‘Warning Signs are Flashing Again’: NY Times Polling Guru Sounds Alarm For Democrats in Midterms, Says Strong Numbers May Be a ‘Mirage’

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The Democrats have momentum ahead of November. Or do they?

According to New York Times polling guru Nate Cohn — who just published an analysis with the headline “Yes, the Polling Warning Signs Are Flashing Again” — there’s reason for concern.

When 2022 polling is combined with the 2020 polling misses that overstated support for now-President Joe Biden, it paints an ominous picture for the Democrats in the key Senate races such as the ones in Ohio, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin and Florida.

Credit: Screenshot via Nate Cohn

Cohn explained:

Early in the 2020 cycle, we noticed that Joe Biden seemed to be outperforming Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton in the same places where the polls overestimated her four years earlier. That pattern didn’t necessarily mean the polls would be wrong — it could have just reflected Mr. Biden’s promised strength among white working-class voters, for instance — but it was a warning sign.

That warning sign is flashing again: Democratic Senate candidates are outrunning expectations in the same places where the polls overestimated Mr. Biden in 2020 and Mrs. Clinton in 2016.

Credit: Screenshot via Nate Cohn

Cohn blamed the lack of “significant methodological changes” to be behind polling errors in 2020. Additionally, there is “the possibility that the apparent Democratic strength in Wisconsin and elsewhere is a mirage — an artifact of persistent and unaddressed biases in survey research.”

With 2020-like polling error in the Senate races in Nevada and Georgia, showing Democrats barely in the lead, there is a strong chance of the GOP winning back the Senate in which they only need to flip one seat to do so.