May24

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The State of the Race in CA-11

Yesterday, we had a brief note about the race in CA-11, the seat that Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will vacate when she retires at the end of this term. Here is the original version of the note:

There is a Republican in the race (Scott Wiener) who will advance to the next round, and the other candidate will either be [Connie] Chan or Saikat Chakrabarti (D) for the second spot. It's fair to assume that Pelosi's endorsement will propel Chan to the general, and it's even fairer to assume that the Democratic candidate in the race will win the D+36 district. Should all of that come to pass, Chan will have the honor of being the person who succeeded Pelosi, and will also have the challenge of being the person who succeeded Pelosi.

As it turns out, that was wrong. Wiener is, in fact, a liberal Democrat. We received many e-mails pointing this out. Some of them were helpful and constructive. Many of them were, frankly, abusive. We were accused of being stupid, of being lazy, of being biased. One reader had the temerity to tell us we really need to stop using AI to produce the site. We'll probably have more on that subject sometime this week, but we've always made very clear that we do not use, and will never use, AI.

Once we were made aware of the error, we changed that passage to this:

It is clear from polling that Scott Wiener (D) will advance to the next round. The other candidate will be either Chan or Saikat Chakrabarti (D). We can hardly claim to know the demographics of that district, but we imagine Pelosi's endorsement will propel Chan into the second round, and then to the victory. It may be worth noting that it's one of the most heavily Asian-American districts (32%) in the country. Whichever Democrat wins the D+36 district, will have the honor of being the person who succeeded Pelosi, and will also have the challenge of being the person who succeeded Pelosi.

Some of the same people who wrote in with... uh, sharp complaints about the first version were equally angry about this version. We were told that "we don't get it" and that the demographic breakdown of the district is irrelevant, and that our bias is completely out of control.

So, how did we make the original mistake? Well, one of the several pieces we read on the race said: "Polls make clear that Wiener will advance to the general election. He is followed by two Democrats, Saikat Chakrabarti and Connie Chan, who are neck and neck." This wording strongly implies that Wiener is a Republican; the author should have written "He is followed by two other Democrats..." Similarly, the Politico piece we linked says "Pelosi's late endorsement comes as several recent polls show Chan effectively tied for the second-place spot to advance from the June 2 top-two primary with Democrat Saikat Chakrabarti—behind the race's frontrunner, Scott Wiener." This is a little bit more ambiguous, but only a little. If Chakrabarti is identified as a Democrat and Wiener is not, that suggests that he's not a Democrat. And the notion of a Republican who attracts some good-enough-to-advance chunk of the electorate, and who sits there and watches as a bunch of Democrats beat each other up, tracks with what is going on in the California gubernatorial race and the Los Angeles mayoral race right now.

So, should we have double-checked? In retrospect, yes. But in the moment, no. In order to produce each day's post, we read and absorb a very large amount of information, which we then try to synthesize and analyze. There are hundreds of distinct facts in each day's post, and there simply isn't time to track down and verify them all. So, we have to make all kinds of judgments about which facts need to chased down (and any given piece of information can take anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes to verify to a certainty), and which ones we feel confident about. We were confident, based on our reading, that Wiener was a Republican. The problem is that while our confidence meter has a pretty good batting average, probably north of .990, it doesn't have a batting average of 1.000. This, obviously, was one of the misses.

That, in the end, is part of the deal with this site (and, to a substantial extent, with this medium). If we chased down every fact we feel confident about, just to make absolutely certain, it would add copious amounts of time to the production process, which would not work with our current model. Put another way, it is possible to have two of these three things: (1) a very-early-morning posting time, at least on most days; (2) around 5,000 words of material, or more, nearly every day; (3) improved, but not vastly improved, copy editing and accuracy. We could post at noon PT each day, which would allow a lot more copy editing. Or, we could write just one item a day, with a length of 1,000-1,500 words, which would allow for more intense fact-checking and editing. We think that either of those choices would be worse for the site than letting a few errors through. We have ample evidence that the vast majority of readers agree.

And while we are on the subject, let's say a little bit about things like grammar, spelling, typos, etc., because we invariably get at least a few abusive e-mails on that subject each week. We are obviously grateful when we get a message: "In [ITEM X], you have [MISTAKE Y]." We are considerably less grateful when we get a message: "In [ITEM X], you have [MISTAKE Y]. Proofreading apparently goes bye-bye in the middle of the night." That's a real message from earlier this week, by the way.

