What the Polls Keep Missing in the Midterm Elections
There are multiple reasons why surveys have had a hard time capturing the success of this year’s crop of insurgent Democrats.
The summer of 2018 has been full of progressive-insurgent wins—wins that have been pretty shocking for anyone relying exclusively on poll numbers to make predictions. No poll showed Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley ahead in her primary challenge to Representative Mike Capuano of Massachusetts until she won last Tuesday by 18 points. The Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum was polling third or fourth out of five Democratic candidates before he defeated his opponents by a margin of three points. Internal polling showed Representative Joe Crowley with a 36-point lead over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who ended up winning in New York’s Fourteenth District by 14 points.
As the last
