Hey kids, what time is it? It’s prediction time, and just about everyone’s pitching in.
However, not everyone has factored in whether the Great Pollster Reset stage of the midterm cycle has sufficiently corrected for blind spots. The movement of polling toward Republicans has seemed less a recognition of the “known unknowns” than a process of removing thumbs from scales.
The Quinnipiac flip of eight points in the gap had been the worst example of the latter, but the WaPo/ABC poll shift in the last iteration tied it:
49% of registered voters favor the Republican in their congressional district, vs. 48% who favor the Democrat.
That’s down from a seven-point lead for Democrats in the last @ABC News/WaPo poll before the 2018 midterms. https://t.co/OD6HT5ZYyh
— ABC News (@ABC) November 7, 2022
Come on, man. Does anyone — anyone — believe that the midterm cycle has changed eight points in the gap? And why are both Quinnipiac and WaPo/ABC reporting on registered voters rather than likely voters?
Even where the shifts and polling results are more organic, shall we say, they may be missing a bigger picture, inadvertently or otherwise. For one thing, their survey methods may not be capturing a representative sample of the electorate, warns Trafalgar’s Robert Cahaly. The constant attacks on “MAGA” voters by leading Democrats and amplified by the media has “submerged” them into non-response, Cahaly told Maria Bartiromo. That might make a big difference in polling, perhaps as much as five points in some polls:
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS: We spoke yesterday on “Sunday Morning Futures,” where you predicted a red tsunami coming. You said it’s going to be a red wave, but it could be really big. Tell us more.
ROBERT CAHALY: Yeah, really. Part of what’s been going on, this has been a problem ever since Biden made that kind of threatening speech when he said MAGA voters were a threat to the country, was there have been so Republicans that I believe have become “submerged voters.” They’re not putting signs in the yard or stickers on the cars, and they’re not talking to pollsters.
They’re afraid of what that means. They don’t want to be put on a list or targeted. They don’t want to be audited. They’re afraid all this could happen if they participate. They’re telling us, saying, “Nothing against you, but that’s why we’re not doing it.” And reached out to us directly, many, many of them since the speech, and so we don’t know how big this will be because we can’t measure them. But it could be half a point, all the way up to five, I would guess.
That may be more of an anecdotal claim, even though Cahaly has been a very successful and accurate pollster. A few weeks ago, Cahaly discussed how he got more participation in horse-race polling by focusing on just the race and the respondent demographics, keeping calls much shorter than other pollsters. If he’s having trouble getting people to respond even with shorter surveys and getting this kind of feedback, it’s not difficult to figure out that media-commissioned polling will likely miss that segment and a lot more.
We do also have some data on which to rely as well. Almost all of the polling conducted in these midterms has assumed a slight party-ID edge for Democrats, as is normal in American politics. However, Gallup’s gold-standard longitudinal survey on registered-voter party ID now has the GOP up by four points in this cycle, 33/29, and 48/42 when counting leaners among independents. None of the polling has had samples that reflect this environment, and it seems doubtful that any of them modeled a likely-voter turnout to reflect it. That may overlap entirely with Cahaly’s “submerged” voter cohort or only partly, but it does at least provide some corroboration that pollsters are missing a significant part of the electorate.
And that could prove disastrous for pollsters — again — as Nate Silver explained today at FiveThirtyEight:
If Republicans beat their polling averages by, say, 3 percentage points across the board, it would be very unlikely for Democrats to salvage the Senate even if there’s some state-to-state variation. (Perhaps they could hold on in Arizona and New Hampshire, but they’d be considerable underdogs in Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania, where they need to win two out of the three.)
Likewise, if Democrats beat their polls by 3 points across the board, the picture is very rosy for them. In that event, they’d be favorites in Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Arizona and New Hampshire would probably be out of reach for Republicans. But conversely, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin would be in reach for Democrats. The House would also be highly competitive in this circumstance.
It seems pretty clear that no one’s underpolling Democrats, although Silver thinks it’s still a possibility.
Even without factoring in that issue, though, analysts are concluding that Republicans will have a good night on November 8. We’ve covered some of that in our Headlines section today, but it’s worth reviewing here as well before I offer my own prediction. Sabato’s Crystal Ball offers a cautious prediction that nevertheless would leave the GOP in full control of Congress:
— Our final Senate pick is 51-49 Republican, or a net Republican gain of 1 seat.
— Our final House pick is 237-198 Republican, or a net Republican gain of 24 seats.
— Our projected gubernatorial picture is 29-21 Republican, or a net Republican gain of 1 governorship.
There is plenty more at the link, including any number of caveats. They also have a handy chart listing their calls on individual races, the most surprising of which may be pushing the Nevada Senate race back into the “Leans Democratic” column. RCP has Adam Laxalt up by almost three points in their aggregation over incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez-Masto, who hasn’t had a single poll that puts her in the lead outside the margin of error in almost three months.
Henry Olson goes bolder today at the Washington Post:
Washington Post: @henryolsenEPPC 2022 Midterms Forecast
SENATE
Republicans — 54
Democrats — 46✅ GOP Pick Ups: AZ, GA, NV and NH
HOUSE
Republicans — 246
Democrats — 189https://t.co/zoDfjbqZg7 pic.twitter.com/DEgwWtOdmf— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) November 7, 2022
This would be a stunning win, not so much in the House but in the Senate. This seems a bit too optimistic for the upper chamber, even in this political environment. It would certainly be delightful, but this ignores some very tough headwinds for the GOP in Pennsylvania and in New Hampshire, and possibly even in Arizona. Don’t forget that Josh Shapiro will likely dominate the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race, which will offer some coattails for John Fetterman — in the same way Brian Kemp will likely help Herschel Walker close the sale in Georgia. That may be true in New Hampshire for Don Bolduc with Chris Sununu running away with the gubernatorial race there, but New Hampshire voters looove the center, too.
Finally, here’s my prediction: Republicans will control both chambers of Congress, holding 245 seats in the House and 52 seats in the Senate. That will put the 2022 midterm wave at about the same relative amplitude as 2010’s massive reversal, at least in terms of end outcomes. That would actually be better in the Senate races than in 2010, where the big wave still left Harry Reid in charge until 2014’s midterms netted the GOP a surprising eight-seat flip. I’ll cop to hedging my Senate bet a bit, but the House projection fits well within the environment of this election.
I’ll be happy to be proven insufficiently optimistic, of course.
