“Extremely careless.” That phrase from FBI Director James Comey about the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee’s mishandling of classified information was immediately seen as a millstone around the necks of Secretary Hillary Clinton and Democrats up and down the ballot.
However, weeks before Comey’s press conference, the June NBC/WSJ poll, which provides apples-to-apples comparisons going back to the 1990s, poured data-driven cold water on the down-ballot wipeout that has been the stuff of Democrats’ dreams for months.
Polling data is one of several stubborn realities undermining the conventional wisdom that the Republican majority is in more trouble than it would be in any competitive election year.


















