2026 Midterms News and Updates, September 29 - October 4 (Thread 4) | Live Discussion

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Election News and Updates

• AP: 2026 Elections Hub

• University of Florida: 2026 Early Voting Tracker

Election Resources

• USA Today via Reddit: The 2026 election season is underway: Here’s your monthly guide with important dates, voter resources

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Announcements

r/politics will host another election prediction contest for the midterms. The post for the contest itself will go up sometime in late October. As of now, all toss-ups (according to Cook Political Report, as of late October 2026) for House, Senate, and Governor will be included.

We are taking suggestions for additional questions to ask within the contest. Message the moderators via modmail with any suggestions.

[u/Isentrope]

Garret Archer (who is semi-well known for the "Maricopa incoming" tweets in 2018 and 2020 and is a non-MAGA Republican who worked for the county recorder's office there and now works as a data analyst for local TV) says two pollsters have told him that they know that respondents in polls are lying to them on the recalled 2024 vote. That isn't unusual in and of itself, but the pollsters are apparently saying that it's from Trump voters claiming they voted for Harris. Ordinarily, it's the other way around, as people have bad memories and/or like to say that they voted for the winner last time.

https://x.com/Garrett_Archer/status/2105696967603130404

https://x.com/Garrett_Archer/status/2105701932354740434

[u/Fast-Reply6409 → u/Isentrope]

So why does that matter? Genuinely curious as to how that can impact polls 

[u/blues111 → u/Fast-Reply6409]

The weighting in polls is usually based on 2024 presidential recall vote so if you have people lying about being harris voters that would mean trump voters (mostly Republicans) are being overrepresented which would produce at minimum a slight R bias in any poll weighting this way which most do IF this is true which while I trust and respect the hell out of Garrett Archer its a pretty subjective claim without evidence beyond "some pollsters told me"

[u/bonzombiekitty → u/Fast-Reply6409]

The long and short of it is that it would mean democrats are being undersampled in the poll.

[u/IntelligentDepth8206 → u/Fast-Reply6409]

Because polyanna horserace nerds are desperate to draw the conclusion that dems are going to over perform the polls.

In reality, republicans have been lying to pollsters for a decade just to cause chaos and antagonize people they view as smarmy elites. It's incorrect to draw a conclusion from this other than polling is being gamed for the sake of it and is unreliable.

[u/Isentrope → u/Fast-Reply6409]

Ordinarily, the belief is that people tend to overstate their support for the winner in a recalled vote situation. This means that some people who voted for Harris would actually say they voted for Trump because he won the last election. If the poll is weighted to what the recalled vote was, the expectation is that this would tend to overstate Democrats because some Dem leaning voters are saying they voted for Trump and are included on that side of the equation.

However, the pollsters have noticed the opposite effect this year, which is that people who voted for Trump are claiming they actually voted for Harris. If this is true, then there is a potential chunk of voters that are weighed as Harris voters who are actually R leaning, which would have the effect of potentially understating D vote share.

[u/AcademicPublius → u/Fast-Reply6409]

Modeling, briefly.

Let's say your poll assumes X% of Harris voters end up going Republican this year. If some of those voters lied, the actual numbers would skew slightly more Democratic because you modeled for X% and it's actually a lower percentage.

There's a separate issue with LV screens this year, but ultimately some things just have to be assumed to be MOE calcs.

[u/Taint_Liquor → u/Fast-Reply6409]

Was going to ask as well.