[Vision2020] Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com: 8-9-18: Is Chris Collins Toast?

Thu Aug 9 18:59:33 PDT 2018

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com is one of the more credible Internet
sources
for political analysis, or so I have gathered.  Compare to Alex Jones'
Infowars.com:
A good example of the corrosive influence of the Internet promoting
outrageous conspiracy
propaganda, which influences far too many people.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/

Aug. 9, 2018, at 7:05 AM
Is Chris Collins Toast? How much scandals hurt candidates running for
re-election.

By Nate Silver <https://fivethirtyeight.com/contributors/nate-silver/>

Filed under 2018 Election <https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/2018-election/>

In the era of President Trump, it’s become fashionable to presume that
politicians can do whatever they like and get away with it. But if recent
elections to Congress are any guide, scandals do have large and measurable
effects. So when U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, the Republican from New York’s
27th Congressional District, was arrested on insider trading charges on
Wednesday morning
<https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rep-chris-collins-arrested-insider-trading-charges/story?id=57108196>,
it took a seat that had looked to be fairly safe for Republicans and put it
into the competitive category.

I’m going to be fairly circumspect in this article because I’m knee-deep in
finalizing our House model, and I don’t want to scoop our own forecast. But
one of the things we evaluated in designing that model is the electoral
effects of scandals, based on the data set of scandals
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ksBLxRR3GCZd33IvhkcNqqBd5K8HwlWC7YuAkVmS1lg/edit#gid=0>
put together by my colleague Nathaniel Rakich.1
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-1>

The definition of what constitutes a scandal is inherently subjective, but
Nathaniel’s data set defines it as an accusation of objective wrongdoing
(e.g., breaking the law, having an affair), as opposed to a subjective
controversy, such as when a candidate makes an outlandish comment or
deviates from social norms. As a benchmark, Rep. Jim Jordan’s allegedly
lying about his knowledge of incidents of sexual assault
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/us/politics/jim-jordan-ohio-state-sexual-abuse.html>
toward wrestlers at Ohio State University while he was the coach there
constitutes a scandal while candidate Denver Riggleman’s alleged penchant
for bigfoot-themed pornography
<https://www.vox.com/2018/7/30/17629580/riggleman-cockburn-bigfoot-erotica>
would not. Collins’s arrest by the FBI is unambiguously a scandal.

Below is a list of scandal-plagued incumbents since 1998 who made it to the
general election and faced an opponent from the opposite party.2
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-2>

That is, I exclude cases such as in Louisiana or California where there was
a runoff between two candidates of the same party.

I’ve compared each incumbent’s actual margin of victory or defeat against a
projected margin based on a “fundamentals” model that accounts for: (i) the
incumbent’s previous victory margin,3
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-3>

Previous victory margin is adjusted for the national political environment
at the time. It’s also adjusted to account for whether the candidate was
already an incumbent or instead won an open-seat race or defeated an
incumbent.

(ii) the partisan lean of the district,4
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-4>

Partisan lean is a measure of how blue or red a state or district is in a
neutral political environment; more on this in a moment.

(iii) the generic ballot
<https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/> at
the time of the election, (iv) congressional approval ratings
<https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html>
at the time of the election (which are a good proxy for the overall mood
toward incumbents), and (v) the incumbent’s congressional voting record
(representatives who break with their party more often overperform on
Election Day). This is a slightly pared-down version of what our House
model will look at, but it should be a fairly robust and reliable model.5
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-5>

I deliberately excluded fundraising data and the opponent’s political
experience level, even though our House model will use them, because they
could plausibly be affected by the scandal — a scandal-tinged incumbent
will draw more experienced opposition and may have trouble raising money.

How much do scandals hurt incumbents?

