Are Republicans Overselling the Red Wave?

If the summer belonged to Democrats, then the fall belonged to Republicans.

After losing their polling lead in the wake of the Dobbs decision and a series of electoral setbacks in Kansas and New York, Republicans appeared to storm back in the final months of the 2022 midterm election cycle on the strength of a multi-state advertising blitz deriding rising urban crime rates and voter anxieties over an uncertain economy. In mid-October, Republicans regained the lead in the average national generic ballot, prompting calls from conservative leaders and political commentators that the "red wave" predicted early in the year was returning.

For all the hype, others have speculated that rumors of a red wave are greatly exaggerated, largely built on Republicans' own efforts to "flood the zone" with favorable polling that has helped shape the public narrative about conservatives' chances to reclaim the majority.

In recent weeks, Republican-leaning pollsters like the Trafalgar Group, Insider Advantage and Rasmussen Reports have released polling showing Republicans with significant leads over Democrats in the national generic ballot, contradicting the findings of most other mainstream pollsters and swinging national polling averages by nearly 2 points in the space of less than one month.

Similar behavior has been exhibited in battleground states like Georgia, where several consecutive polls from conservative-leaning pollsters released in the days after Herschel Walker's myriad abortion scandals came to light showed the Republican taking the lead over Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. Since October 20, Warnock's lead has been reduced from 3 points to just 1 point, while a similar influx of right-leaning polls in the battleground state of New Hampshire cut incumbent Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan's lead over Republican Don Bolduc from 7 points to just 4 points in just two weeks.

The newfound enthusiasm for Republicans, Democratic strategists say, doesn't comport with what they're seeing on the ground.

In the lead-up to Election Day, early voting totals in battleground states show Democratic voters trending to break turnout numbers exhibited during the 2018 "blue wave" election that handed the party its first majority in Congress since the start of former President Barack Obama's administration. Meanwhile, polls in key states like Georgia and Pennsylvania have relied on samples of voters that are older and whiter than the electorates that turned out in the two most recent elections.

"I've been doing this full time, for 30 years. This is my 17th election cycle, doing what I do. I've never seen something like this," Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network and a former adviser to Obama's campaigns, told Newsweek in an interview. "What we're witnessing is an unprecedented effort by the Republicans to gain the polling averages and to create an impression of a red wave. And it's all based on junk data and junk polling."

In recent days, surveys by more mainstream pollsters—like a Siena College/New York Times poll released Monday—show an electoral environment that is still largely a toss-up, while other pollsters have shown brightening prospects for candidates like Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke.

Other polls in states like Nevada have shown improving outlooks for the party's prospects among groups like Hispanics previously seen as trending toward Republicans this cycle, while Harvard polling showed an energized youth vote with a clear lean toward Democrats. And a majority of the recent "Likely Voter" polls on sites like FiveThirtyEight showed Democrats leading in most races around the country.

Meanwhile, other intangibles impacting this year's races, like high gas prices, have remained fairly stable in the closing weeks of election season, robbing Republicans of one of their most salient attacks in the election's final days as well.

"People voting is the most important information that you have in an election," Rosenberg said. "You know why people all freak out about the exit polls on Election Day? Because it's actual voting data, right? What we're seeing here is very strong performance of the Democrats in the battleground states."

In Georgia, Democrats are currently turning out 10 points better than in 2020, while other battleground states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio are reporting at-or-near double-digit improvements in turnout from the last election, Rosenberg said. Out of all the key elections this cycle, just one state—Arizona—is underperforming, early voting data shows. And even then, it's only lagging by a point.

"What you're seeing is data that's just confirming that this is a really competitive election, and that Democrats have a shot," said Rosenberg.

"Competitive" is probably the correct word. Postmortem analyses of the 2020 election showed most polls underestimated popular support for Republican candidates. Other credible polls even in blue states like New York have shown a burgeoning shift toward Republicans on the heels of a multimillion-dollar advertising blitz and visceral messaging on issues like crime, while other pollsters have been suspected of severely undercounting the number of Trump voters in their samples.

"Most of the polls in 2016 and 2020 predicted a big Democratic victory. They were wrong then and they're probably wrong today," Frank Luntz, a top consultant for national Republicans, told Newsweek. "They are failing to interview enough Trump Republicans because Trump Republicans don't respond to pollsters."

"That said, when the lead stories are about Biden, the economy, inflation or crime, Republicans are doing well," he added. "When the stories are about Trump, abortion, or other social issues, Democrats are doing well. The issue agenda right now favors the GOP, and that's why you've seen a shift towards them of late."

In the end, Luntz said, the only poll that really matters is on Election Day. The same day the New York Times/Siena College poll showed Warnock with a 3-point lead on Walker, another poll—this one from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution—showed Walker in the lead, by just a single point.