What If the Polls Are Right?

Once upon a time, I used to valorize the public act of of voting, everyone voting together on the same day, which at some level I still see as a democratic participatory ideal. But then I switched to Early Voting - easier to do, especially when I lived in Tennessee where one could vote anywhere and I drove to the polling place of my choice. Here in New York, where I would have to walk to my assigned polling place, I have become a confirmed mail-in voter. Accordingly, my midterm ballot is already in the mail. Whatever happens between now and Election Day my vote has been cast. Not that it matters very much in New York City, where the party primary is much more important than the general election.

Outside New York City, however, this seems to be shaping up to be an amazingly important and interesting midterm election, with control of both houses of Congress conceivably in play. If the polls are to be believed, this promises to be a very good election for Democrats. Why and how has this happened, and what might that mean for our future? So in the spirit of election season I am temporarily putting on my former political scientist's hat and playacting as political pundit for the day!

"If the polls are to be believed" is, of course, quite a caveat. Polling is a notoriously imperfect science. At its best, polling is not a prediction of the future but a picture of the present. For all sorts of reasons, even as a picture of the present, a poll's accuracy can be problematic, and polling has perhaps become even more difficult. Because polling can easily tend to overrepresent those who are easier to reach and more willing to participate, many polls may tend to skew Democratic. (In all three of his presidential races, for example, Donald Trump over-performed his pre-election poll numbers.) That said, history and environment both seem to confirm the direction in which the polls are trending.

Historically, the opposition party (the party that lost the presidential election two years previously) tends to gain seats in Congress in the midterms, with only the rarest of exceptions in the modern period. This is, if anything, especially likely when the president is a "lame-duck," even when the president is still personally popular (e.g., Eisenhower in 1958). What political scientists call the "thermostatic theory" of elections proposes that voters act like a household thermostat, shifting their support back and forth and thus normally rewarding the out-party in midterm elections. This is actually quite problematic for democratic governance, since (especially in this contemporary era of political polarization and small congressional majorities) it easily tends to cause gridlock, inhibiting the the effectiveness of the legislative process and further increasing voter disillusionment and cynicism. On the other hand, it can also provide an important check on executive power, something obviously very much needed for democratic governance, particularly at present.

Even more than history, it is the current ambient environment that seems to confirm the overall direction in which the polls are pointing. President Trump has become at present a particularly unpopular "lame-duck." So a serious swing in the Democrats' direction is to be expected. The Republican House majority is so small that even a modest swing in the Democrats' direction would presumably give them the majority. In the not too distant past, midterms saw significant gains in the number of seats held by the opposition party. The radically reduced number of actually competitive seats, thanks to political polarization in the electorate and increasingly effective partisan gerrymandering, make such significant shifts less likely. But in a "wave" year, we may yet expect some surprises.

The Senate may well serve up such a surprise, which would be a most momentous gain for the Democrats. A year ago, hardly anyone would have predicted that the Democrats might also capture control of the Senate. At present, Republicans hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats). A net gain of four seats would be required to bring Democrats to 51 seats, securing a governing majority. (A net gain of five seats would be even safer, given the unpredictability of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.) Given the predominance of states that voted for Trump in 2024 and that have Republican senators in this year's electoral map, winning control of the Senate would presumptively seem to be quite a steep climb for the Democrats. (In the states that went for Trump all three times, Democrats currently have no Senate seats. In the states that Trump lost all three times, Republicans have only one Senate seat, Maine.)

Since then, however, the map of competitive Senate seats has dramatically expanded, presumably as part of a general reaction against President Trump's policies - particularly his tariffs and the Iran War, both of which have contributed to serious inflation, most dramatically higher gas and diesel prices. President Trump won in 2024 in large part because of voters' anger about high prices and Trump's promise to reduce the cost of living. He also promised to end "forever wars." High prices and the war with Iran are dramatic policy failures which cannot be "spun" away or successfully distracted from with increasingly irrelevant "culture war" polemics.

Maine may prove to be an exception - if indeed Susan Collins can successfully localize the election in her favor. More generally, however, politics has largely become nationalized, and local issues may matter less in elections, especially federal elections where control of Congress (and hence a possible check on an increasingly unpopular President) are at issue. "Candidate quality" can still matter, however. Thus, if even long-shot Texas goes Democratic, credit must go obviously to the wider "wave" but also to the evident deficiencies of the Republican Senate candidate and the surprising strengths of the Democratic candidate. Perhaps neither factor would be sufficient without the other, but together the anti-Trump environment and concerns about "candidate quality" may combine to accomplish unexpected results. 

