People really, really hate Dobbs

There’s a general distrust of polls showing that things are looking better for Democrats in the midterms than expected, and given the quality and the direction of errors in state’-level polling in 2016 and 2020, I think this skepticism is justified, The results of actual elections are another matter, however, and here things continue to look good for Dems in the post-Roe era:

It would have been easy to write Nebraska off as a fluke, after Democrats ran better than expected in a House race there last month. But then came Minnesota, where Democrats again beat expectations. And then, in New York on Tuesday, the dam broke.

“Well, shit,” one Republican strategist texted late Tuesday, as results from a Hudson Valley special election filtered in.

It would have been a victory for Democrats if they’d even kept it close. Instead, Democrat Pat Ryan beat Republican Marc Molinaro in a district that Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, but that would have appeared to favor Republicans in a normal midterm climate.

Overall, on the last major primary night of the year, the winds appeared to be shifting in Democrats’ favor.

We don’t know what will happen in November, but the reverse-thermostatic effects of Dobbs theory makes sense in the abstract, and so far election results are bearing it out.

It seems like people are extremely pissed off about the Supreme Court and they don’t want their rights taken away.— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) August 24, 2022