The polls currently show Democrats may be on the verge of an historic blowout. President Donald Trump has the lowest approval ratings of his two terms in office and threatens to be a drag on most Republicans on the ballot. Democrats are in a strong position to snag a majority in the House and the Senate is still in play, but ideological fractures and a party brand that’s in the gutter stand to undermine their showing. Republicans, meanwhile, are on track to outspend Democrats in some pivotal races.
It’s been the drumbeat of the GOP talking-head circuit in recent weeks, as party leaders try to buck up a decidedly unenthusiastic base with talk of rigged surveys that overcount Democratic voters. That enthusiasm gap is quantifiable; about three-quarters of Democratic voters say voting this year is “extremely” important while roughly 6 in 10 Republicans say the same, according to Associated Press polling.
And yet, there is some truth to the notion that pollsters have trouble with Republicans, who are more likely to ignore pollsters’ calls or even mislead them. Past pre-election surveys have repeatedly over-hyped Democrats’ chances of winning. In the last three presidential races, the election results underestimated Trump’s strength heading into Election Day. Republicans are emphasizing that trend, even though similar errors don’t usually occur in midterm election years.
“Let’s ask Hillary Clinton how fake the fake polls are. We don’t pay those polls any mind,” rapper Nicki Minaj recently said aboard Air Force One in a video clip posted by a senior White House official. “Obviously, they are to deter our voters from going out and casting their vote.”
The polls have been pretty accurate in recent midterm elections, and when they’ve been off, it hasn’t always been in Democrats’ favor. In 2022, Democrats narrowly outperformed expectations, leading to a Red Wave that proved smaller than Republicans had hoped. While that was portrayed as a big polling miss by some, in reality, the polls were largely on track, despite some regional exceptions.
A big reason why polls are more accurate in midterm elections is because figuring out who is most likely to make it to the polls is less of a challenge for pollsters. In off-year, low-turnout elections, politics doesn't dominate the zeitgeist. “SNL isn’t opening with a skit on the Nebraska Senate race,” another Democratic strategist says. In other words, it’s easier to pinpoint those voters who are dialed into an election when the White House isn’t in play. After all, many people can’t even name their member of Congress, let alone have a strong opinion on them. As much as Trump keeps saying he’s on the ballot this fall, he objectively is not.
While Republicans insist polls are underestimating their support, their allocation of resources suggests they believe what the polls in key battlegrounds are telling them. For instance, as polls showed Democrat Roy Cooper well ahead of Republican Michael Whatley in North Carolina’s Senate race, Republicans largely pulled their funding, a clear sign they believed that Cooper’s victory is all but assured.
But the current environment remains unsettled at best. How else to explain that red states like Texas, Iowa, and even Kansas may actually elect a Democrat to the U.S. Senate? Even so, Republicans are dismissing polling trends in many battlegrounds, and instead citing selected polls that show them still in contention or at least within the margin of sampling error.
Nationally, the generic ballot certainly favors Democrats and Trump is undeniably a drag on Republicans who have to stand with their party’s leader or face his wrath. Some Republican nominees have turned out to be lackluster and underperforming national party leaders’ expectations. Others, such as Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio’s race for Governor, have stepped in it and seem unable to clean their shoes. (So badly did a Ramaswamy attack ad backfire, the non-partisan Cook Political Report last week moved that race from a “Toss Up” to “Lean Democrat.”)
We’re on the verge of taking back control of the House,” Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said over the weekend. But first, Democrats understand, they have to show up and not take the polling as permission to stay home on Election Day.
That’s not to say Democrats are fielding an immaculate set of candidates. A misfire in Maine’s Senate race forced the party to swap candidates after the nomination had seemingly been settled. National Democrats didn’t get their favored candidate in Michigan’s Senate race either. The polling in both states shows tighter contests than Democrats had hoped for.
Still, there’s no bigger megaphone in politics right now than Trump, and he is barnstorming the map trying to turn out his people, the folks who are widely understood to eschew pollsters’ calls. While Trump appears to be a drag on the national ticket, he still is popular with his base. A CNBC poll released Monday shows the President with an 82% approval rating among Republicans and at 90% among those who identify with the MAGA movement. Those are numbers that has Republicans praying at least that poll is correct.