Parenthetically, the Democratic candidate in Texas is a Presbyterian seminarian. The Democratic senatorial candidate in Kansas is a Methodist pastor (pastor of the largest church in the state). This may be a good year for Democratic pastors and seminarians! For too long, the Democrats have been portrayed as the non-religious or irreligious or even anti-religious party. If the Democrats can reclaim some of the religious vote, that would be both good for them and good for the country.

More broadly, another unexpected "candidate quality" problem posed for Republicans by the suddenly expanding map is that candidates who are used to winning in ordinarily "safe" districts may sometimes prove surprisingly ineffective as candidates when faced for the first time with an actually competitive election.

And then there is the "enthusiasm gap." There is evidence that Democrats are much more enthusiastic about voting this year - as measured not just by polls but by turnout in party primaries and special elections. In close races, which most contested races increasingly are, turnout matters, which makes it the most significant remaining imponderable. 

The one area where Republicans do appear to have a definite advantage is money. All things considered, one would always rather have more money than less. However, given the level of political polarization, political advertising probably does not change many minds, although it may help boost base voter turnout. In 2024, Trump won in part because of his success in turning out "low propensity" voters who don't follow politics closely and seldom or never vote, especially in midterms. If last-minute advertising somehow motivates unenthusiastic Republicans and low-propensity voters to show up and vote, that could make a real difference and counteract any predicted Democratic wave.

Money matters also in that how money is spent and where money is spent are indications of how candidates and parties perceive the political environment. The fact that the Republicans are spending serious money in places which in an ordinary year could be counted on as relatively safe suggests significant internal concern on the party's part.

Obviously, all predictions could still prove wrong. Democrats' confidence may prove to be overconfidence. The Republicans might well have a better than expected outcome and over-perform the polls - as did the Democrats in the 2022 midterm. (In that case, even if the Democrats do well, it could be portrayed as a loss.) Whatever happens, we will know soon enough. 

So, supposing the Democrats do win control of the House and probably even the Senate, what then?

I see two looming dangers for the Democrats if the midterms go as well as anticipated. The first, more obvious danger is that they may misinterpret a successful electoral outcome too favorably. That is what President Biden and Democrats allegedly did in 2022. That year the Republicans regained congressional control as expected but demonstrably underperformed. The predicted "red wave" was instead an underwhelming trickle. The Democrats over-performed - perhaps, some argue, in reaction to the Dobbs decision. Whatever the explanation, the vote was almost certainly not an obvious endorsement of the Biden Administration, but that was how Biden and the Democrats apparently interpreted it. That misinterpretation may have contributed to his ill-fated decision to run again. (My guess is that he might have tried to run again anyway, because that is what presidents do. The Democrats' 2022 midterm over-performance may, however, have further muffled voices within the party that might have tried to alter that course.)

Be that as it may, the obvious danger is that the Democrats may interpret a 2026 midterm success too positively, as an endorsement of them, rather than, as it probably should be interpreted, as a protest vote against Trump and, by extension, the Republicans. in other words, a "wave," if there is one, will likely be not so much a "blue" wave as an anti-"red" wave! The Democratic party's "brand" still remains very problematic among many voters. (Hence the phenomenon in a few places of Democrats not even fielding a candidate and instead leaving the opposition role to an "Independent.") The supposed toxicity of the Democratic "brand" in some states remains a reality to be confronted down the road. Meanwhile, the accordingly ambivalent nature of the election's result may remain an abiding challenge for the Democrats, especially if they regain congressional control. Most likely the two years between the midterm and the next presidential election will see lots of Democratic party infighting between its competing factions contending over the fundamental ideological orientation of the party. That may be inevitable, and it may even help to clarify the party's "brand" going forward, but is it likely to improve the party's standing among the voters?

All of which leads to my second concern. If the Democrats do as well as the polls predict, it will presumably be because voters have rejected the status quo and have handed Congress over to the opposition wanting them to do better. But can they? Do they have a coherent enough policy agenda to address voters' real concerns, and can that policy agenda actually be implemented? Will they even try, or will they fritter away their control of congress in intra-party squabbles and endless publicity stunt investigations or (even worse) impeachments? “Don’t be impeaching anybody,” Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois has said. “Let’s just get back to work.” That sounds like good political advice.