(RightIsRight.co) A report has revealed that public opinion poll averages for the US Senate elections in eight battleground states exaggerated the Republican Party’s support when compared with actual midterm election outcomes.
The difference between the polling averages of RealClearPolitics (RCP) and the election results in the eight states ranges from 0.7% to 8.6%, The Wall Street Journal reported.
At the same time, the Democratic Party candidates did an average of three points better than the RCP averages had projected.
“Republicans may have assumed that pollsters, just like the establishment media, were biased against Republicans and would therefore understate GOP support like pollsters have in the past,” Breitbart News commented.
Yet, this election was the other way around: Republican support was exaggerated while Democrat support got understated.
The most significant difference between the polling average and the projected result in the US Senate election was observed in New Hampshire – 8.2 percentage points.
Other key battleground states – Arizona and Pennsylvania – saw discrepancies of 5.3 points and 3.8 points, respectively.
Republican support was also overstated in Wisconsin by 2.6 points, North Carolina by 2.6 points, Georgia by 2.3 points, Ohio by 1.4 points, and Nevada by 0.7 points.
The discrepancy estimates are partly based on projections because the results in Arizona and Nevada are yet to be determined. At the same time, Georgia will hold a runoff to decide on its next US Senator.
To retake the US Senate, the GOP would need to win at least two of the three seats still at stake.
Although Republican support in Senate contests was overstated by polling averages, in the US House of Representatives races, the GOP candidates overperformed compared with the polling averages.
They have raked in almost six million votes more than the Democrats nationwide – 50,113,534 votes (52.3% of the vote) vs. 44,251,768 votes (46.2% of the vote), according to data from the Cook Political Report.
That gave the GOP candidates a lead of 6.1% compared to the 2.5% lead projected by the RCP average.
Nevertheless, even that didn’t create a much anticipated “red wave” expected to flip dozens of Democrat House seats.
The Republicans have so far managed to flip nine seats – and while those may be enough to surpass the 218-seat threshold for a House majority, it remains short of a “red wave.”
In the Tea Party wave of the 2010 midterms, in which the Republicans flipped 63 seats, the GOP candidates won 44,593,666 (51.3%) vs. 38,854,459 votes (44.8%) for the Democrats. However, the Republican Party still failed to retake the US Senate.
What is your opinion? Why are pollsters almost always wrong when it comes to predicting the outcome of elections in the United States? Please share your thoughts by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
Senate poll averages across eight battleground states overstated Republican support heading into the 2022 midterm elections, an examination of projected outcomes and polling shows. https://t.co/8JrA8nE1XM
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) November 10, 2022
