Early voting has started. Most minds are made up. It’s too late for major change.
Republicans Need a Major Polling Failure
Carl Rove, writing for the Wall Street Journal reports Republicans Pray for a Polling Failure
In every election, a moment comes when things lock in. There’s money for only one more set of messages. Only enough volunteers to get out only so many voters. No time to try something new. With less than four weeks to go, many campaigns are likely at that point.
The Wesleyan study finds that 36% of pro-Democratic Senate ads mention business (not in a positive light), 35.7% the cost of living, 33.8% healthcare, 29.1% ethics and scandals, and 25.3% energy (both prices and climate). Since a single ad may mention several topics, these numbers add up to more than 100%.
Democrats clearly remember James Carville’s 1992 mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid and don’t forget healthcare.” They hope President Trump’s poor ratings on inflation give them the win on economic issues generally, despite a strong stock market, stable job numbers and healthy growth.
By contrast, 46.1% of pro-Republican Senate ads mention taxes, 19.9% the cost of living, 18.1% transgenderism, 15.1% immigration and 14.4% crime. The GOP clearly devotes less attention to the economy and more to cultural issues. But immigration and crime may be yesterday’s news, especially since the border is closed and crime is down. Voters tend to pocket success and focus on what’s bothering them.
The president’s political-action committee might have waited too long to release its enormous load of cash. Many undecided and swing voters could have decided before Labor Day, making movement difficult in September and October. Some always wait until closer to the election. But will there be enough for Republicans to cut their losses? Only time will tell.
What about the polls? Republicans believe they are biased in favor of Democrats. One of the best GOP polling minds, Patrick Ruffini, examined this question, studying 3,312 polls from the last four elections. He found 73% of these overstated Democratic performance compared with the actual results.
Mr. Ruffini also examined the most competitive races during this period, those with 30 or more polls. At this point in the cycle, these polls were 7 points more Democratic than the outcome. The redder the state, the more polls overstated the Democratic candidate’s numbers.
If this pattern holds this year, then virtually every battleground Senate race is within the margin of error today, exaggerating the current strength of Democratic candidates. Some who look today like possible winners will lose if the pattern holds. Still, how this plays out is up in the air. “Each cycle has the potential to behave differently,” Mr. Ruffini acknowledges. Maybe this is that cycle. Or maybe not.
Republicans can only hope the polls are off, debates go well, their money and message keep down their losses, and any October surprise sprung by America’s adversaries fails. It’s nail-biting time for everyone, especially Republicans.
Polling Errors Go Both Ways
There’s always hope, but polling errors go both ways, especially midterms.
From where we are today, if the polling errors are biased Republican, we are discussing Democrats winning a Senate race in Nebraska and the Texas Governorship.
I am open to the completely unexpected and not mentioned elsewhere.
And that would be Democrats outperformance in Texas and Kansas but underperformance in Michigan and Maine.
In such a scenario it would be a repudiation of extreme candidates in both parities.
Regardless, I am sure there are going to be surprises in many individual races.
Odds Stacked in Democrats’ Favor
The one thing Democrats have in their favor is Trump. He keeps sticking his foot in his mouth, making unforced error after error. That is potentially enough to cost Republicans Texas and Ohio.
I am starting to to think Texas is a total lost cause for Republicans. If so, holding on to the Senate will be extremely difficult.
The odds seem stacked in Democrats’ favor but election day voters will decide, not the polls.
Related Posts
October 3, 2026: MAGA Is Overrun by Scandals, Insane Nonsense, and Infighting
It’s been a very bad week for MAGA.
October 5, 2026: If the Polls Are Correct, Democrats Will Win the Kansas Senate Race
A major upset is in play.
October 6, 2026: Cook Political “Senate Majority is Squarely in Democrats’ Sights”
Cook Political shifts 3 Senate ratings towards Democrats.
When the Cook Political base case is Democrats +2 in the Senate, you know it looks bad for Republicans.
How bad is the only real question at this point.
That is precisely the Crux of the matter! Polling like with Kamala, was so far off base, she was not even close to a win. In fact, she was never anywhere even remotely close to getting elected.
If it wasn’t for the Fake Polls, she probably would have been pulled much, much sooner. She would have been rightfully deemed incompetent, as everything eventually pointed out.
This is an extremely similar take, with nearly all polll’s for the Dems being fake, and misleading, as they desperately try to fake the public into a horrible choice for them and America.
The Dems will not take the Senate, and not even close. They will do poorly in the elections, and blame it all on Trump as they do for everything that isn’t as it appears, that they are trying so desperately hard to convey.
This race was over awhile ago, and we are just seeing the remnants of what little is left for the Dems false flag. Go home and await 4 more years, and get crushed once again… These are not the droids that we are looking for, and they will be flushed appropriately away soon enough.
It’s true the polls can be biased. If you remember the blue wave expected in 2020 it didn’t manifest quite as strongly, despite the mess the economy and public health was in (vaccines were only announced right after the results). So, we might see a repeat of this unless a huge event happens like a market crash.
Texas and Michigan are special cases. Paxton is a terrible candidate with too much baggage, so my bet is he will lose that race. In Michigan, Abdul Al-Sayed is just a too Arabic sounding name for boomers, so he will probably lose because of that.
The only “poll” I need is Mishtalk.
During the last election cycle there were dozens of commenters bashing Biden and praising Trump. Lots of hope on Trump as the “savior” for tools & fools that became suckers and losers.
And what do we have today? Aside from “Stu” and a guy named “Jeff Larry” who came to defend Trump in the post below, everyone now seems to be a “former republican” or voting straight ticket democrat. No one dares comes to defend Trump’s stupid disastrous record, not even good old Doug78, who thought Trump would bring about the new Golden Age and the war in Iran would be over in a few days.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/trump-says-let-them-iran-take-out-los-angeles-or-san-diego/
So who needs polls? Do you hear your friends, family, neighbors talking about how awesome the economy is with all the ongoing foreclosures, wage stagnation, high cost of groceries, utilities, fuel/energy, insurance, property taxes, etc?
But in all of this, the hope now is that democan’ts are going to save people. Spoiler alert! They will democan’t. They aren’t going to do squat except dog & pony show impeachment hearings, maybe throwing Hillbilly Hegseth out of office or put in jail.
So where does that leave the suckers and losers? Well, sucking and losing if you don’t have a better strategy.
In the meantime….
Do worry, Trump, Walrus, GOP, and democrats will find a way to make things even worse.™
Don’t forget Marshall Law
Or Marital Law.
However Mish what we can not factor is how much pressure President Trump is going to put on the scales in order to tilt the results in favour of the Republican party.
Remember January 6? That was the dumbest “coup” Trump could muster up under the best of conditions. Anyone that thinks he will do anything better than that now that he’s much older, more demented and wearing bigger diapers needs to get their head examined.
Americans getting crushed by Trump’s stupidity, next up are pitch forks and torches in the form of guns and maltov cocktails.
You may be overlooking the possibility of shenanigans?!