The U.S. war with Iran, launched by Trump, was a major factor propelling the unenviable ratings. The conflict went unresolved while fuel prices surged, bringing pain to consumers.
Those and other problems prompted polling analyst Nate Silver to write that Trump “almost seems to have a death wish in these midterms. And the one superpower he has — turning out low-propensity voters in presidential years, the sorts of voters who apparently are often missed by pollsters — has never really worked when Trump himself wasn’t on the ballot.”
It didn’t work this time, either, even though throughout the campaign Trump encouraged supporters to pretend his name was on the ballot and turn out to vote.
Few polling misses
When examined closely, the polls delivered some disagreement in the days before the election. Pollsters offered ranges that, in some races, were sizable.
For example, was Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton up by 1 percentage point in Texas late in the campaign, or was he down 7 points? Paxton lost by double digits to Democrat James Talarico, a margin that no pollster anticipated.
Similarly, was long-serving Republican Sen. Susan Collins ahead by 2 points in Maine or was she losing by 9 points? The outcome was closer to the latter reading, with Democrat Troy Jackson winning by more than 6 points.
In Minnesota, was Democratic Senate candidate Peggy Flanagan up by 14 points, or by just 2 points? With most votes counted by the day after the election, Flanagan’s margin of victory was about 10 points.
Such polling gaps in high-profile races offer a reminder to not focus on any single survey but, instead, to consider overall polling averages, which tend to remove or reduce the effects of outliers.
None of this necessarily is to declare that pollsters have resolved their persistent problems in sampling, especially in interviewing hard-to-reach voters. But big polling misses like that in the Texas governor’s race — where Democrat Gina Hinojosa won by double digits, although polls had shown Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ahead by a few points — were few this election cycle.
Meanwhile, the electorate’s broad inclinations were plainly if not precisely depicted.
That outcome has to be heartening for pollsters, an often-beleaguered and much-criticized cohort.
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