The big red wave didn’t come and many are pointing their fingers at the pollsters, insisting they got it wrong again. However, they appear to have gotten it right again.
As always in the midterm, every House seat in the country was contested. And most top pollsters had Republicans besting Democrats by 2 to 5 percent in overall House race polling.
The polls below were taken within a week of Election Day
| Pollster | Democrats | Republicans | Difference |
| Marist | 46% | 49% | +3 R |
| CNN | 47% | 51% | +5 R |
| Fox | 44% | 46% | +2 R |
| Data for Progress | 48% | 52% | +4 R |
| Average = +3.5 R |
Average = +3.5 Republicans
And guess what?
Republicans received 2.8 percent more raw House race votes than Democrats, comparable to most polling projections and just .07 percent from the mean of the four random pollsters above.
So, don’t blame the pollsters. The top ones were accurate.
Question: Why didn’t the House races reflect Republicans’ solid lead in raw House race votes?
Answer: For starters, they did a bit. Republicans won 222 seats to 213 for Democrats, taking control of the House.
Better answer: Republican winners, overall, are winning their House races by more votes than Democrat winners are winning theirs. For example, Republican Rick wins his race by 100,000 votes while Democrat Dave wins his race by 80,000 votes. In both races, combined, Republicans netted 20,000 more votes but won just one of the two races.
While Democrats far exceeded expectations in the 2022 Midterm Elections, they still far underperformed versus the 2018 Midterm when they won the popular House vote by a whopping 8.5 percent. And that was expected as the 40-year midterm trend for first-term presidents tells us the party in presidential power will experience a natural drop-off.
If there’s any consolation for Republicans – and there is very little – they can boast they solidly won in raw House race votes by 2.8 percentage points, very close to what the polls projected.
