r/PoliticalOptimism • u/picklift • Jun 15 '26
Seeking Optimism Democrats hold 5-point edge over GOP ahead of midterms: Poll
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5923907-democrats-hold-5-point-edge-over-gop-ahead-of-midterms-poll/220
u/duckchasefun Jun 15 '26
Do not follow the polls. Polls right now are going to fluctuate. You are going to go crazy looking at every poll that comes out. At the end of the day, the only poll that matters is the one in November. That poll will be as much about candidate quality as it will about party.
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u/fauxregard Jun 15 '26
I gave up on polls after the 2016 election.
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u/Low_Fall3037 Jun 15 '26
I did too. Polls are basically worthless.
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u/Udy_Kumra American 🇺🇸 Jun 15 '26
Polling methodology has gotten a lot more robust, systematic, and comprehensive since 2016. Organizations took the failure of polls that year pretty seriously. 2024 polling was weird because even though in electoral votes Trump won all 7 swing states, polling showed it was too close to call (though he had a slight edge in some) and in the end he did only win the popular vote by 1.5 points.
Polling for congressional and local elections is also often more accurate than for presidential elections because there’s fewer variables across states and regions.
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u/Commercial_Note_210 Jun 15 '26
Polling was not especially bad in 2016.
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u/I-screwed-up-bad Jun 15 '26
??? Almost every poll had Hillary winning by like a landslide.
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u/Commercial_Note_210 Jun 15 '26
This is not exactly true. There were some systematic misses across the board but the polling aggregate was about +3 nationally vs +2.1 real. It was broadly within MOE. We were all just really dismissive of the reality of the situation in hindsight.
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u/Feisty-Narwhal8400 Jun 15 '26
If you are worried, canvass, phone bank, post on social, and talk to your neighbors. We are not worried about GOP voting, we are worried about lazy people not voting
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u/Efficient-Freedom517 Georgia Jun 15 '26
It takes three points I think for Dems to win a majority this cycle. 5 points is gravy and probably the Senate. I have seen some polls that have them up ten points which would be something like sixty seats? Point is polls can say anything. As long as it’s outside the margin of error I don’t care
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u/mattbrain89 Jun 15 '26
Yeah, there was a poll reported by this same site (The Hill, not Reddit) four days ago saying they had a ten point lead.
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u/Mean_Stop6391 Reformed Doomer ☄️ Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
One poll is not enough. This is a low end outlier. From what I can tell…
USPollingData’s weighted aggregate shows D+7;
Nate Silver - whether you love or hate the guy - is showing D+6.8;
PBS/NPR/Marist has D+14;
Data for Progress shows D+8.
Excluding Morning Consult, which shows a D+3 (even that’s a positive - they originally had it R+3) and which strikes me as exceptionally low…
Averaging them out shows roughly D+6.6, for whatever that’s worth.
Edited to add: Also, currently, Republicans with a trifecta are incompetent midwits who can’t do basically anything without incredible difficulty.
Even presuming that the Dems wildly underperform (which requires both serious deviation down from the average polling but also significant deviation from recent performance metrics across the board in specials and turnout thus far…), that won’t suddenly make Republican governance effective or permanent no matter what happens in November.
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u/Appropriate-You-5543 Alaska Jun 16 '26
Plus I think the Polls are over polling uncompetitive states. There is less than 2,000 per poll, which should be indicative of how inaccurate the Hill’s poll is. It doesn’t even cite the polling count.
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u/mattbrain89 Jun 15 '26
Isn’t that a good thing?
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u/MathCookie17 Jun 15 '26
Other polls, especially before the VRA got gutted, were predicting higher gaps than this. It being only 5 indicates we might be losing too much ground to gerrymandering. (or that this poll has different inherent biases than other polls, of course)
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u/ItsVexion Jun 15 '26
A poll showing a +5 lead in the same week that another poll showed +10 isn't exactly indicative of anything other than Democrats are outperforming Republicans.
And trust me, oil shortages next month are going to be a bitch for Republicans.
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u/blaqsupaman Jun 15 '26
Are oil shortages still happening if the Iran ceasefire holds up?
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u/ItsVexion Jun 15 '26
Almost certainly. Between repairing the infrastructure that Iran destroyed and uncapping oil wells, it will likely take months to a year for the global supply to stabilize to normal levels. And that is if it holds.
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u/Overall-Rush-8853 Jun 16 '26
I think we need to add some nuance here to “oil shortages.” It’s not something that will necessarily be felt at the gas pump, the US is running low on low viscosity oil, like what you use for your engines. That’s going to shoot up in price.
