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I am headed to North Carolina for the weekend — soccer, not politics — but will, obviously, stay dialed in with just over two weeks left in the 2026 midterms.
Below I answered a whole bunch of your questions from the week that was. If I didn’t get to your question, make sure to tune in to my “Ask Chris Anything” livestream over on my YouTube channel at 1 pm eastern!
As always, these are real questions from real subscribers to this newsletter.
Q: Could the polling be off? We have seen it in the primaries in this cycle?
A: I think it’s LIKELY the polling will be off. The question is how much is it off by.
Polling is very unlikely to nail exact results in most states. But if it’s directionally correct — polling has James Talarico beating Ken Paxton by three points and Talarico wins by two — that I think that’s no big deal.
The bigger issue to me is if the polling miss is bigger than that and directionally wrong. As in, if polling going into election day has Talarico +3 and Paxton wins by four.
If that happens only in Texas, it can be written off. Mistakes happen! Paxton’s supporters didn’t participate in polls but they did come out and vote. Etc.
If that sort of miss happens in the majority of swing Senate seats (or in the broader House landscape), however, that’s when we have a GIANT problem. And polling would need to be changed in fundamental ways.
Candidly, I don’t expect that to happen. Here’s why: It’s not just polls that show a very good environment for Democrats. Special election results since the start of Donald Trump’s 2nd term have consistently shown over-performance by Democrats. Turnout in Democratic primaries far exceeded turnout in Republican primaries all year.
Could those data points — plus all the polling on the generic ballot and party identification — be wrong? I mean, I guess? But it all being wrong in the same direction — a good year for Democrats, a bad year for Republicans — would be pretty odd.
I made a whole video this week breaking down the “are the polls wrong?” question. Watch it here.
Q: What’s the October Surprise Trump talks about? Will he declare “Mission Accomplished,” and insist gas and food prices will drop “soon”?
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