It is difficult not to get caught up in the reporting that shows the Democrats running away with the congressional elections . Polls suggest that Democrats will win the House easily and possibly take the Senate as well. The word on the street increasingly favors Democrats so much so that many voters may believe the election is virtually over. More sober analysis suggests caution, given past performance and the nature of polls.
The Democrat’s Donkey is the elephant in the room. Despite the awful things attributed to Trump and his MAGA followers, the electorate is no more excited about the Democrats than it is the Republicans. And right now we don’t know which way the undecided voters will break.
Polls are a “snapshot in time,” an attempt to measure how people will vote at a specific time. They can’t tell us how people will vote later, and even what they tell us is subject to all sorts of problems which jeopardize their accuracy. The accuracy of a poll is determined by the size of the sample and how it is conducted; people lie to pollsters, and many people won’t participate in polls. There’s also the question of who gets polled: wealthy people, poor people, racial and ethnic minorities or rural and urban people. Late-breaking news might also affect election results.
Polls do not forecast election results. As noted above, they are based on “current data,” not future outcomes. Too often we view polls as forecasting results, but they don’t.
For what it’s worth, I believe the Democrats will easily take the House but will fail to flip the Senate as the Republicans will hold on, if only by virtue of the vice president’s vote. Still, don’t rule out a tsunami for the Democrats if the public anger toward Trump Republicans turns out to be genuinely bipartisan. This is what the polls tell me. Either way, it won’t be a good night for the MAGA crowd.
Tuesday’s election will tell us the truth. Everything else is just guessing.
P. S. The big unknown is what election interference might play during and after the election. The president says he will honor the results if it is an honest election, but we have seen this act before. Elections are only honest if Republicans win.
Does this count as election interference? “The Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sent mass emails praising President Donald Trump to more than 100 million people with online accounts just days before the midterm elections, sparking criticism and accusations of violating the Hatch Act.”