The polling miss in the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor follows the polling miss in the Michigan Democratic Senate race. This raises a question: Are polling outlets trying to put a thumb on the scale for socialist Democrats, or are they wildly incompetent?
Socialist Francesca Hong lost the Wisconsin Democratic primary to the more establishment candidate, David Crowley, by less than 1 percentage point. The result is particularly shocking because Hong had been leading in the polling average since July and had led by double digits since July 21. That lead was over former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who dropped out of the race amid a sexual misconduct scandal. Crowley had actually dropped out of the race, reentering it 10 days later, and consistently trailed Hong by a large margin in polls. Hong closed with a 20-point lead in the polling average before her loss.
FRANCESCA HONG LOSES TO DAVID CROWLEY IN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY FOR WISCONSIN GOVERNOR RACE
This is the second time in as many weeks that the pollsters dramatically overestimated the socialist candidate in the Democratic primary. Abdul el Sayed similarly held a double-digit lead in the polling average for Michigan’s Senate primary up until the election, when he only defeated Rep. Haley Stevens by less than 1 point. Most notably, just one week before the election, the influx of polls pushed el Sayed’s lead in the polling average to nearly double what it had been for the previous month (from 7 points to 13).
There are two possibilities here. The first is that the pollsters are generally incompetent, overestimating far-left enthusiasm at the ballot box so dramatically that they are nowhere near providing a useful picture of the races they are polling. The best-case scenario is that the pollsters are very bad at their jobs.
The more nefarious possibility is that the pollsters are pumping the numbers for far-left candidates, in an effort to push more establishment candidates to drop out (as Crowley momentarily did) and fuel a “momentum” narrative for the socialist candidates that helps bring in more media attention and outside fundraising. Even if you believe the “incompetence” explanation, that momentum boost is still present. Oddly enough, this effect always goes in one direction — to the Left.
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This raises several more questions than it answers. For example, pollsters currently have Republicans losing to Democrats in the Texas Senate and Iowa gubernatorial races, which goes against conventional wisdom. Those polls could be accurate (Democratic election year, candidate quality), but if they aren’t, Republicans may spend the 2026 cycle dumping money into races they win comfortably instead of competitive races where that money would be of more use. Meanwhile, former Senate candidate Graham Platner’s crushing primary and general election polling in Maine is now more suspicious, especially because his general election polls only became weak right before the drop-out deadline, just in time for Democrats to dump him amid several sexual misconduct scandals.
However you want to slice it, these pollsters are manipulating elections, either intentionally through slanted results or unintentionally through a poor process that has no business being pumped out to the public. Either way, there is no excuse for polls that are so consistently wrong being pushed into the discourse, especially when they all appear to overestimate the most left-wing candidates in the field.