Republicans worried about the midterm elections are increasingly turning to the same balm: the polls will be wrong.
They’re not suggesting that Republicans will have a good night on Nov. 3 — or that the party will hold the House. But they are clinging to the possibility that this will be a typically bad midterm year, reminiscent of 2022, when polls predicted that Democrats would be bludgeoned, but those predictions came up short.
This has also happened in other cycles, they note. President Donald Trump outperformed final polling averages in all seven swing states in 2024 and also defied national polls in 2016.
This story is based on conversations with more than a dozen people, including veteran GOP operatives, pollsters, strategists working on battleground races and national party officials. Most agreed that the national environment is bad for Republicans and has only gotten worse in recent months. But even a small sampling error, they say, could completely change how election night goes for the GOP.
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