The average poll in the week before election day had Mehmet Oz beating John Fetterman by nearly 1% in Pennsylvania when in reality Fetterman beat Oz by nearly 5%
The average poll had Adam Laxalt beating Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada by 1.5% when in reality Cortez Masto is projected to win. In fact, not a single poll in the week before election day projected a Cortez Masto victory.
The average poll had Herschel Walker beating Raphael Warnock in Georgia by 1% when in reality Warnock outperformed Walker by 1%; and not a single poll in the week before election day projected a Warnock victory
The average poll had Maggie Hassan beating Don Bolduc in New Hampshire by only 2% when in reality Hassan soundly routed Bolduc by 15%. Two mainstream polls in the week before election day, including the seminal, admired Saint Anselm poll, even predicted Bolduc victories
An updated prediction, published right before election day by the University of Virginia’s Department of Politics, noted that the Senate races in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania remain “jump balls”. However, the nonpartisan election handicapper shifted its rating in Pennsylvania and Georgia to “leans Republican.” And it shifted its rating for four of the six state gubernatorial elections from a “toss-up” to “lean Republican.”
Gallup confidently declared “The political environment for the 2022 midterm elections should work to the benefit of the Republican Party, with all national mood indicators similar to, if not worse than, what they have been in other years when the incumbent party fared poorly in midterms.”
The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, a nonpartisan handicapping service, moved 10 of its House race ratings in favor of Republicans and adjusted its predictions of GOP gains in the fall upward to between 20 and 35 seats and a sizable Republican majority in the Senate.
The Siena poll found that “independents, especially women, are swinging to the G.O.P. despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights. …The biggest shift came from women who identified as independent voters. In September, they favored Democrats by 14 points. Now, independent women backed Republicans by 18 points–a striking swing given the polarization of the American electorate and how intensely Democrats have focused on that group and on the threat Republicans pose to abortion rights.”
CNN/Marist shifted to strongly favor a red wave: “The survey shifted seven percentage points toward the Republicans in a month.”