Midterm Polls Undershot Democrats by 4 Points as Turnout Models Missed 2026 Wave
Updated
Updated · The Washington Post · Nov 12
Midterm Polls Undershot Democrats by 4 Points as Turnout Models Missed 2026 Wave
3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Nov 12
Summary
About 4 percentage points separated many final midterm polls from Democrats’ actual margins in key November contests, breaking from the relatively solid polling performance in the 2018 and 2022 midterms.
Likely-voter models appear to be the main culprit: pollsters said they overestimated Republican turnout and missed stronger participation from younger, Latino and other irregular Democratic-leaning voters.
A sharp shift among infrequent voters compounded the miss—BlueLabs said they moved from backing Trump by 7-8 points in 2024 to favoring Democrats by 16 points in 2026.
Weighting samples to respondents’ recalled 2024 vote produced mixed results, with some firms saying it improved accuracy in several states while others argued it pulled surveys toward an electorate that never materialized.
Pollsters said a fuller diagnosis will take months, when updated voter files allow them to test whether different turnout screens would have captured the 2026 electorate more accurately.