Is Kavanaugh Helping Republicans’ Midterm Chances?

In midterm elections, with different candidates on the ballot in every state and district, it’s rare to see the sort of sharp, turn-on-a-dime shifts in the polls that we frequently saw during the 2016 presidential election, for example. Instead, races are more localized. But the past few weeks — during Republicans’ attempts to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — have felt more like a presidential election, where the news has largely been nationalized.

True to form, there have been some of the same sorts of arguments about the polls that I’m used to in presidential years, with competing narratives that may or may not square with the data. One plausible narrative is that the Kavanaugh hearings are helping to excite Republican voters and reduce the “enthusiasm gap” with Democrats. CONT.

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight