During the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, there was near-constant chatter about the possibility that the publicly available polls were flawed or just plain wrong. Polls are never perfectly accurate, of course. But there had been a lot of angst over the inability of the polling industry at large to predict Donald Trump’s 2016 win and stronger-than-expected 2020 performance. This led to a big debate over problems with getting voters (especially Trump voters) to respond to traditional phone-interview polling and the divergence of different pollsters using different methodologies. Polls were actually pretty exact in the last midterm election in 2018, but nobody had a clear handle on which precedent would be accurate.
While many races across the country have still yet to be called, it’s now clear that this year’s midterms told a complex story full of unexpected twists. So let’s take a very preliminary look at how the polls performed in some big 2022 races. We’ll use RealClearPolitics’s straight polling averages to capture multiple polls while occasionally pointing the finger at outliers.
U.S. Senate Races
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Pennsylvania: John Fetterman vs. Mehmet Oz
What the Polls Said: The RCP averages had Mehmet Oz, the Republican, up by 0.4 percent at the end, making this one of the closest races in the country. John Fetterman, the Democrat, led during the earlier phases of the general-election campaign.
Who Actually Won: Fetterman leads by 3.4 percent with most of the votes counted. AP has called the race for Fetterman.
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Georgia: Herschel Walker vs. Raphael Warnock
What the Polls Said: The final RCP averages showed Republican Herschel Walker leading by 1.4 percent. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock had led for most of the election cycle but was overtaken by Walker in the final weeks.
Who Actually Won: The two candidates are going to a December 6 runoff since neither won a majority, as required by Georgia election laws. With the final votes trickling in, Warnock actually leads by just under a point.
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Arizona: Mark Kelly vs. Blake Masters
What the Polls Said: Republican Blake Masters wound up with a 0.3 percent lead in the final RCP averages; he didn’t lead in a single public poll until right before the election.
Who Actually Won: With just over two-thirds of the vote counted, Democrat Mark Kelly leads Masters by five points (51-46).
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New Hampshire: Maggie Hassan vs. Don Bolduc
What the Polls Said: Democrat Maggie Hassan, who had a big lead until very late in the cycle, led in the final RCP averages by 1.4 percent. Two late polls, from Trafalgar Group and St. Anselm College, showed Don Bolduc, the Republican, ahead.
Who Actually Won: With over 90 percent of the vote in, Hassan is leading by 9.5 percent and was called as the winner by AP.
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Nevada: Catherine Cortez Masto vs. Adam Laxalt
What the Polls Said: Republican Adam Laxalt led in nearly all the late polls (by 6 percent in an InsiderAdvantage poll in November) and was ahead in the RCP averages by 3.4 percent.
Who Actually Won: With three-fourths of the vote in, Laxalt is leading by 2.7 percent, though a mail-ballot trend favoring Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democrat, has been melting his lead.
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Wisconsin: Ron Johnson vs. Mandela Barnes
What the Polls Said: Republican Ron Johnson led in nearly every poll from mid-September on, and the final RCP averages put him up by 3.6 percent.
Who Actually Won: Johnson leads Democrat Mandela Barnes by one point with 96 percent of the vote in, but he was already called as the winner by AP.
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North Carolina: Ted Budd vs. Cheri Beasley
What the Polls Said: Republican Ted Budd led in every poll from October on and was ahead in the final RCP averages by 6.2 percent.
Who Actually Won: With most of the votes counted, Budd leads Democrat Cheri Beasley by four points and has been called as the winner by AP.
Governor’s Races
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Wisconsin: Tony Evers vs. Tim Michels
What the Polls Said: It was a close race in the polls all along, but Democratic incumbent Tony Evers led Republican Tim Michels in the final RCP averages by 0.6 percent.
Who Actually Won: AP called the race for Evers, who is leading by 3.4 percent with most of the vote in.
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Arizona: Katie Hobbs vs. Kari Lake
What the Polls Said: After leading in most of the late polls, Republican Kari Lake led in the final RCP averages by 3.5 percent over Democrat Katie Hobbs. A late-October InsiderAdvantage survey showed Lake up by 11 points.
Who Actually Won: With two-thirds of the vote in, Hobbs is leading by less than a point.
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Michigan: Gretchen Whitmer vs. Tudor Dixon
What the Polls Said: After leading in nearly every poll throughout the cycle, Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer led by a single point in the final RCP averages. A Trafalgar Group poll released on Election Eve showed Dixon actually ahead.
Who Actually Won: With 91 percent of the vote in, Whitmer is leading by 10.6 points and was called as the winner by AP.
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Georgia: Stacey Abrams vs. Brian Kemp
What the Polls Said: After leading in every public poll from July on, Republican incumbent Brian Kemp led in the final RCP averages by 8.3 percent.
Who Actually Won: With most of the vote counted, Kemp leads Democrat Stacey Abrams by 7.6 percent and was called as the winner by AP.
U.S. House
What the Polls Said: The RCP averages for the generic congressional ballot (a projection of the House national popular vote) showed a Republican advantage of 2.5 percent. Leading analysts uniformly anticipated enough Republican gains to flip control of the House. Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball estimated GOP House gains of 24 seats, and the Cook Political Report suggested Republican gains of between 15 and 30 seats.
Who Actually Won: With a lot of races still undecided and many millions of votes (particularly in the West) still out, it’s too early to estimate the national House popular vote or the number of seats won or lost. The uncertainty is encapsulated by the NBC News projection that Republicans will win “220 plus or minus ten seats.” That suggests possible outcomes ranging from a miraculous Democratic hold of the chamber to a comfortable, if not luxurious, GOP majority. But the big Republican gains so many pundits talked about did not materialize.
More on the 2022 midterms
- J.D. Vance Explains His Conversion to MAGA
- Are Democrats the Party of Low-Turnout Elections Now?
- New Midterms Data Reveals Good News for Democrats in 2024
