For months now, I've been saying Republicans are stronger this year than history, and the polls, suggest they should be. And both are definitely against them. I'm not trying to give anyone false hope, but polls have been wrong enough times, and there are enough signs of Democrat weakness beneath the surface that the blue wave everyone keeps promising deserves far more skepticism than it's getting.
We've seen this movie before.
In 2024, it was easy to see how polls were artificially boosting Kamala Harris. The crosstabs told us that President Donald Trump was making huge gains with black voters, yet the top lines were claiming that Kamala was somehow running ahead at the same time.
I wasn’t then, and still am not, a pollster or expert, but even I knew the math didn’t add up. It wasn’t a feeling or wishful thinking. The numbers just didn’t make sense. Lo and behold, I was right.
Is something similar happening this year? It could be, and the same outlets that spent months forecasting a Republican wipeout have started hedging.
According to a report from the Daily Signal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Newsweek have all run pieces in recent days conceding that the picture is less lopsided than advertised, under headlines like "Democratic Optimism in Six Senate Races May Be a Mirage," "3 Bright Spots for the G.O.P.," and "How Much Can Republicans Outrun Trump's Approval?"
Newsweek even dampened Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) optimism. After listing Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas as states where Democrats appear to hold a polling edge, the outlet added a rather significant caveat.
"But Republicans have outperformed polling averages in many of those same states over the past few elections," Newsweek reported. "Polling errors are not necessarily repeated from cycle to cycle. But a similar pro-Republican polling error this cycle would not bode well for Democrats' chances of flipping the Senate."
That caveat is quite important. Republicans have beaten their poll numbers in recent presidential and midterm elections, and most experts estimate conservatives underpoll by three to five points, which is enough to swing any close race.
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The Times found even more for Democrats to worry about.
Ruth Igielnik wrote late last month that GOP Senate candidates are outrunning Trump's popularity in their states, "sometimes by double digits," and winning over some voters who say they want Democrats to control the chamber. The paper's polling also found that 70% of Republicans consider their party united, while Democrats split roughly in half on the same question about their own. Then there's Rasmussen Reports, which on Monday showed Hispanic voters favoring Republicans 50% to 42%. So much for the claim that Hispanics are abandoning the GOP. Right?
The same survey put the Democrat lead on the generic ballot at 47% to 44%, half of what it was in mid-September. Republican leaders certainly have noticed. "I think we can keep the majority," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told Politico this week. "I think all of these races are margin of error, at least the ones that we have to win. And historically, at least if you look at polls, we tend to outperform them."
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) made a similar case to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on This Week on Capitol Hill after Cook Political Report shifted more seats toward Democrats.
"You know, the polling really is interesting when you dig into it," Scalise said. "You're seeing an undersampling of Republicans, and we're digging into some of these."
He added that Democrats promote rosy polls "because they want to depress conservative voters."
Of course, the warning signs for the GOP are real, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) admitted Tuesday that "this is going to be a very close election." But National Review's Jim Geraghty, who rarely plays the optimist about Republican prospects, explained why Americans should be wary of blue-wave talk, writing that "certain left-of-center media voices always tell them there will be a blue wave every November."
Does this mean Republicans will hold the House and Senate? No, not necessarily. But I think it does tell us that even the media aren't buying the narrative of the inevitable Democrat wave anymore.
