If you’re wondering what will happen in November and you’re following all the polls, you probably have no idea what’s going on. The generic ballot, for example, is all over the map. A couple of months ago, polls overwhelmingly had Republicans ahead, but now, Republicans are ahead in some polls, Democrats ahead in others, and some even suggest it’s neck and neck.
To get some insight into what’s happening right now and what to expect, I spoke with Robert Cahaly, the senior strategist and pollster of the Trafalgar Group. As you may know, the Trafalgar Group has a stellar reputation for accuracy. In 2016, they not only accurately predicted Trump’s victory but also that he’d win with 306 electoral votes. The Trafalgar Group’s latest generic ballot poll puts Republicans ahead by slightly more than five points, which is down three points from their generic poll a month earlier.
So, what did Cahaly have to say about the recent tightening of the generic ballot? According to him, the poll-tightening was expected because Republicans had more competitive primaries than Democrats, and he expects it will take a little time for polling to readjust.
There was also an undeniable impact from the Dobbs ruling. However, Cahaly believes the shift in polling had less to do with the actual Supreme Court ruling than it had to do with what Republican states did afterward, as some legislatures imposed more significant restrictions on abortion than what Americans are generally comfortable with. As we’ve previously pointed out here at PJ Media, Americans generally support abortion rights, but support declines with each trimester of the pregnancy.
Despite the recent tightening of the generic ballot, Cahaly still believes that Joe Biden will drag down his party at the polls in November.
“If you’re a Democrat running for office, [being linked with] Joe Biden is like having a house with termites in it,” he explained. “It might seem fine, you don’t have to talk about it, everything looks good,” but in the end, “his unpopularity is going to sink a lot of them.”
Of course, midterm elections typically benefit the party out of power. However, another game-changer in the 2022 midterms is the FBI raid on Trump’s home in Florida, which polling shows has re-motivated Republicans to vote in November.
“So it’s a fight to take those voters who turned out in 2020 on both sides — record numbers — and see which side can get more of them to vote.…And so, what that raid did is, it motivated those Republicans…and activated them [with] an intensity even more so than Dobbs activated Democrats.”
Cahaly expects the impact of the FBI raid to be noticeable in polling much quicker than it was after Dobbs, because “it was the [new rules] that followed the ruling, and the actual activity of a lot of the state legislatures” that likely had more impact, compared to the lack of reaction to the prior leak of the draft ruling. “Whether Republicans know it or not, that release of a draft decision was the best thing that ever happened, because it softened the blow,” Cahaly said. “It wasn’t this devastating, out of nowhere, Roe is gone. It literally let people get used to the idea that it might happen.”
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To answer the question of what will happen in November, Cahaly believes we’ll find the answer in last year’s gubernatorial election in Virginia.
“It was an off-year election, so it wasn’t about trying to convince people who vote in the odd year Virginia elections for governor; it was about trying to grab people who don’t usually vote in [non-federal] elections, and bring them into that contest.” According to Cahaly, the same applies to the upcoming midterms. “2022 is less about trying to convince people and more about each party trying to get a bigger share of their presidential election vote to vote in a midterm. And whoever does that best is going to win.”
I asked Mr. Cahaly why there’s such a discrepancy between various polls. He believes Trafalgar’s methods speak for themselves.
“Our philosophy is very different,” he said. “And that’s the reason so many in the polling community don’t like it.”
But Cahaly isn’t concerned if other pollsters don’t like them, because Trafalgar Group’s polls have a lower error rate. So how do they do it? “We really believe that one of the most fundamental flaws in public polling is long questionnaires,” he explained.
“The number one question we get is, ‘How long is this going to take?'” he says. “And if you say something other than just two or three minutes…average people with real lives and real stuff to do, they hang up the phone.” He cited an example of a state poll from a competitor where 50% of those polled had a college degree, graduate degree, or postgraduate degree. “There’s not a state in America with that, 50% college, graduate or better.… That is nonsense.” As such, a poll like that only measures what type of people are willing to answer long questionnaires, not genuine public opinion.
Republicans are widely expected to take back the House, while the Senate looks like it might go either way. But Cahaly believes Republicans “will likely win the Senate at this point.” Republican J.D. Vance leads in Ohio, despite being outspent by his Democrat opponent, and Adam Laxalt is ahead in Nevada. In Pennsylvania, however, Mehmet Oz is down by five, which, Cahaly points out, is not insurmountable. There are other competitive races as well.
“In the end, I think they’re going to come down to one salient question:…there’s a big blue button that says ‘Support the Biden agenda’ and there’s a big red button that says ‘Oppose the Biden agenda,’ and you’re electing a U.S. senator; press one of those two buttons. And that’s all this election is about.”
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