Is the GOP Doomed... or Is Someone Trying to Depress GOTV With Polls?
As the days head inexorably towards Election Day, I have heard less and less from my usually Nervous Nelly of a Republican buddy, Cameron. This isn’t too surprising, as we have all seen how the CW (conventional wisdom) has swiftly moved towards the belief that “the GOP is Doomed in 2026!” Pressure is something Cameron never handles very well. I suspect he is in his apartment right now, depressed, and hiding under his bedcovers while mumbling to himself about the coming “blue wave.”
The question is, should the rest of the conservative base be as worried?
The public polling has taken a major turn for the worse. The RCP (Real Clear Politics) average has Donald Trump at 39 percent approval, and the generic congressional rating has the GOP at 42 percent. This is similar to George W. Bush’s approval number in 2006, when the GOP lost 30 seats in the House and 6 seats in the Senate. It has also been squarely in the danger zone for elections – below 43 percent – for months.
According to journalist Mark Halperin, the Republican private campaign polling is just as bad. Halperin says what the polls are “saying is, if there’s a Republican who’s within the margin of error, a little ahead or a little behind, they’re going to lose. Because the lack of Republican enthusiasm and the massive Democrat Party enthusiasm and the president’s alienation of voters on the economy and the war, means that Republicans are not going to win a lot of close races.”
This may be true. It also may be that GOP politicos are simply overdosing on their usual pessimism, especially the establishment types. But Halperin is part of Megyn Kelly’s media network, and Kelly has increasingly aligned herself with Tucker Carlson and his antiwar Doomers, and they have made it apparent that they wish for the GOP to lose the elections. So Halperin may just be following the company line. We can’t be sure.
The main argument made against a 2026 “blue wave” is that the current public polling is biased in favor of Democrats. Pollsters are unable, or simply unwilling, to control the proportion of leftist, white, educated Democrats, especially women and the young, who they survey. These voters are not just enthusiastic to vote against “the Devil named Trump”; they are also eager to shout out their hatred of him to anyone who will listen.
But I think you already know that.
This is a repeated problem for the polling industry. As another political journalist I follow, Dave Marcus, writes in an X post, “The pollsters have to know this is their Alamo. If they blow a 5th straight election overestimating Democrats, then they are reduced to “reading entrails” levels of trust.” (For what it is worth, because of his interviews, Marcus thinks the GOP will hold both chambers.)
I would go back even further than Marcus. Since 1996, the MSM has pushed the idea that the Democrats are the favorites for most elections. I suspect it is a combination of their fondest desire, coupled with a blatant attempt to depress Republican turnout for the election.
In 2024, the polling mirage was especially noticeable. As I discussed before, in the presidential race, Kamala Harris jumped into the presidential race after Joe Biden’s withdrawal with a substantial polling lead. Even during the last week, she was still up by a couple of points in the RCP average. But Harris ended up losing the national vote by two points and failing to carry a single one of the seven battleground states, even though she led in the polling for many of them.
In 2026, as we have seen throughout the Democrat primaries, polling continues to over-measure leftist voters. The Senate race in Michigan provides an excellent example. Everybody’s favorite crazed socialist jihadist, Abdul El-Sayed, led his more moderate and pro-Israel Democrat opponent in the primary RCP average by 10.5 points but only won on primary Election Day by a single point. Now, El-Sayed has a 2.7 percent RCP edge over Mike Rogers thanks to almost universal support from the younger, hard left voters, who are least likely to come out in November.
There are other recent indications that the polling may be off. Pew Research reported that there is “growing evidence that Republicans have become slightly less likely than Democrats to take part in polls,” which has prompted pollsters to weigh party affiliation. Also, a battleground survey of competitive races has shown the Democrats up by one point, which may indicate that Democrats are running up the score among their voters in safely Democrat states/districts; in the competitive areas, the GOP voters are more energized. This may also be showing that, as in the past, the redder the area, the more the polls overstated the Democrat. Also, anecdotally, some internal numbers for GOP incumbents are reputedly fine.
Charlie Cook, a longtime election observer, has made it clear that he isn’t “particularly enamored of most of the current polling.”
There are essentially two possibilities for the 2026 election. The first is that it is a midterm election, which usually goes against the sitting president's party, and bigly when that president is unpopular. Although the economy is good – economic growth is rising and unemployment is falling – the perception of it is not, especially because of “affordability.” Also, the war against Iran may have caused many voters to adopt a sour attitude, as lengthy wars are usually unpopular and there was no real attempt by the administration to explain its reasoning. So, the voters might solidly swing against the GOP, with unprecedented Democrat turnout, and a big victory in both chambers.
The second is that despite the polling numbers – which are certainly inflated – the GOP-leaning voters will still come out and vote for the Republicans, because U.S. voters are so polarized and evenly divided, and the Democrats are so radical. The GOP will be less enthusiastic than the Democrats, but an unenthusiastic vote counts identically to an enthusiastic vote. Inflation will not move the voters any more than it did in 2022. And the GOP will be helped by the battlefield that, because of redistricting and the Senate landscape, is heavily tilted in its direction. Plus, the yuge Republican money edge is a factor. So, the GOP might lose much more narrowly in the House and hold onto the Senate.
I think you know which way I am leaning. But I guess “We’ll (Just Have to) See What Happens.”
