A Big Polling Miss

“In one important sense, polls got the story of this year’s election right: They showed Democrats winning the House and leading in the race for control of the Senate,” the New York Times reports.

“By another measure, this year’s polls were among the worst in recent memory. When looking across all pollsters, surveys systematically underestimated the support of Democratic candidates, and they did so on a scale that rivaled or even exceeded the heavily criticized misses of 2016 and 2020, when polls underestimated Republicans.”

“Overall, national polls this year underestimated the strength of Democrats by around four percentage points. Across the key Senate races, the polls underestimated Democrats by an even larger five-point miss, compared with an average of about 3.5 points across all Senate races.”