The agitprop media are full of polls and pundits predicting doom for the GOP's hopes to win a majority in the Senate...with an assist from Mitch McConnell.  All of this before Labor Day, the traditional time when American voters start paying attention to a November election.

But if you look beyond the propaganda media, there are definite signs of hope for the GOP, even in states regarded as fairly deep blue.

In Washington State, the Republican nominee for Senate, Tiffany Smiley, is proving a highly attractive and adept contender.  Take a look at the trend in polling, via Real Clear Politics:

Of course, Trafalgar is known as a polling organization that tends to show good results for GOP candidates, but the difference from earlier polls is dramatic.

And when it comes to the quality of the candidate, contra Mitch McConnell, Tiffany Smiley looks very good, indeed.  Check out these three 30-second TV spots:

Tiffany Smiley with her combat veteran husband, who lost his eyesight to a suicide bomber.
YouTube screen grab, CC BY 3.0 license.

Here is a report from a Seattle-area correspondent who must remain anonymous:

I noticed there are no lawn signs in the Seattle area for Murray but there are a few for Smiley, which is quite a departure from the Trump era (Trump signs would be removed within minutes). Smiley doesn't generate the antipathy that Trump did and Murray's attack ads (which were running until about 3 weeks ago but stopped for some reason at least online) tried but failed to define Smiley as a rabid-pro-Trump, pro-covid, pro-school shooting, fascist-insurrectionist.  

Also Murray is not only entirely absent from local and national headlines during her term, but she is so uninspiring that you get the Carter malaise just by looking at her.  Murray only sporadically fights the culture war and when she does it seems awkward and tone-deaf. So resistance libs, who make up 75% of WA's population, aren't motivated to vote Murray.

Update via The Daily Wire.  Murray is not helping herself with this:

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) refused to admit that it was a mistake to keep kids out of schools during the pandemic after a report in The New York Times last week said that the pandemic erased two decades of progress in math and reading for kids across the country.

"New numbers this week show test scores plummeted as children were kept home from school during the pandemic, the largest decline in reading in 30 years and the first decline ever in mathematics," CNN's Dana Bash said. "You're a former schoolteacher yourself. And you chair now one of the most powerful committees in the Senate overseeing health and education."

"Was it a mistake to keep children home for school so long during the pandemic?" Bash asked.

"Dana, this was a decision of local school officials and our scientific experts, trying to get their hands around a pandemic that was killing millions of Americans to protect their children, to protect their staff, to protect their communities," Murray claimed.

The education of voters' children, like inflation, is an issue directly experienced.  Politicians in denial trigger anger and resentment.

Hat tip: Richard Baehr.