsuit, too: there always seems to be some sort of alleged malfeasance somewhere that could plausibly be worth 100 votes out of 165,000.
McNerney vs Harmer still going on (eight days after election night). Current official count: McNerney 28394, Harmer 28517. Looks like Harmer might pull it out. But why are these numbers so much lower than the ones they had in the paper a couple of days ago? I have no idea.
No local knowledge here, but as 28 is 82 transposed, so I guess one pair of numbers is a pair of typos.