It depends on how competitive the district is
YearDistrictIncumbentProjected Margin Of VictoryActual Margin of Victory or
DefeatNet Effect Of Scandal
1998 GA-6 Newt Gingrich 31.2 41.4 10.2
1998 ID-1 Helen Chenoweth 23.4 10.5 -12.9
1998 IL-6 Henry J. Hyde 32.6 37.2 4.7
1998 IN-6 Dan Burton 51.4 55.3 3.9
2000 GA-7 Bob Barr 21.0 10.5 -10.5
2004 OH-14 Steven C. LaTourette 34.0 25.5 -8.5
2006 MI-14 John Conyers, Jr. 78.1 70.6 -7.5
2006 PA-10 Donald Sherwood 25.1 -5.9 -31.0
2008 FL-16 Tim Mahoney 7.6 -20.2 -27.8
2008 NY-15 Charles B. Rangel 82.4 81.3 -1.2
2010 MA-6 John F. Tierney 22.3 13.9 -8.4
2012 FL-26 David Rivera 12.5 -10.6 -23.2
2012 NY-11 Michael G. Grimm 10.3 5.4 -4.9
2012 TN-4 Scott DesJarlais 24.8 11.5 -13.3
2016 NC-9 Robert Pittenger 27.2 16.4 -10.9
2016 NH-1 Frank C. Guinta 5.4 -1.3 -6.8
2016 TX-27 Blake Farenthold 28.5 23.4 -5.1
Overall average 30.5 21.5 -9.0
Districts less competitive than NY-27 45.7 42.0 -3.7
Districts more competitive than NY-27 19.8 7.1 -12.7

Shaded districts were more competitive than NY-27 based on their partisan
lean.

On average, the scandal-ridden incumbents … won re-election by 21.5
percentage points! But that’s quite a bit worse than their *projected*
margin of victory, which was 30.5 percentage points. The net effect of a
scandal is about 9 points, therefore. (This finding is reasonably
consistent with previous research on the topic
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-electoral-effect-of-sex-scandals/>.)
Fourteen of the 17 incumbents underperformed their projection by at least
some amount, and the three exceptions came a relatively long time ago, in
1998. (There’s no evidence of the effect of scandals decreasing in recent
elections; if anything, it’s increased slightly over the course of the
data.)

Moreover, the effect of scandals is potentially greater in competitive
districts, where the other party has an opportunity to mobilize a real
alternative. Let’s use New York’s 27th Congressional District as a dividing
line, for instance. It has a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean of R +22,
meaning that it’s 22 points more Republican than the country as a whole
based on its voting in recent presidential and state legislative elections.6
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-6>

In a new twist this year, the version of partisan lean we’re using for the
House model accounts for partisanship in state legislative elections as
well as in presidential elections; more about that in the near future.

That type of district is ordinarily quite safe, but is just on the fringe
of what could become competitive if everything breaks right for the
opposing party — for example, in an election in a wave year against a
candidate who just got arrested by the FBI. In districts less competitive
than NY-27, scandals cost the incumbents only 4 percentage points, on
average. But in districts that were as competitive or more competitive than
NY-27, candidates with scandal issues underperformed their fundamentals by
an average of almost *13 points*.

So does that make Collins’s race a toss-up? You could do a little mental
math: If the scandal costs him 13 percentage points, and the national
environment favors Democrats by 6 points
<https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/>, that
could produce a 19-point swing toward Collins’s Democratic opponent, Nate
McMurray — almost enough to offset the strong Republican lean of the
district. But you’d be leaving one thing out: Collins is still an
incumbent, and incumbents usually outperform the partisan lean of their
districts.

In fact, the incumbency bonus in recent elections has been in the very low
double digits — on the order of 12 percentage points.7
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-7>

For instance, you’d expect a Democratic incumbent to win by 15 points in a
D+3 seat in a neutral national environment.

(It used to be quite a bit higher.) That’s just about the same as the
magnitude of the scandal penalty. The typical scandal, therefore,
essentially wipes out a candidate’s incumbency advantage and makes the
district perform similarly to an open-seat race. But it doesn’t necessarily
reverse the advantage. Republicans would be favored to win an open-seat
race in NY-27, even amid a very blue national political environment, so
they’re probably still favored with Collins on the ballot too.

