Like Ninjas, In Reverse

So, I have hypothesized that, since there appears to be a massive "Candidate Effect" in Senate races this year, where a whole lot of Republican candidates have been really dreadful and are letting Democrats either win or be competitive in races we really shouldn't have a shot in, there might be a similar "Candidate Effect" on the House side, but we wouldn't see it. Specifically, we might not see it in the generic ballot numbers, especially but not necessarily exclusively many months before the election. Well, I think it should be the case that in House races that have been well-polled individually, there shouldn't be a Stealth Candidate Effect. But in lightly polled races, that effect could easily persist. For instance, the first public poll out of AZ-3 shows Ben Quayle, son of Dan Quayle, losing by 2, whereas the 538 model, in the absence of polling, had him up by 18. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that he's a dreadful candidate, and it goes beyond the last name. A poll out of NE-2 shows the Democrat beating the 538 unpolled spread by 7 points. Most of the well-polled races this cycle have been Democratic-held seats. If you extrapolate from how we're doing in our incumbent districts, you might assume that the climate sucks for Democrats, and so in a Republican-leaning district line AZ-3 or NE-2, the Republican, treated as generic, just ought to be ahead by a whole frickin' lot. But maybe that won't always be the case. My suspicion: we're going to see a lot of the same thing we (or those of us who watched, anyway) were seeing in the British election. The Republicans are going to lose a whole lot of the "seats they need to win to get a majority." But they'll also pull off a fair number of upsets in less marginal seats, seats that were on pace to be their 230th or 240th seat, or whatever, even as they lose their 211th seat or their 224th seat. And the Democrats, likewise, will both beat some Republican incumbents no one had seen in danger and scare a whole lot of others whom no one had perceived as being in danger. This just feels like an unpredictable, wild election, just like that British election. And quite honestly, I like our chances better in that kind of chaos than in a world where all and only the seats that "ought to flip" flip. Here's hoping.

Oh, the title: the idea is that these poor candidates in underpolled districts are being really stealthy, but what they're doing stealthily is sucking. Like ninjas, but in reverse.