Democrats did better than expected in Michigan, Minnesota, and Montana — but almost certainly all within any margin of error. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire did best of all of the Democrats.
Republicans in every other race outperformed. Even in New Jersey, where Cory Booker (D) walked to reelection, he didn’t do as well as polling would have predicted. In fact, as the dotted red line shows, Republicans did better against the polling average the better they did in their races.
Politicians often claim the polls are wrong when they’re on the brink of defeat. In this case, the polls largely predicted the correct winners, but — with select exceptions like the Des Moines Register poll last weekend that showed Joni Ernst (R) ahead by as wide a margin as occurred — the scale of the victories was way off.
