The Times and the Post Both Admit Democrats Answered Their Final Polls at Much Higher Rates, and Breitbart's Nolte Says Republicans Are Hanging Up
The New York Times says white Democrats were about 30 percent likelier than white Republicans to take its final battleground polls. The Washington Post reports a 32 percent to 12 percent gap in Kansas. Nolte argues the misses could run in Republicans' favor. Voting is Tuesday.
Two of the biggest names in polling say Republicans are less willing than Democrats to answer their questions, and a Breitbart columnist says that is a reason to doubt the numbers going into Tuesday, Breitbart reports in a commentary by John Nolte.
The polls. Nolte lists the Times/Siena results that give Democrats all seven of the Senate battlegrounds the paper polled: Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed by 11 (53 to 42); Maine, Troy Jackson by six (51 to 45); Ohio, Sherrod Brown by five (49 to 44); Kansas, Adam Hamilton by five (49 to 44); Alaska, Mary Peltola by two (48 to 46); and Iowa, Josh Turek by one (48 to 47). He puts Texas on the same list, with Talarico ahead by seven in the Times's final survey. He adds that a Washington Post poll last week had a Democrat winning the Kansas Senate seat by ten points.
The admissions. Nolte quotes the Times saying Democrats again responded to its polls "at a much higher rate than Republicans," and that registered white Democrats were about 30 percent likelier to take the poll than registered white Republicans, "a bit higher than in the final polls in 2020." He quotes the Post on its Kansas poll: after more than 85,000 phone calls and nearly 50,000 texts, registered Democrats were more than twice as likely as Republicans to finish the survey, 32 percent against 12 percent, with a similar gap online. Independents and Libertarians were even less cooperative. The Post weighted its results and said "it's possible those efforts fell short."
Nolte's argument. He says Republicans are refusing pollsters from outlets that, in his view, are hostile to them, and that he does not know what will happen Tuesday. "Polls suck," he writes. He says it worries him that President Trump is spending limited campaign time in Kansas.
What to keep in mind. This is a columnist's argument. A gap in who answers does not by itself show which way a poll will miss, and the Post says it weighted its Kansas results to adjust. Nolte's suggestion that Republicans are deliberately misleading pollsters is his claim, not a finding. We have checked the Times and Post figures only as Nolte quotes them. Our earlier coverage of the final Times/Siena poll is on the site.