Lessons From the ‘22 Midterms that the Media Didn’t Learn From

 

The GOP is in the process of creating another “red wave” narrative. They’re going about it in pretty much the same way they did in the midterms of 2022. Let’s all agree to not fall for it this time.

Now, as then, there are dozens of new polls coming out of the woodwork, almost all of them partisan junk, with sketchy methodologies and right-wing agendas designed to juice the flagging enthusiasm of Republicans, and to mess with the heads of Democrats. Some are overtly in the tank for the GOP, some are more subtle, and who knows how many are coming from Russia? Or China? Or Saudi Arabia? Or Elon Musk?

Regardless, the aim is to scare Democrats into believing that the fix is in, that Trump has the election in the bag and there’s no point in voting. This will only intensify in the next three weeks, and it’s important that we not get sucked in.

They tried the same thing in 2022, and while they got clobbered in the end, it’s arguable that the junk polls did indeed cost Democrats some seats they might have won. How did that happen? 

A month after that election, the New York Times did a lengthy post-mortem on the role junk polls had played in driving a narrative of Republican inevitability, a narrative that was accepted as gospel by virtually everybody — Republicans, Democrats, donors, and especially the media — but that was demonstrably false.

Credit the Times with accepting, in its humble-braggy way, its own responsibility — I would call it culpability — for spreading the “red wave” narrative. Of course, if they’d taken their own self-analysis seriously, they wouldn’t be amplifying the same kinds of narratives today. Self-analysis is more useful before the fact than after.

In the article, they recount the example of Patty Murray of Washington, a popular U.S. senator who was cruising to re-election that year. In the final weeks, several “Republican-leaning polls,” declared, out of the blue, that her lead was disappearing, that she was barely hanging on. And these polls were now being incorporated into the polling averages, which are relied on by political operatives of both parties, as well as by donors, media outlets, and voters themselves. The junk polls were being given the same statistical weight as more reputable polls, pushing the averages rightward, thus warping perceptions of the race.

Murray’s own internal polling still had her up by 20 points or so, but there was enough alarm in those averages to get her people questioning their own assumptions and strategies. Whereas in previous elections, she’d raised enough money to share with Democrats in less secure seats, this time she felt the need to spend more of it on herself.

She ended up winning by almost 15 points. But we’ll never know who ended up losing for lack of the funding she might have provided. Given how close Democrats ultimately came to holding the House majority, this is not inconsequential.

Murray’s case was far from unique — similar scenarios occurred all over the country. And the alternate reality created by junk polls rippled through the media:

It fed the home-team boosterism of an expanding array of right-wing media outlets — from Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and “The Charlie Kirk Show” to Fox News and its top-rated prime-time lineup. And it spilled over into coverage by mainstream news organizations, including The Times, that amplified the alarms being sounded about potential Democratic doom.

The red wave narrative ultimately affected the strategic thinking of both parties. Democratic staffers frantically re-allocated funding to extinguish perceived fires, wasting money on winning causes and spending money on lost ones. As for Republicans, they talked themselves into their own invincibility, that victory was assured, so why even bother with the tedious work of campaigning.

Both parties were stunned by the results — Democrats pleasantly, Republicans painfully.

They shouldn’t have been so surprised. As this was all playing out, a few veteran Democratic pollsters — most notably Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonier — were looking at the same data and calling bullshit on the averages they were seeing. At the risk of their own reputations, they tried to convince the party that junk polls were muddying the waters, and that Democratic prospects had been vastly improved by the Dobbs decision.

Now Rosenberg is warning us that it’s happening again. The steady rise of the Harris-Walz ticket is now being undermined by a deluge of polls and polling averages, all of which must now be considered suspect. We’re already seeing headlines like “Harris Slipping in Latest Polls” or “Democrats Struggling among Black and Hispanic Men.”

As a reader of polls, Rosenberg is as savvy — and as innately skeptical — as anyone alive. And he insists that while the race is close, Harris is winning in most of the battleground states, and has a good chance even in states that are considered red.

Bonier, meanwhile, has become the early-voting whisperer. The data he’s tracking and analyzing has nothing to do with polls, and everything to do with people who have actually voted. Like me.

In Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — the so-called “Democratic firewall” — about 1.25 million people have voted early already. Roughly 58 percent of those were Democrats, 29 percent were Republicans, 12 percent were “unaffiliated.”

Think about that. These are crucial swing states, and almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans have already cast ballots. While it’s inconceivable that more than a handful of those Democrats voted for Trump, we can be quite sure that some yet-to-be-determined percentage of the Republicans voted for Harris. Even if the unaffiliated voters split 50-50, this is still a heart-warming story.

Yes, more Republicans will show up on Election Day, but if the early-voting numbers continue trending this way, Rosenberg argues that the presidential race could be effectively over before then. To that end, he urges all Democrats not just to vote early, but also to vote as soon as you can. The sooner you vote, the sooner your local Democratic organization can cross you off their list of people they need to call, so they can put more resources into getting other Democrats to vote. Remember, turnout is everything for Democrats.

The week after the 2022 midterms, I wrote my own, quite angry, post-mortem of the media’s role in distorting the realities of that election. I recently re-read it and was quite astonished at how little has changed. It’s worth another read, if only as a heads-up on things to look out for in the next few weeks.

The narrative this time won’t be about a red wave, which is not in the cards. But from here on, we can nonetheless expect a blizzard of junk polls, and stories based on them. The blizzard will spin a narrative of shrewd Republicans and panicked Democrats, of Trump’s manly strengths and Harris’s girly weaknesses, of how Trump has immunity even from the laws of gravity.

We know it’s coming. Don’t believe a word of it.