Dear Friends,

A front page, above-the-fold article in today’s NYTimes, The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative, repeatedly cites NDN’s influential 2022 election analysis.  Some examples:

“Summertime polls indicated surprising Democratic strength. “Red Wave? Hard to see one now,” Simon Rosenberg, a former adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, headlined a June 21 post on the blog of his liberal advocacy group, the New Democrat Network.

Later, when a cascade of Republican-skewing polls pointed to a major reversal, Mr. Rosenberg said in an interview, “it was as if somebody turned a switch on.”

His bullishness earned him ribbing and ridicule. In an August article calling him “the most optimistic Dem online,” Politico noted that at times it seemed Mr. Rosenberg was pushing his relentlessly rosy view at “profound reputational risk.”

….As Mr. Bonier and Mr. Rosenberg pleaded with Democrats not to let unreliable polls dissuade them from donating to campaigns or knocking on doors, they repeatedly ran into skepticism from people citing the averages on RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight.

But the averages were being affected by a widening imbalance between a dwindling number of reliable, reputable nonpartisan polls, and a proliferation of questionable surveys.

…To Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Bonier, teenagers weren’t responsible for the false red-wave narrative — it was partisan pollsters, who flooded the market with outlier results and were abetted by the keepers of the polling averages.

“We can’t trust the data on RealClearPolitics or FiveThirtyEight any longer,” Mr. Rosenberg complained on MSNBC in late October, “because it’s essentially Republican propaganda.”

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight’s founder, dismissed Mr. Rosenberg’s criticism by suggesting he was smoking Democratic “hopium,” saying on the site’s politics podcast that FiveThirtyEight’s model was devised to account for pollsters’ partisanship."

We are very proud of the role we played in challenging this false red wave narrative this cycle, in sticking to our guns about the data we were seeing, and in keeping Democratic spirits up.  Joe Biden has been a good President; we had a very good election; and we enter 2023 strong, and in far better shape than the MAGA Republicans.  If you want to review our 2022 election analysis we’ve put it all in one place for you.  Some of the best quotes giving us credit for getting it right can be found below. 

Happy New Year All.  We have much to celebrate tonight, and much work to do in the year ahead!

Best, Simon

Notable mentions of NDN’s success in calling the election this year:

"There was no red wave. Few laid out such a case more forcefully and consistently than Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, who had presented his arguments in this pre-election podcast, in interviews and on his Twitter feed. A flood of low-quality partisan surveys really did skew the polling averages to the right, as Rosenberg had asserted, while higher-quality nonpartisan polls proved to be much more accurate." - Blake Hounshell, NYT

"Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic strategist, was telling anyone who would listen that the seeming movement to Republicans in the final weeks of the race was misleading – fueled by a series of Republican-sponsored polls that moved polling averages in a more favorable direction for the GOP. He was right. Period." - Chris Cillizza, CNN, "Winners and Losers In the 2022 Election So Far"

"The only person I paid any attention to about polls is @SimonWDC who was always right." - Lawrence O'Donnell, The Last Word, MSNBC

"Let's all give some credit to @SimonWDC, who has faced relentless abuse for simply arguing all along that this election would be a competitive one, which proved prescient. Here's my interview with him way back in July, and he didn't waver off this case" - Greg Sargent, The Washington Post

"The guy who got the midterms right explains what the media got wrong" - Nicole Narea, Vox

"MAGA performance issues? No better example than the last three elections. @SimonWDC does a deep dive into the why and how the #2022Midterms turned out pretty much the way he said it would." - Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, The Michael Steele Podcast

"Any thoughts on the polls?....Who won the Nate off? Is Simon Rosenberg our God now? I think so. Yes on Simon Rosenberg." Pod Save America, Episode 693, 59th Minute

"When all the experts were predicting a 'red wave,' one man called BS. He got the midterms right, and never backed down. On today's podcast, I ask @SimonWDC what he saw—& why he never backed down. (He also names names.) Don't miss this conversation!" - Matt Lewis, Matt Lewis Podcast

"While many analysts acknowledged that they were caught off guard by the midterm results, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg said there was evidence back in the spring that his party would overperform." - Melanie Mason, LATimes

"Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg has been saying for months that the widely predicted Republican “red wave” in the midterm elections was greatly exaggerated and that Democrats would remain competitive in races across the country.

Rosenberg, whose hypothesis was roundly rejected by pundits on both sides of the aisle, was vindicated after the shockingly lackluster GOP showing at both the state and national levels this week.  Ben Samuels, Haaretz, 'Red Wave'? This Democratic Strategist Said All Along It Wasn't Coming

"If Democrats do better than expected, @SimonWDC is gonna look like a genius" - Jonathan Alter, 10/26/22

 

                                                                                                                                                                   

800 Maine Avenue SW, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20024

www.ndn.org    @NDN_NPI

If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please unsubscribe.