For those readers who haven't already pieced together our process, here it is. Most Mondays and Thursdays, the primary author is (V), and after (V) is done, (Z) reads and edits before posting. Most other days, the primary author/compiler is (Z), and after (Z) is done, (V) reads and edits before posting. That means that each post gets written by one primary author, and read and edited by the other primary author, before it goes live. That's as much as there is time for, unless we want to significantly delay the daily publication time. Oh, and incidentally, pieces written by (L) are read and edited by both (V) and (Z), though mostly by (Z).

After the post is live, we have a group of about a dozen readers, who are also very good copy editors, who send in corrections throughout the day. The ones who live on the east coast tend to get their lists in early; the others, a little later. We also, of course, have a very visible e-mail address to which readers can send their corrections. Indeed, we are not sure we can think of a site where "submit correction" is more front-and-center than it is on our site. On almost all days, after the site is live, a former student of (Z)'s, who is sometimes known around here as S.K. in Los Angeles, CA, but is now known mostly as (A), reads and edits the posting. (A), who is mind-blowingly competent, and is an absolutely critical cog in all of this, also wrangles all the e-mails from readers and copy editors, applying most of the corrections, forwarding to (Z) those that need author input, and responding to all the e-mails.

Having chosen #1 and #2 from among the three items on the list above, this is our best effort to make up for NOT choosing #3. By and by, we think it's pretty effective. But, the even more important point is this: That is the nature of the beast. Or, the medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan put it. If you want things to be a little less ragged, then read, say, The New York Times. But that, of course, comes with its own set of compromises. The NYT is less interactive, is considerably more formal, and presents things from the perspective of an entity that is governed by the ethics/worldview of journalists, but also the needs of a corporate behemoth. By contrast, we are not now, and have never claimed to be, journalists—we are professional academics, with our own ethics/worldview. And we most certainly do not answer to any sort of corporate interests—or, really, to anyone at all.

And actually, that reminds us of the "reader complaint" issue we wrote about yesterday, namely carping about when we take a day off. One of those e-mails, paraphrasing a little bit, said, "If you're going to take so many days off, then I guess I might have to get my news elsewhere." There is something of a backhanded compliment in there, since people are presumably only annoyed by the lack of content because they want the content and are disappointed when it's not there. But we point it out primarily because, again, we're not a newspaper or other for-profit concern. We're teachers. We like to share whatever insights we might have, such as they are, with as many "students" as possible. But we don't have someone calling us into their office if we're not getting enough hits or clickthroughs or whatever. We operate on a very different model. And a part of that model (along with the copy editing, etc.) is that we might lose a posting or two if one of us is incapacitated or has technical issues. Again, that's the nature of the beast.

And now, let's move on to CA-11. First, note that in both versions of the paragraph about the race above, we did what we often do, and made clear that we don't have any particular insight, which means we're going just based on our general knowledge of politics. Note the repeated use of the word "assume" in the first version, and the even more direct "We can hardly claim to know the demographics of that district." What we did not know, until we were deluged with e-mails yesterday, is that the race has actually been polled several times. We didn't even look for the polls, because: (1) House races usually aren't polled during the primary; (2) Even if they are polled, the polls can be hard to find and (3) Even if they are polled, and you can find the polls, the polls tend to be few in number or of low quality, and so can't be relied upon.

So, why is this race an exception to the general rule of "House primaries don't get polled much?" There are, it appears, two answers to that. The first is that this district is in San Francisco, and San Francisco has a very dialed-in population, when it comes to politics, and a well-funded newspaper. The second is that the three frontrunners are all progressives, and #2 and #3 (Chan and Chakrabarti, in some order) are trying to make sure they advance to the general. So, each campaign has released several polls meant to demonstrate that its candidate is the true second-place candidate.

There have been five polls released since the start of April. Here are the two that are not partisan:

And now, the three that are partisan:

Based on this data, we think two conclusions are warranted. First, Wiener is clearly going to advance (as we already noted). And, by the way, it's a federal election, and so by law cannot be decided before Election Day in November. The L.A. mayoral race, which will be held on the same day as this primary, could end on that day if Mayor Karen Bass (D), or any other candidate, clears 50% + 1 vote. But even if Wiener gets above 50% in the CA-11 primary, it doesn't matter. He'll still have to win again in November if he wants to go to Washington.

The second conclusion is that Chan appears to be surging, and her new support is coming out of Chakrabarti's hide. The non-partisan poll from Sextant, and the two partisan polls from EMC/Lake Research, are all a month newer than the two remaining polls. And over the timespan bookended by the three recent polls and two old polls, Wiener has stayed pretty steady (around 40%), Chan has jumped from around 10% to around 20%, and Chakrabarti has dropped from around 27.5% to around 20%. And now, Chan has Pelosi behind her.

