The Perils of Believing the Pollsters Every October
18th October 2026
Everyone absorbing the elitist media spin on the midterm elections cannot avoid the swirling symphony of doom for the Republicans. Conventional wisdom suggests a good night for Democrats, and that’s before you look at the president’s dreadful approval rating. Polls can be tricky: one can disapprove of Trump and still vote the Republican party line.
All this doom might be accurate–or it might turn out like 2016. Hillary Clinton had a 98% chance of winning, they said. Then-“CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley suppressed his delight as he claimed, “Time is running out for Donald Trump … No candidate down this far, this late, has ever recovered.” Over on ABC, Jonathan Karl echoed: “Donald Trump is down 17 points among women. You do not get elected … if you are down 17 points among women.”
When all of the media’s polls turned out to look like Fake News, Democrats immediately suspected the election had been stolen and then spent four years denying reality.
So it was amazing when the front page of The New York Times on Oct. 15 boasted new research on the president’s second-term statements about his loss in 2020: “Trump’s Relentless Campaign To Cast Doubt On Elections With Lies and Bold Claims.” They don’t have the slightest bit of shame about anyone turning that around on them. They won a Pulitzer Prize for their “relentless campaign to cast doubt” on Trump’s 2016 election, and they weren’t going to send it back in disgrace.
In 2024, the networks spent the last few weeks of the campaign wildly speculating about how Donald Trump wouldn’t accept his impending defeat and it would be complete chaos. They eagerly shared the alleged data point from the Des Moines Register that Kamala Harris was up 3 points in Iowa–and then she lost by 13.