Althouse: A new WaPo poll "finds that the gap between support for Democratic vs. Republican House candidates dropped by more than half since the beginning of the year."

April 16, 2018

A new WaPo poll "finds that the gap between support for Democratic vs. Republican House candidates dropped by more than half since the beginning of the year."

"At the same time, there has been a slight increase in President Trump’s approval rating, although it remains low. Measures of partisan enthusiasm paint a more mixed picture of the electorate in comparison to signs of Democratic intensity displayed in many recent special elections.... The Post-ABC poll finds that 40 percent approve of the president, up slightly from 36 percent in January to his highest level of support since last April.... The survey shows the GOP making a more pronounced shift among white voters, who now prefer Republicans by a 14-point margin over Democrats, up from five points in January. Republicans lead by 60 percent to 31 percent among white voters without college degrees, slightly larger than an 18-point GOP advantage three months ago."

Link.

Why is a 29-point gap considered only "slightly larger" than an 18-point gap? And in 3 months? Seems like a huge leap. Am I misreading that? Have I forgotten the meaning of "slightly"?

214 comments:

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Lewis Wetzel said...: Here is why you will continue to lose, Lefties:

Why, over the past year, has Silicon Valley begun to regret the foundational elements of its own success? The obvious answer is November 8, 2016. For all that he represented a contravention of its lofty ideals, Donald Trump was elected, in no small part, by the internet itself. Twitter served as his unprecedented direct-mail-style megaphone, Google helped pro-Trump forces target users most susceptible to crass Islamophobia, the digital clubhouses of Reddit and 4chan served as breeding grounds for the alt-right, and Facebook became the weapon of choice for Russian trolls and data-scrapers like Cambridge Analytica.

The internet did not elect Trump. The American people did. You know, the people whose policy preferences you are supposed to cater to. Hillary outspent Trump 2:1, the print and broadcast media was fervently anti-Trump, academia was anti_trump. The federal bureaucracy was anti-Trump. And you blame Trump's election on anti-Trump Silicon Valley? This is pathetic. Take a look in the mirror once in a while, Lefties. Take a close look. You will see the ignorance, arrogance, dishonesty, authoritarianism, and moral preening that so many Americans find repulsive. You are all Hillary Clinton.; 4/16/18, 11:57 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: "I think you need a "most" in there. There are a number of stocks that pay no dividend at all. Berkshire Hathaway and Amazon are two of the better known. "

Agreed. But BH can maintain, and increase its stock value based on 30+ years of constant appreciation. But can it keep that up indefinitely? I think that Amazon though is going to have to ultimately start paying dividends. I just don't see their business model supp Rating the sort of growth that they have seen. IBM, for years did the no dividend thing, but ultimately plateaued, and had to start paying them. I think that will happen with Amazon.

"Most people think the goal of corporations is to make a profit. It is not. The goal is to increase shareholder value. Making a profit is one means of doing that. But profit is the means, not the end. "

I think that it very much depends on your point of view - something like Facebook users considering themselves its customers, but the company considering them its product. From the inside, it is sometimes easy to think of the employees as the customers, but if that goes on too long, the company is liable to get bought up and reorganized or split up, since losing focus on the stockholders being the ultimate consumers often even that they are not managed as well as they could be, and their stock price no longer reflects their fundamental value. Still, managing a company for the benefit of management, over the stockholders is a recurring problem.; 4/17/18, 12:07 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: "Comey is your hero now. He will be going to jail soon. Mueller is working his way towards his own indictments. You all have done this to yourselves. "

I actually don't expect Comey to be prosecuted. My view is that McCabe is going to be the top FBI scalp taken, and, more and more, Loretta Lynch's scalp on the DoJ side. I think that the OIG report that concluded that Comey was credible, and McCabe not, shows how the wind is blowing there. My view is that he is a big doofus, well over his head when he ran the FBI, and never really had control over what his top career people right under him were doing. I think that we saw that with the Weiner laptop, with him getting involved well after both McCabe and Lynch had gotten involved. His people should have informed him the minute that the FBI became aware that the NYPD had the laptop. They appear not to have. The cabal wasn't discussing their "insurance policy" in his office - they were doing so in Andy's office.

