Despite former President Donald Trump's claims that public opinion polls were "fake" and "rigged" ahead of the midterm elections, veteran pollsters suggest that surveys underestimated Democratic support, rather than Republican turnout.
During the lead-up to Election Day, Trump repeatedly criticized polls that indicated a potential "blue wave" for Democrats. House Speaker Mike Johnson also echoed these sentiments, stating that polls were "all wrong" and that Republicans were being undercounted because they were less likely to participate in polling.
However, pollsters familiar with the midterm results indicated a different trend. Chris Anderson, a pollster who partnered on the Fox News Poll, stated that "polls probably, on average, undercounted Democrats significantly." He described the election as "seismic," suggesting that such events are difficult to model accurately. Anderson added, "We definitely didn’t undercount Republicans, that’s for sure."
Daron Shaw, a Republican pollster and partner on the Fox News Poll, agreed that "directionally, we knew heading into Election Day that Kansas was a dog fight. We knew that Texas was probably shifting blue." While acknowledging that the magnitude of the shift in Texas was surprising, Shaw noted that "we probably underestimated Democratic vote share by a couple of points."
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, concurred that there was generally "a slight undercount" of Democrats in public opinion surveys. He pointed to similar underestimations of Democratic support in the 2025 gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, where Democratic candidates won with larger-than-expected margins. Paleologos concluded, "We were low on the margins of victory. We were all undercounting Democrats."
Paleologos also suggested that the long-standing Republican argument about undercounted MAGA voters should be re-examined, stating, "I think to be fair going forward, it can't be a one-sided question anymore."