What it all means is that, even with data in hand, we see no reason to revise our original conclusion. The general election matchup is likely going to be Wiener vs. Chan. We'll keep an eye out for polls of the race taken now that Pelosi has waded in. We are also happy to have a heads-up from readers who encounter such polls, at comments@electoral-vote.com.

As to the general election, California's wonky system means the crystal ball is murky. By all indications, all three of the folks who will, or might, advance to the general are pretty lefty. Wiener's and Chan's websites both make a point of identifying the respective candidates as progressives, and while Chakrabarti's doesn't do that, his list of policy positions could very well have been written by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Given that there does not appear to be a lot of daylight between them on policy, the factors most likely to decide the race are these:

• Pelosi: Nancy Pelosi has a vast political network and a vast fundraising network. We don't know exactly how "all-in" she is when it comes to this race, but there aren't too many people who could get Barack Obama on the phone to get him to make a few campaign appearances, or who could get George Lucas on the phone to arrange for a $5,000/plate fundraiser. If Pelosi decides to roll her sleeves up and get involved, she could be the X-factor, all by herself.
  
  Of course, it is true that this is a "throw the bums out" kind of year, and being the preferred candidate of an entrenched member of the Democratic elite could be a liability rather than an advantage. But we doubt it. Pelosi is not trying to hold on herself; she's doing exactly what (younger) Democrats want, and moving aside for a new generation. Plus, you don't get elected as many times as she has without being fairly popular.
  
  
• Lesser of Two Evils: Staying with Pelosi for a moment, nobody would confuse her with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Pelosi is fairly lefty, but she's a center-left pragmatist, not a far-left progressive. In her district, as we have written before, the blue-ness is wide (D+36) but it's not necessarily deep. In particular, Asian Americans are often left, but not far left. It is possible that many voters in the district will not especially like any of the three candidates, and will vote for the one they perceive to be most moderate. Wiener looks to be the poster child for San Francisco progressivism, having used his position (state senator) to demonstrate support for a number of pretty lefty causes. Or, to put it another way, the things that you have to say to get to a very comfortable lead in a Democratic primary are not always the best things to have said once the general rolls around.
  
  
• Money: If Chakrabarti makes it, he will have the upper hand here, big-time, as he is a tech millionaire (net worth of $160 million or so) who can self-fund. If he doesn't make it, then... maybe the Pelosi money machine will be the game-changer here.
  
  
• Identity Politics: The reader we allude to above can say that demographics don't matter, but that does not make it so. Demographics tend to be more important in lower-tier races that don't get as much attention (House races, for example, as compared to presidential races). And they tend to be more important when people are searching for a differentiator between candidates who are pretty similar on policy. We stand by our view that it matters that the district is very Asian, since very often, ethnic communities are not only a source of votes, but also donations, door-knockers, etc. Oh, and if you listen to Chan speak, you can detect a slight accent. Very relevant to this, we would say, is a fact we've passed along before: While he was governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger worked with an accent coach each week, so as to make sure... his Austrian accent did not fade too much. A clever fellow, and a natural politician, Schwarzenegger realized that the subtext of the accent, in a state full of immigrants, is "I am one of you."
  
  Chakrabarti could also benefit from having Asian heritage, although there are more Chinese and Taiwanese people in the district than there are Indians. He does not have an accent, by the way.
  
  Wiener has an identity politics angle too, as he is gay, and would (apparently) be the first openly gay Californian elected to Congress. San Francisco's famous gay enclave, The Castro, is in SF-11. But even so, there are still considerably more Asian people in CA-11 than there are gay people (and, of course, some residents are gay AND Asian).
  
  
• Campaigning: Once again, we don't have much direct information about these people or their campaign styles. However, we did watch a few speeches/interviews with each of them. Chakrabarti is clearly most comfortable in front of a camera, which isn't surprising given that he's basically a salesman. Chan is next, and again, don't sleep on that accent. Wiener's in third; he's a pretty average public speaker, and a little bit stiff. That said, he appears to be fairly tall, and tall helps in politics.

Yesterday, our best guess was that Chan would be the favorite to win the seat. We'll withdraw that, if for no other reason that "person who WILL advance to the general" is a better bet than "person who MAY advance to the general." But, given the respective advantages that Chan and Chakrabarti bring to the table, we think that the general is something close to a coin flip. Yes, Wiener has a lead in early polling, but 10 points or so is not massive, and you just can't know how things will shake out once the voters for all the losing candidates are redistributed.

We are going to stop there for today. Given the end of the school year, and the fact that he's going to have to cover while (V) travels next week, (Z) could use a little bit of a breather. Normal order next weekend which means, by the way, it's time again for non-politics questions. Send 'em in to questions@electoral-vote.com. (Z)