Post #45

Hello, hello! It’s good to be back. The general election is six weeks away — so here’s the plan. Every Tuesday leading up to Nov. 8, we’ll send you a recap of the most important story affecting the midterm landscape. Let’s start with a question that’s hanging over every midterms convo: Are the polls going to be wrong — again? Democratic candidates this year are running way ahead of expectations, according to recent polls. But, let’s put this into context. In 2016, polling was basically a failure. Things got a lot better in 2018. Then came 2020, where polling was off again. Way off. There’s no definitive explanation of exactly what went wrong. But pollsters mostly agree that in 2016 and 2020, they didn’t survey enough Trump voters. Trump isn’t running in the midterms though so there’s a camp of pollsters who hope that “the problems of underestimating Republicans’ vote share will disappear with him,” writes Steve Shepard, our senior elections editor and chief polling analyst. Polling experts have made some changes to avert another 2020-style miss. But there’s fear that those changes — while on the right track — may still not be enough to accurately predict election outcomes. Check out Steve's deep dive into the issue.