We shall see.; 4/17/18, 12:22 AM
grackle said...: Are we back to believing polls?

The polls are shit and NEVER to be trusted. Speaking for myself I’m conflicted.

WE have the worst political class in our history.

I am sure I will be voting for Trump in 2020 if he’s still alive and not impeached or otherwise driven from office. I do not want to vote for any other GOP candidate because of the general ineptness, falseness and anti-Trump malice that the GOP has shown toward Trump since Trump’s inauguration. I would love to send a message to those casually malicious posers by staying home in November but I am too afraid that by doing so I would be part of handing the Democrats an impeachment.

The real villains in this idiotic ‘get Trump’ drama is the GOP Congress and their leaders. There may indeed be a Blue Wave in November but you can bet your paycheck that the eGOP will blame Trump instead of their own numerous acts of perfidy committed since Trump’s historic victory.

Some of the things we Trump supporters have learned about the eGOP:

They seem to love ObamaCare.

They don’t give a shit about border security.

They are like pigs at a trough with the taxpayers’ money.

Ryan and McConnell disgust me with their mealy-mouthed hypocrisy and lame excuses.

I think the difference is one of attitude, where now business knows it has an administration that'll, if not support it, at least leave it alone.

Bingo! The Obama attitude toward business was definitely hostile; that’s the way the Left works. But once the hobbles are removed from the racehorse … Also, I think deregulation has played a part.

[Comey] … will be going to jail soon. Mueller is working his way towards his own indictments.

Who is going to indict them? Sessions? I doubt it. I think Sessions is a ringer. Trump keeps trying to get him to resign by insulting him. Said abuse being richly deserved, in my opinion. Session refuses to resign even after multiple public humiliations by Trump. And so far NO indictments even in the face of ADMITTED crimes.

Sessions was an early Trump supporter and got his expected reward, the AG job. Then almost immediately came the recusal without a word to Trump beforehand. The explanation for such a breach of communication between boss and subordinate cannot be simple neglect or forgetfulness. If Sessions had worked at a corporation he would’ve been fired on the spot.

I thought at the time that Sessions was merely afraid to tell Trump and it was a case of a meek man avoiding potential conflict – a beta’s reluctance to confront an alpha. I think a timid man doesn’t stay at a job he doesn’t need while getting constant humiliation from his boss but a man with a mission does.

One of my theories on Comey:

Comey feared the evidence against Hillary would be leaked from someone within the FBI after her election, which is just the thing that a dedicated leaker like Comey would fear. So he holds the presser, presents the evidence and at the same time absolves Hillary of any illegality. If she goes down, he goes down.; 4/17/18, 1:01 AM
Birkel said...: Trump's "insults" of AG Sessions are not real. They are there to create psychological diatance. They give space for Sessions to operate, bringing FBI and CIA assets to heel, with a thorough, subtle investigation that necessarily takes time to affect.

It also puts the black hats off edge. They get comfy.

Trump has done very well in this regard. So subtle even his supporters miss the long game trajectory.; 4/17/18, 5:32 AM
Michael K said...: "Comey feared the evidence against Hillary would be leaked from someone within the FBI after her election"

I think he feared an agent revolt in the summer of 2016. It was not long after that that my daughter told me she would NOT vote for Hillary. She should have been a natural Hillary voter. The FBI grapevine knew something.; 4/17/18, 5:52 AM
Big Mike said...: Shit. I just realized what the obvious explanation is — the idiot journalist subtracted 31 from 60 and got 19 because they don’t teach arithmetic very well anymore. (Apologies to anyone who concluded the same thing yesterday.); 4/17/18, 6:23 AM
grackle said...: Trump's "insults" of AG Sessions are not real. They are there to create psychological diatance. They give space for Sessions to operate, bringing FBI and CIA assets to heel, with a thorough, subtle investigation that necessarily takes time to affect … Trump has done very well in this regard. So subtle even his supporters miss the long game trajectory.

