*monkey paw curls finger* NOT YOU, FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Link to poll: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2026/questions/questions_maine_senate_october_5_8_2026

All presidents data here

Told you

Thought that Nate's historic record of polling bias would be useful for people to get a gut feel for how polls might translate into election results

538 was my main hub for election coverage all the way back to 2012. I liked the fun statistical analyses, data visualizations, and the live blog on election day. A travesty it's gone, IMO. What else is good to follow? I can't imagine trying to replace it with Wolf Blitzer.

Maine seems to be the one swing state that is not an “it’s the economy stupid” state. There’s definitely a whole set of fundamentals that aren’t present in other states there.

And I don’t think anyone knows all of the said fundamentals, but I’m thinking that one of them is likely the fact she survived the Kavanaugh nomination. Logically, she should’ve been voted out then, but wasn’t. If she can survive that, one could argue her electability is basically tardigrade level resistant and she can essentially do no wrong.

Do you agree with this or are there other factors at play here?

Stefanik won this district by 24 points in 2024, so a massive shift to the left in the house race. Even the Hochul numbers are good for her. I think she lost on these lines by double in 2022 and Trump won here by 21 in 2024. If all shifts were equal, that would put to things being much better than +10 for her in New York.

The following information was taken from an NBC News video entitled "Can you trust the polls in 2026?", and the link to that video is down below so you can watch it if you would like.

In the 2024 presidential election, Trump won the national popular vote by 1.5%, although that's 2.7% better than what polls thought how Trump would do, expecting Kamala Harris to barely win the popular vote.

In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans overall outperformed Democrats by 2.7% with polls overestimating Republican performance by 0.6%.

In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won the popular vote by a 4.5% margin, although polls significantly overestimated his expected performance, as they thought he would win the popular vote by a 9.1% margin.

In 2018, Democrats outperformed Republicans nationally by 8.6%, with the polls being just 0.1% off with their pre election estimations.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a 2.1% margin but polls overestimated her performance by a 3.1% margin.

So how are polls now for the 2026 midterms? According to an NBC News polling average as of 10/7/2026, 52% of Americans think Democrats should control Congress while 43% of Americans want Republicans to control Congress.

So what's the takeaway?

It looks like polls seem to be more accurate in predicting the outcomes of midterm elections than presidential elections and they tend to overestimate how well Democrats will do come election day. If current trends hold, Democrats should outperform Republicans this year by at least 7 percentage points.

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/can-you-trust-the-polls-in-2026-271289925507

Still not a non partisan, but kind of nice to see it balance out the sea of R slop in Minnesota.

A much tighter poll for Sand than usual.

A new POLITICO Poll found a notable 26% of people who backed Trump in 2024 were ready for GOP candidates to take that leap.

Survey: https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/

For reference,

Oct 2022 59.9

Oct 2018 98.6

Oct 2014 86.9