AEven the American President could not resist making a remark in his first speech after the congressional elections. “If you look at the polls, the overwhelming majority is…” Joe Biden said, then stopped mid-sentence. “I don’t look at them much anymore because I’m not sure how to read them anymore.” He then joked, “And I hope they aren’t sure either.”
Most polls and most of the American media had been predicting a clear victory for the Republicans in the midterm elections for weeks: They would almost certainly win a majority in the House of Representatives, and presumably also the Senate. It is now clear that there was no red wave in America. The Republicans can still win in both chambers of Congress, but they haven’t made the big gains. The only sure lesson so far: no matter what the polls predict, it all comes down to voting.
In recent presidential elections in the United States, polls so often missed crucial trends and overestimated the success of the Democrats that their reputation has suffered. First, in 2016, they named Hillary Clinton as the sure winner against Donald Trump, and four years later they again grossly underestimated Trump’s influence. Despite this, the public, like the media, continues to look to the results of the polls, which are the only clues as to what the American public might think. Otherwise only anecdotal observations remained.
Young people are underrepresented
The polls this year have not only been way off the mark on the balance of power in Congress, but also on what the most important issues are for voters. After the excitement over the Supreme Court’s abortion decision seemed to have subsided in late summer, which had given Democrats an unexpected boost, all polls indicated that inflation and high gas prices would be the biggest influences on Americans’ voting decisions.
In a post-election poll for CNN among voters from both parties, however, the picture was different. Although a third of those surveyed said inflation was the most important factor in their voting decision, just under a third also named the abortion issue. The 2022 congressional election will not go down in history with a red wave, but as a great success for pro-abortion America. In four out of five states, including Republican-dominated Kentucky, voters have voted in referendums against stricter abortion laws. A fifth referendum has not yet been decided in Montana, but with more than 80 percent of the votes counted it looks as if an anti-abortion law will also be rejected there.
Inaccuracies are of course inherent in surveys. Business has also become more difficult because in the elections of recent years only a few percentage points have made the difference. Post-2020, many pollsters argued that Trump’s underestimation was because his supporters were less likely to vote in polls. This could be due to the skepticism about the political establishment and the media that the former president always promotes.
But that doesn’t explain why inflation concerns, voiced primarily by Republicans, carried the upper hand in the polls this year. The Economist reported shortly before the congressional elections that many of the polls immediately before the elections came from companies that are either linked to the Republican party or that systematically prefer Republican candidates.
Another problem that seems to be behind the distorted portrayal of inflation concerns and the abortion issue is that young people are underrepresented in the polls. The Edison Research Group said in a by-election poll Tuesday that young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 were the only group with an overwhelming majority for the Democrats. Some observers suspect that this has to do with the fact that the surveys are still largely conducted via landlines, but young Americans are more likely to be reached via their cell phones. Almost two-thirds of this group voted for Democratic congressional candidates on Tuesday, compared to just one-third for Republicans. President Biden also thanked the young voters on Tuesday, most of whom had voted democratically – “I only heard that. I haven’t seen the numbers yet.”