An interesting theory but it doesn’t quite explain Sessions’ recusal without first at least informing Trump. I do not believe Trump’s anger at that breach of judgement, that breach of expected boss/subordinate etiquette to be an act. Since then it has been nothing but insults on Trump’s Twitter account.

I sincerely wish Sessions really does have a “thorough, subtle investigation” to pull out of his hat at sometime in the future but at this particular point it seems like wishful thinking to me. And it doesn’t need a “thorough, subtle investigation” to know that Comey has publicly admitted that he leaked. Such admissions are perfectly adequate grounds for an indictment.

Here’s part of what legal expert Jonathan Turley has to say:

Some regulations (like 5 CFR 2635.703 on the use of nonpublic information) are directed at current employees. However, other laws bar the removal and use of government material, and this position ignores the fact that the FBI has continuing interest in FBI information being disseminated by either current or former employees. Indeed, the FBI could accuse Comey of unlawful possession given the FBI policy that “FBI personnel must surrender all materials in their possession that contain FBI information upon FBI demand or upon separation from the FBI.”; 4/17/18, 6:28 AM
Birkel said...: grackle,
The two DAGs, Iowa(?) And Utah, assigned to different aspects of this investigation make me believe the Sessions recusal is less important than I believed two months ago.

Mueller has nothing. After an investigation of nearly two years the FBI has nothing. Sure, the President is distracted and we spend a lot of time thinking about these particulars. But the results of the Administration continue to be surprisingly positive.

The Leftist Collectivists and LLRs would never be satisfied. So discount them to zero. Now the question is how non-news junkies feel about all these shenanigans.

1. The middle thinks it is all corrupt.
2. They know what Trump was and is. Results going forward matter.
3. Unless something revelatory emerges that is not inside baseball crap, none of it mattwrs. If it has to be explained, Democrats will make no headway.
4. Moral excitement about strippers, hookers, and porn participants won't move the persuadable.; 4/17/18, 6:59 AM
Francisco D said...: I have an acquaintance who spent over 30 years working for the FBI. He is retired, but continues to do some consulting for them - mostly research related.

A few months ago, I asked him what he (and other agents) thought of Comey and Mueller. He was disgusted with Comey and many agents thought he was ruining the place.

OTOH, he thought Mueller was a straight arrow and sort of liked the man.

He felt that the best FBI director was Louis Freeh. He was not confident in Chris Wray.

So, the possibility of an agent revolt under Comey seems realistic.; 4/17/18, 7:33 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: "Why, over the past year, has Silicon Valley begun to regret the foundational elements of its own success? The obvious answer is November 8, 2016."

Silicon Valley took a (fairly reasonable) gamble with their heavy support of the left, but (from their perspective) unfortunately it failed. And at the same time, significantly pissed off it's customers, on both the left and the right. So yes, they have regrets.; 4/17/18, 7:57 AM
Entertainment Unlimited said...: You got some great content!

Happy Birthday Girlfriend
Hard Work Quotes
Happy Mother's Day Wishes
Blogger Quotes
Top Stephen Hawking Quotes
Birthday DP; 4/17/18, 8:32 AM
Big Mike said...: @Francisco D, Louis Freeh was a hard core computer phobe. In the opinion of one big data management expert who worked briefly as a computer consultant at JEH early in the Mueller administration — me — by that point the FBI was well behind every agency in town, including the Department of Agriculture in its use of computing. As to Mueller as straight arrow, that flies in the face of his use of press leaks to falsely accuse Richard Jewell of the Olympic Bombing and falsely accuse Steve Hatfill of the anthrax attacks.; 4/17/18, 9:06 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Inga said...
Now, now, Bad Boy, why do you scold him? I appreciate all the good words sent my way.

4/16/18, 9:41 PM

Inga, Schatzie, some people are not worthy to allow to suck up to you. You are tarnished by their praise.

Plus, if you regard yourself as free to believe what you believe, if you ever change your mind about your slant on things, he would turn on you like...something that turns quickly. He praises you only because you serve him, or serve his ends.

Ritmo is one thing, he's kinda like a junkyard dog. You can still pet a junkyard dog...Pickering is a worm. No petting worms, it's gross.; 4/17/18, 11:46 AM