MOScout Daily Update: COVID Flare Ups - Big Checks - Haas DMs and more...

COVID Flares Up

New fears are rising that the coronavirus is spreading more rapidly in new places in Missouri.

·         Joplin Globe reports that “Joplin ranked first in the nation for average daily growth rate of COVID-19 cases for the past seven days, according to the Dartmouth project, which showed an 11.9% growth rate for the region….”

·         Rudi Keller tweets about a spike in McDonald County… “@mcdonaldhealth is reporting that county is at 434 cases -- 155% more than state report showed Saturday”

·         Post-Dispatch reports: “Missouri reported 413 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, up from the 389 reported on Saturday and more than 60% higher than the average daily increase last week…  The large increase in southwest Missouri continued the recent trend where the bulk of new cases in the state are occurring outside the state’s largest metro areas. On Sunday, the Kansas City and St. Louis regions reported only 49 of the 413 new infections….”

The state has been increasing testing, and some will say that the uptick in cases is simply a result of this.  Keep an eye on hospitalizations as the truest indicator of whether things are heading south.  See the dashboard here.

What It Means

It’s hard to imagine that the state would revert to lockdown mode, but there may be some tightening of restrictions in some regions if the coronavirus seems to be flaring up.

·         The most likely impact will be to dampen the economic recovery.  If folks are concerned about their health and safety, they won’t resume their previously normal economic lives.  If business owners feel the future is still uncertain, they’ll delay investments or hiring.

Weekend Checks

Primary elections are six weeks away, the final money push is happening.  More big checks came in over the weekend…

·         Another $150K from the Herzog companies to a PAC, American Democracy Alliance - Ridgely PAC.  They’d sent $150K to a different (but similar) PAC last week.  Keep your eyes on this and see where it ends up.

·         The pro-MedEx campaign committee, Missourians for Healthcare, recorded another $500K from the Missouri Hospital Association.

·         The pro-Robert Ross PAC, Team Robert, received $20K from Grow Missouri, a PAC with ties to Pelopidas.

·         Rex Sinquefield sent $100K to the HRCC and $50K to the pro-Rob Vescovo PAC, Mighty Missouri.

·         Finally, the conservative caucus’ CL PAC sent $25K to Patriot PAC.  I don’t have Patriot PAC on my list yet.

Senate 5: Haas’ Creepy DMs

Rachel Gonzalez shared some DMs from Senate 5 Dem candidate Bill Haas on Twitter. See it here.   She was creeped out: I am 21 - he is 58.

This doesn’t appear to be his foray into this kind of behavior. 

The Missouri Democratic Party called for Haas to discontinue his campaign immediately.  See it here.

Dems Ding Parson For Lack of Appts

Statement from Minority Leader Crystal Quade: “Nearly two weeks ago we implored the governor to demonstrate leadership to end police brutality and restore trust in law enforcement. Among so many policy issues, with the need for better training against the unwarranted use of violence and racially biased practices at the forefront, we also urged him to make the appointments necessary to bring the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission to full strength. With eight of its 11 slots either vacant or held by people serving on long-expired terms, the POST Commission has been on autopilot for years. This is not acceptable. With the governor’s appointments today, it’s two down, six to go. He must now move quickly to fill the remaining slots and take other the decisive actions needed to end systemic failures in our criminal justice system. Ignoring the problem is no longer an option.”

538 Changes

Widely-watched 538 has made some changes to its polling formula, at least in part due to their 2018 misreading of the Missouri Senate race.  See it here.

I’ll skip the gory details, but if you’re not careful, what can wind up happening is that your averages become anchored to prolific pollsters that poll across many states,11 and pollsters that focus on just one or a handful of states end up having their numbers adjusted toward these more prolific pollsters. This is a problem because a lot of the information we gain from local pollsters is lost in this process, and pollsters that survey just one state or one region often do a really good job of it.

For example, a lot of Missouri-specific pollsters (correctly, it turned out) had Republican Josh Hawley ahead of Democrat Claire McCaskill in that state’s U.S. Senate race in 2018 while other pollsters (such as Marist College) that conduct polls in many states had McCaskill leading. Our house effects adjustment ended up shifting all the local polls toward McCaskill, putting her ahead in our average when a straight average would have shown Hawley ahead … and Hawley eventually won by 6 percentage points.

eMailbag on Biden-Trump Poll

Regarding your latest statewide Trump v. Biden poll…I don’t recall a single 2016 poll having Trump up more than 8-10 points, max. Ever.  Trump won Missouri by more than 19 points.  Calling that a huge miss would be an epic understatement.  I have seen nothing to suggest that 2020 polling is more accurate. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.   So start adding a margin of error of +/- 10 points to all your polling from here on out…

[MOScout’s polling showed Trump with 10+ margin repeatedly.  And Trump won Missouri by a little less than 19.]

eMailbag on Senate 23

Eigel has had one election a whole lot of money and 4 years to build his brand yet has only 33%... For an incumbent in St. Charles to vote against one of its largest employers (GM)… he may have a harder campaign than once thought.

I am not sure I have seen an incumbent (Eigel) with that low of numbers in a primary race. If Wulff has any money, Eigel would have his hands full.  Fortunately for Eigel, he has more than one opponent. 

eMailbag on Parson, Kehoe MONA Vote

But then they were on the wrong side of history when they flipped their votes back the next time it came to the floor…

New Committees

Mark Bartley formed an exemption committee to run for House 159 as a Republican. - Active

Together KC was formed.  It’s a PAC. Its treasurer is John P McGurk.

Birthdays

Happy birthday to Margo McNeil and Ann Auer.