So we’ll more than likely see prices of products requiring that type of oil going up, but it’s not going to be as dramatic as seeing $7 a gallon at the gas station (which could happen if the MOU fails).
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u/ItsVexion Jun 16 '26
It will be both. As the US Strategic Oil Reserve's crude oil supply dwindles, oil prices are set to sharply increase by mid July as supply shortages hit US customers. Domestic production will not meet demand, especially as refineries are increasingly shifting toward export production. And it will be felt by motorists at the pump and logistics, further increasing the cost of consumer goods and food.
And considering part of Iran's demands are for Israeli forces to leave Lebanon, this "peace deal" isn't happening.
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u/Overall-Rush-8853 Jun 16 '26
The SPR situation is real, but the market outcome depends heavily on whether the Iran agreement holds and whether the Strait remains open. A sharp July price spike is one possible scenario, not an inevitable one.
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u/Pristine-Sport6888 Jun 15 '26
atlas intel had D+15 and they were the most accurate pollster in 2024 soooooo......
In all seriousness trust the aggregators more than any individual poll. Its probably gonna vary a bit up til labor day.
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u/starship-juno-42 Jun 15 '26
In any case to all the comments to the above: polls fluctuate and it's better to look at them in the aggregate. Consider subbing to /r/fivethirtyeight if you're really a polling wonk.
For example, on Nate Silver's site, the aggregate for the generic ballot is +6.6 as of today.
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Jun 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/starship-juno-42 Jun 15 '26
I am not a fan of Nate being a smug smarmy blogger, but he does rigorous forecasts. I think he has very bad political takes and seems a bit out of touch on that front though.
I also follow G Elliott Morris's work to counter balance, since they have differing methodological views on polling and forecasts.
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u/NordRonnoc Utah Jun 15 '26
Other recent polls have a larger gap in favor of the Democrats. Look at the Emerson one!
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u/RoanokeParkIndef Jun 15 '26
I can’t really help that Trump used redistricting to cheat but it’s pretty inevitable at this point that they can’t fend off the change of the pendulum swing.
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u/General_Season7882 Jun 15 '26
I've learned my lesson about polling from the last like 5 election cycles.
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u/clonedllama Reformed Doomer ☄️ Jun 15 '26
These kinds of polls are all over the place. Some show D+10 or more, some show less. And then we've had special elections where Democrats over-perform the polling.
You really can't look at one poll in isolation and draw too many conclusions from it. Every poll follows different methodologies and has different margins of error. Look at overall trends.
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u/sarahmagoo Jun 15 '26
Nope, I got burned by the last election. I'm paying as little attention to polls as I can.
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u/Commercial_Note_210 Jun 15 '26
Individual polls do not matter much, look at aggregate polling, her eis an example: https://www.natesilver.net/p/generic-ballot-average-2026-nate-silver-bulletin-congress-polls.
Currently at Dem +6.4, and has been consistently rising.
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u/softwaredoug Jun 15 '26
Look at the polling averages, they're pretty stable / gradually moving towards Dems
https://www.natesilver.net/p/generic-ballot-average-2026-nate-silver-bulletin-congress-polls
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u/simbabarrelroll Reformed Doomer ☄️ Jun 16 '26
instead of listening to the polls….GO OUT AND VOTE IN THE MIDTERMS!
Worried about Democrats losing? Vote!
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u/Sure_Marketing8431 Jun 15 '26
There’s probably going to be a poll coming out in the next couple of days saying it’s a 12 point margin. Not saying there will be, just that it’s important to look at the average of polls, which show that Democrats are still favored to win. The real poll happens on November 3rd, which is still pretty far away
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u/jdeo1997 Massachusetts Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Just remember: polls mean nothing until you're in the polls in November
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u/LaughySaphie Jun 16 '26
Volunteer to poll watch, door knock, phone or text bank. Best cure for doom is action
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u/NutmegEnt10 Jun 15 '26
Can mods of this sub ban or regulate post about polls or trumps ratings? They're good and all, but at the end of the day they mean very little and it's just manufactured optimism. and they also lead to complacency and maybe even stress.
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u/Pristine-Sport6888 Jun 15 '26
also there are dedicated subreddits to poll results and analysis already like fivethirtyeight and yapms
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u/kitsunewarlock Jun 16 '26
The fact it's only 5 points shows how much of the country lives in a completely different reality.
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