Florida... Really?

[MrScorpio]

Really, Florida?

This is where you're going, Florida?

I mean, REALLY?

[k8conant]

1. It's vomitable...

[Awsi Dooger]

2. Valid point in recent minutes on 538

NATHANIEL RAKICH12:28 AM
Let us not say the warning signs weren’t there for Democrats in Florida. In special legislative elections in 2017-18, Democrats did the absolute worst in Florida of any other state, underperforming their districts’ partisan leans by 8.5 percentage points. Florida was always somewhat wave-proof.

***

I'm in Miami and felt that. Republicans were emphasizing this state heavily even last year. Obviously it was toward 2018 and 2020. It made zero sense that they could win registration net in Florida since November 2016 even with Trump stuck at approval ratings nationally in the mid 30s to low 40s.

It didn't help that Bill Nelson didn't start campaigning until late August

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. Sickening. May cancel my annual vacation there.

[Barack_America]

4. Florida is as Florida does. But the sharply opposite directions MI and OH...

...have chosen is fascinating to me.

It's as if we have OH and IN divorcing Midwest/Great Lakes status and identifying with Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. Yet, Iowa, Kansas etc. are starting to pull away in the other direction. Really interesting.

[roamer65]

11. Just wait until MJ goes on sale in MI.

Gonna be fun to see how OH and IN respond to it.

[Barack_America]

12. If they want to build a wall I'll pitch in a Saturday.

Hate to say it, but I'm not feeling any regional love for those folks.

[budkin]

5. It looked so promising early in the evening

Then magically and mysteriously.... GONE

[martigras]

6. Old people and the uneducated

I live in Fla part of the year and the elder voters and uneducated youth vote will get you every time. I thought the red tide/blue algae mess might rid us of serpent head Scott who cheated Medicare and took the public’s money to fix the water problem and then didn’t. His excuse, “people didn’t know what they were voting on”. He lost.
You can’t fix stupid.

[question everything]

7. From 2000

[regnaD kciN]

8. My suggestion to 538 and the other prediction sites...

Until further notice, when setting odds on Florida races, take the polling average and shift the result by 5% to Republicans. You’re almost sure to get an accurate result that way.

[andym]

10. That seems about right.

Republican leaning voters in some states like FL seemed to be under-polled or less than cooperative with pollsters.

[Awsi Dooger]

13. Don't count any poll that gives either side an edge of 3+ points

That would be my advice in Florida. There was too much optimism here partially due to all the stupid recent polls that didn't fit the state at all.

Your idea about shifting polls based on the state itself is something I have done since 1992. I call it PAN or Partisan Adjustment Number. It is based on studying every statewide poll in presidential, senate and governorship races over a period of time and which direction they tend to err. In my early years on this site I used to post the PAN number for every state. I stopped doing that because nobody seemed to care. Everyone preferred to believe that polling was gospel, especially after the 2004 election and those early exit polls.

My Florida PAN has always been in the +2 Republican range.

The most blatant state is Alaska, which has held a Republican PAN of 6 points or more since I started following in 1992. Alaska polls are a comedy act, always overstating the Democrat to absurd degree. It took Nate Silver until 2014 to figure that out and post a long related article. I was posting it here in 2002.

[Blue Owl]

9. Home of the Magabomber...

n/t

[Cetacea]

14. Florida elected Gore and Obama.

We need to investigate