First: I want to remind you that the fact that races are so tight in midterms where Republicans were expected to trounce Democrats is a good sign for Democrats. Despite inflation, despite Biden's middling popularity, almost every race is tight. And that 's what Morning Joe panelists were talking about this morning.
"Who could have seen this coming, Mastriano, well, I guess everybody could," Mika Brzezinski said about Pennsylvania's GOP gubernatorial candidate. "Everybody knew he was going to lose."
"I think the Fetterman polling shows a little bit -- there was one debate, and while we might pick it apart and look at every detail, the voters are feeling the way they're feeling."
"That's the thing, polling at this point, it is so important for people to get out and vote. If anybody is saying I'm not going to vote because my side is doing poorly, it's idiocy. Fifty percent of the people who saw the debate said it's changed their vote, and 20% more of those broke for Fetterman," Scarborough said.
"You really don't know. All of these races are so close. The races that were supposed to be, you know, Whitmer was supposed to win big in Michigan. That race is close. Hochul is supposed to win in New York. Some say that race is close. We'll see. Oklahoma and other states are more competitive than people expected. Do you see any trends? 'Cause all I see is everything tightening up out there."
"Everything is super, super tight, and what we are seeing, the trends that we are seeing, which I think looks very good for Democrats, is that across the board, Democrats are outperforming their early vote numbers compared to 2018 and 2020," Dem strategist Adrienne Elrod said.
"When you say the polls are close, what matters is who actually turns out at this point, and when the early vote has gone well for Democrats, that's a very strong sign. We know that Democrats tend to be a little bit more organized. We are very focused on getting people out to vote early and to vote via absentee.
"Republicans tend to turn out more on election day itself. The fact that we are outperforming 2018 numbers, 2018 was a good year for Democrats. I think the story that is not getting told enough is that Democrats are having a very strong showing in early vote numbers. When you combine that with the polls being very tight, I think it's gonna look a lot better for Democrats on election day than some people think."
