With the midterm election taking place on Tuesday, November 3, new polling from The New York Times is sparking panic in Republicans — and cautious optimism in Democrats.
The Times/Siena poll, released Sunday, shows Democrats leading in all but seven of the key U.S. Senate races.
A Record-Breaking Blue Wave
“The surveys found that Democrats hold sizable leads in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas, which has not elected one since 1932,” noted the Times, pointing to some historic numbers for Democrats in some traditionally red states.
“To win a Senate majority, Democrats need to defend all the seats they currently hold and flip at least four seats that are currently held by Republicans. It has been seen as an uphill battle because many of the seats they need to win are in Republican strongholds,” noted the Times.
“But the new polls found Democratic candidates ahead in five states that now have Republican senators and effectively tied in a sixth,” the Times added. “They hold leads in Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas and a narrow edge in Alaska. They are effectively tied in Iowa.”
As the Times’ polling notes, the Dems’ most commanding lead is in the Michigan Senate race between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers, where El-Sayed is leading by an impressive 11 points.
In addition, a Harvard poll is predicting a 97 percent chance of a Democrat majority in the House of Representatives, and a 78 percent chance of the Dems also taking the Senate in what appears to be a full-throated rejection of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
A Note of Caution for Democrats
Democrats, however, aren’t popping the corks off champagne bottles just yet, with concerns that polling hasn’t accounted for MAGA voters who refuse to talk to pollsters.
“Nate Cohn points out that the Times’ changed its weighing process this year. This is what the new polls would look like with the old weighing process. So they’re already trying to protect against a pro-Dem polling error,” election pundit Nick Field tweeted alongside of adjusted poll numbers taking MAGA voters’ reticence into account.
Regardless of the margin of error, things nevertheless look good for Dems.
“The thing is, at this point, Dems can absorb a modest-sized polling error and win the Senate,” pointed out statistician Nate Silver in an X post. “Not a large one. But they have leads of >=3.0 points in states totaling 5 flips, plus in all their own seats.”
Political commentator Steven Crowder also cast doubt on the Times’ polling, providing alternate numbers that demonstrate much closer races.
However, election analyst Max McCall put things in perspective by writing (via X), “What can you say at this point? This is a tsunami. These could be several points off and it would still be a tsunami. That is, ofc, entirely possible, and the polls could have a huge error. But at some point you gotta grapple with what the data says. And it’s loud and clear.”
So far, reports indicate that a record-breaking 46 million Americans have already cast their votes, setting a new record for advance voting in a midterm election.
New York Times Advance Polling Predicts Massive Blue Wave in Midterms: ‘This Is a Tsunami’