There’s one more complication, however, which is that this data suffers
from survivorship bias <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias>.
The candidates with *really* bad scandals will often retire rather than
seek re-election, or they may lose in their primary. If all scandal-plagued
incumbents were forced to be renominated, we’d probably observe a scandal
penalty even larger than the 10 or 12 points we’re showing here.

But in some ways, Collins and the New York GOP are in a position where
their hand *has* been forced. New York has already held its primary and
Collins is the nominee; the general election is in only three months. He
seems disinclined to bow out
<https://twitter.com/RepChrisCollins/status/1027361629493714949>. And it isn’t
entirely clear
<https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/08/chris-collins-insider-trading-arrest-puts-gop-district-on-midterm-map.html>
whether it would be possible to replace Collins on the ballot even if
Republicans wanted to.8
<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-scandals-hurt-candidates-running-for-re-election/#fn-8>

New York generally has fairly strict laws about removing candidates
<https://twitter.com/JoeCrowleyNY/status/1017408249513955328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1017408740855693314&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2018%2F7%2F12%2F17564576%2Falexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-crowley-twitter-ballot-new-york>
.

This is the type of scandal that might have induced a retirement if it had
occurred a year ago, but the GOP may not have that choice.

The Cook Political Report moved NY-27 from noncompetitive to its “Likely
Republican” category
<https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1027213052578619393> after the news
on Wednesday morning. I might go one step further and put it in the “Lean
Republican” category instead, even though it’s a *really* red district. (It
went for Trump by 25 points in 2016.) Soon, we’ll be able to tell you what
the FiveThirtyEight House model thinks too, so it’s back to work on that.

But in general, Republicans face a very long list of *potentially*
competitive districts — places where Democrats aren’t necessarily favored
at even odds, but have a fighting chance when they have no real business
doing so. That list got one seat longer after Collins’s arrest. Cashing in
a few of those lottery tickets is what might turn a near-miss for the
Democrats into a narrow majority — or a narrow majority into a wave.

*Check out all the **polls*
<https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/?ex_cid=endlink>* we’ve been
collecting ahead of the 2018 midterms.*

Footnotes

   1.

   The definition of what constitutes a scandal is inherently subjective,
   but Nathaniel’s data set defines it as an accusation of objective
   wrongdoing (e.g., breaking the law, having an affair), as opposed to a
   subjective controversy, such as when a candidate makes an outlandish
   comment or deviates from social norms. As a benchmark, Rep. Jim
Jordan’s allegedly
   lying about his knowledge of incidents of sexual assault
   <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/us/politics/jim-jordan-ohio-state-sexual-abuse.html>
   toward wrestlers at Ohio State University while he was the coach there
   constitutes a scandal while candidate Denver Riggleman’s alleged
   penchant for bigfoot-themed pornography
   <https://www.vox.com/2018/7/30/17629580/riggleman-cockburn-bigfoot-erotica>
   would not. Collins’s arrest by the FBI is unambiguously a scandal.
   2.

   That is, I exclude cases such as in Louisiana or California where there
   was a runoff between two candidates of the same party.
   3.

   Previous victory margin is adjusted for the national political
   environment at the time. It’s also adjusted to account for whether the
   candidate was already an incumbent or instead won an open-seat race or
   defeated an incumbent.
   4.

   Partisan lean is a measure of how blue or red a state or district is in
   a neutral political environment; more on this in a moment.
   5.

   I deliberately excluded fundraising data and the opponent’s political
   experience level, even though our House model will use them, because they
   could plausibly be affected by the scandal — a scandal-tinged incumbent
   will draw more experienced opposition and may have trouble raising money.
   6.

   In a new twist this year, the version of partisan lean we’re using for
   the House model accounts for partisanship in state legislative elections as
   well as in presidential elections; more about that in the near future.
   7.

   For instance, you’d expect a Democratic incumbent to win by 15 points in
   a D+3 seat in a neutral national environment.
   8.

   New York generally has fairly strict laws about removing candidates
   <https://twitter.com/JoeCrowleyNY/status/1017408249513955328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1017408740855693314&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2018%2F7%2F12%2F17564576%2Falexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-crowley-twitter-ballot-new-york>
   .

Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.
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