November 12, 2021 01:56 PM UTC

"The Big Line" Is not a Poll, and Other Notes

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eli Bremer was a guest on something called “The Richard Randall Show” earlier this week. We’re noting Bremer’s right-wing radio appearance here only because Colorado Pols and “The Big Line” were an early topic during the discussion. We listened to the interview and transcribed the relevant sections below…

During his introduction of Bremer, host Richard Randall opened things up with some bellyaching about “The Big Line,” which he may or may not think represents actual scientific polling results: 

RANDALL: I was doing a little bit of research on you and Greg Lopez, and I got on to “The Big Line” by ColoradoPols.com, and they’re ranking the odds for various races…

…You know, I’m looking at this poll, and it was November 5, and I think it’s B.S. And I think one of the things that I think, a lot of folks on the left, or even left-leaning media do, is that they try to make it sound as though, you know, Greg Lopez doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. This Eli Bremer, hell would have to freeze over before he would ever have a chance against a great Senator like Michael Bennet who has done so much for the State of Colorado and for the nation…they’ve got him at 70%, and then they’ve got you at 20%, and then they have a bunch of other candidates who go from 20, 10, 10, 5…

I think sometimes they do that because they want people to think, these guys have no chance of winning. I’m just going to stay home. Why do I even bother with this stuff? What would you say to somebody who is starting to have that attitude?

First of all, “The Big Line” has been a feature of ColoradoPols.com since our inception in 2004. It is most definitely NOT A POLL, nor have we ever pretended otherwise. Here’s what it has said at the bottom of “The Big Line” for more than a decade:

It is an accurate, if unscientific, look at the races from insider perspectives from both parties. It does NOT reflect who we might like to see win, but reflects who has the best chance to win a General Election based on inside information and our analysis of that information.

“The Big Line” is our analysis of the changing odds of the most prominent races in Colorado each major election cycle. It’s just our opinion.

Love it or hate it, we’re usually correct. History bears this out.

As for Randall’s suggestion that Colorado voters are deciding whether or not to vote every year based on what it says on “The Big Line”… well, that’s probably true.

Also, Greg Lopez absolutely does not have a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected Governor of Colorado.

Let’s continue with the interview…

BREMER: Well, I think it’s…first, you’ve got to remember where it came from. That’s not even left-leaning. That’s a leftist blog website. It’s not a poll — it’s their opinion.

The other thing I think that is really interesting to point out is that in the 2020 election, Republicans did not lose. We won 100% of the, quote, “toss up” congressional seats around the country — one of which was won by my friend Mike Garcia, who’s the first Republican in California to gain a congressional seat in 22 years. He’s a friend and supporter. But that shows us, when 100% of the toss-ups are won by Republicans, that the ratings systems are off. 

My rule of thumb is that the ratings systems are always ticked one to the left. So, if they say it leans Dem, which is where the Colorado Senate is now — I’m not sure where they put the governor — but on the Senate they say it leans Dem…that’s actually probably a toss-up. By the time it’s a toss-up it’s usually a Leans R. 

And then, polling, if you look historically at the Real Clear Politics average, in many cases it’s about 5 points skewed to the left. I think that the polling and the ratings are largely controlled by liberals, and they…you can just look back historically. Don’t take my word for it — look back historically and then adjust in your own mind accordingly. So, take it with a grain of salt.

Kudos to Bremer for pointing out that “The Big Line” is just our opinion of things. The rest of his argument is a bit muddled…

If Republicans won “100%” of the toss-up races for Congress in 2020, then Democrats would not currently have majority control of that chamber. What Bremer probably means to say is that Republicans won 100% of the races that they won.

Actually, what Bremer really means to say is that you shouldn’t pay attention to people, polls, news articles or anything else suggesting that Bremer is not totally awesome and won’t be elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022. We get that Bremer needs to say this in order to keep his campaign afloat, but he’s gonna need a lot more than 5 points to get close to Bennet. Here’s polling data released this month from The Rocky Mountaineer:

And here are Bremer’s favorability numbers:

Speaking of bad numbers, Bremer says this near the end of the interview:

I think there’s 39 [or] 40,000 articles written about me.

Um, not so much. If you Google “Eli Bremer,” the results generate approximately 41,000 results, which is not the same thing as having “40,000 articles written about me.” If you Google “Richard Randall,” you get about 110,000 results; if this were comparable to press coverage, you wouldn’t be asking, Who in the hell is Richard Randall?

It’s Friday afternoon and we don’t have a good way to wrap up this post, so we’ll just stop here.