Steve Kornacki says ‘wild card’ factors could help Republicans in polls
Kansas could be one state to monitor for potential polling discrepancies, says the NBC News chief data analyst
While recent polls and historical precedent favors Democrats ahead of Election Day, systematic polling inaccuracies could alter the outcome, according to NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki.
Kornacki addressed the issue of widespread voter skepticism related to pre-election surveys Tuesday while discussing how to analyze the data on the Today show.
“In the Trump era in particular, we’ve seen these elections where the polls haven’t just missed, they’ve missed badly,” Kornacki said. “And they’ve missed in a specific way in the Trump era: they’ve missed Republican voters, pro-Trump voters, especially in states like some of these battleground states — Iowa and Ohio, some of these Midwest states.”
He noted that Kansas could be one state to monitor for potential polling discrepancies.
Kornacki explained that pollsters have been receiving significantly higher response rates from Democrats than Republicans. While survey organizations attempt to adjust their weighting models to compensate for the imbalance, he noted that the disparity leaves open a “wild card possibility” for the final results.
Kornacki’s assessment aligns with recent disclosures from major polling operations regarding non-response bias. Survey administrators have continued to experience difficulty reaching Republican voters during this election cycle, the The New York Times reported.
“This cycle, Democrats are once again responding to Times/Siena polls at a much higher rate than Republicans,” wrote political analyst Nate Cohn. “Across these final battleground polls, registered white Democrats were about 30 percent likelier to take the poll than registered white Republicans. That’s actually a bit higher than in the final polls in 2020.”
The potential for an undercounted Republican electorate comes despite baseline metrics that favor Democrats.
A recent national poll conducted by NBC News showed Democrats holding a 52-43 percent advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot. Historical trends also heavily favor the opposition, as the sitting president’s party has gained seats in only two midterm elections since World War II.