Midterms: Will the polls be wrong again?
As the midterms loom, a nagging question is taking center stage, said Steven Shepard in Politico: Can the polls be trusted? Recent polls in key races have shown Democrats “running stronger than once expected,” boosting their hopes of holding the Senate and possibly even the House in a year when historical trends and President Biden’s mediocre approval ratings suggested major GOP gains. But since Donald Trump stunned the political establishment with an upset win in 2016, polls have “consistently understated support for Republican candidates.” It happened again in 2020, when both national and state polls overestimated Democratic results by 4 to 5 points. Embarrassed pollsters have been “tweaking their methods” to try to sample more working-class, Republican voters. But “an easy fix has proven elusive,” leaving many wondering whether Democrats’ improved prospects are a mirage.
“The warning signs are flashing again,” said Nate Cohn in The New York Times. Democratic Senate candidates are “outrunning expectations” in the places where polls most undercounted Trump support in 2016 and 2020. A prime example is Wisconsin, where polls showing incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson struggling have exceeded Democrats’ “wildest expectations.” In 2020, polls overestimated Biden’s Wisconsin margin by 8 points. Polls show a surprisingly tight Senate race in Ohio, a “solidly Republican” state where Trump won resoundingly twice, said Mark Weaver in The Washington Post. The reason for such polling bias is fairly obvious: Trump voters distrust pollsters and the media, “and simply won’t participate, out of protest or paranoia.”
Overall, the response rates to polls are in steep decline, said Nate Silver in FiveThirtyEight. So it’s harder for pollsters to reach an accurate cross section of voters. But it’s a mistake to presume current polls are biased toward Democrats. Evidence shows that polling “bias is unpredictable”—and assumptions about which party is favored “are often wrong.” In several recent races, Democrats have actually outperformed their poll numbers— such as an August special House election in New York where Democrat Pat Ryan won despite polls showing him as many as 14 points behind. Lately, Democrats have been on a “winning streak,” with gas prices falling, Biden’s approval rate rising, and abortion bans galvanizing liberal voters. My advice: “Prepare for the polls to be wrong—in either direction.”