Ed Kilgore: “Fifteen days from the end of the 2026 midterm elections, the big picture is increasingly clear: Despite a Republican-leaning landscape (especially for the U.S. Senate), a blue wave is taking shape.”

“But its height and depth when it comes to the congressional results depend on the outcome of an extraordinary number of very close races that could hinge on late trends and hard-to-predict turnout patterns.”

“Three national polls show President Trump’s approval rating hitting new lows as Democrats lead Republicans by 8 to 10 points ahead of the midterms,” Axios reports.

“Republicans need Trump’s loyalists to turn out, but embracing an unpopular president risks alienating independents they need to win competitive races.”

Nate Cohn: “Are the midterm polls overestimating the Democrats?”

“It’s hard not to wonder. We’ve seen the polls inflate Democrats’ chances many times, but we’ve never seen Democratic candidates doing this well in red states during the Trump era. Recent polls have shown them leading in enough states to take the Senate.”

“Let’s state it plainly: It is absolutely possible that the polls could be overestimating Democrats. Polls are inherently imprecise, subject to many sources of error, and they could be wrong in much the same way they’ve been before.”

“Even so, there is no reason to assume that the polls will systematically overstate the Democrats’ standing as they did in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. In fact, the polls haven’t really done so in midterm or off-year elections during the Trump era, including the 2018 or 2022 midterms. Just last November, the polls actually underestimated Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia — and by a lot.”

NBC News: “Predicting which party will prevail in the midterms isn’t as simple as picking up the phone and asking people how they will vote. About half of eligible voters are expected to turn out on Nov. 3, which means that a significant number of the people we reach in our polls will not vote.”

“Each firm has its own method of determining who is likely to vote, but all likely voter polls rely on two ways to identify that population: letting the voters tell us what they will do, or predicting whether someone will vote based on who they are. Sometimes these two things line up to produce similar outcomes, but this year, they push in opposite directions.”

“Because firms have to decide how to mix these two factors, since neither works perfectly, the results of a likely voter poll are affected by the choices different survey firms make.”

Washington Post: “Democratic voters and activists find themselves in an odd position less than three weeks before elections that they have been anticipating since Donald Trump won the presidency two years ago. They are eagerly consuming each new poll showing their candidates ahead in races in heavily conservative states spanning Texas, Kansas and Alaska, while simultaneously racked with anxiety that these polls — like ones they dared to believe in the past — could be leading them astray.”

”Even former president Barack Obama appears to be stressing, as he provided a reality check about Democrats’ sprawling Senate map at a private fundraiser in Virginia this month.”

A new Gallup poll finds voters trust Democratic Party over Republican Party on the problem they consider most important, 44% to 33%.

Patrick Ruffini: “This measure happens to have an almost perfect track record of predicting election outcomes — more than pre-election horserace polls. It predicted 2016 and 2024. The parties tied in 1980 and the question wasn’t asked in 2000. The last outright miss was 1948.”

FiftyPlusOne: “We do not have nearly as many polls this year as we’ve been accustomed to in past midterm cycles. In many Senate races, we’re practically flying blind, which may mean some surprises in what looks to be a particularly turbulent environment.”

“Republicans once thought tax cuts would save the midterms,” Politico reports.

”But with less than three weeks until Election Day those hopes seem to be coming up short: New results from the Politico Poll show the sweeping tax and domestic policy package rammed through Congress by President Donald Trump and Republicans are not resonating with voters.”

“Republicans don’t trust pollsters anymore. We don’t participate… What they’re trying to do is get us dispirited. They’re trying to discourage turnout.”

— Speaker Mike Johnson, quoted by Punchbowl News.

“A quartet of polls out this week carries a stark message: Americans feel disgruntled, dizzy and down on the man in the White House,” Axios reports.

“The vibes going into the midterms are bleak, with a large majority of voters wanting significant change. But the question remains whether those sentiments will drive them to the polls.”

Mediaite: “With just 19 days to go until the Nov. 3 midterm elections, voters say they’re hungry for ‘substantial change’ — while some are looking for ‘complete and total upheaval,’ according to a new Associated Press-NORC poll.”

“Nearly half of Republicans, or 45%, said they are hoping for ‘substantial change’ in the midterms while 13% chose the ‘complete and total upheaval’ option, the poll found.”

“By comparison, 47% of Dems want substantial change while 50% of that group is looking for upheaval.”

Dan Pfeiffer: “I don’t know a single Democrat—not a political operative, elected official, activist, or Message Box reader—who feels anything but trepidation about the polls. Everyone is so worried about having their hearts broken that if you talk about the unrelenting run of good polls, people around you knock on wood or tell you to lay off the hopium…”

“But here’s the thing: even if Democrats don’t believe the polls, Republicans clearly do. Just follow the money. If you track how the various Republican Super PACs are spending their money, you can see that their polls are showing a big blue wave bordering on a tsunami.”

“Republicans nervous about the midterms are increasingly turning to the same salve: The polling will be wrong,” Politico reports.

”They aren’t suggesting Republicans will have a good night come Nov. 3 — or that the party will hold the House. But they’re clinging to the possibility that it could be a typically bad midterm year reminiscent of 2022, when polls projected Democrats would be pummeled, only for those predictions to fall short.”