The Road to November
It is May 12, 2026. There are 176 days until the midterms. Tonight, I have to present a paper on the state of the race. For the past month, I have been working with some polling friends who have helped me dive deep into American polling trends. Below is the executive summary of the information.
As you are aware, I do not think individual polling in America is accurate. But polling averages have held up in the past decade quite well. The 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024 elections all hovered around the polling averages in terms of the popular vote. Remember, Trump won the electoral college in 2016, but Clinton came close to the polling average in terms of popular vote.
Midterm elections, which tend to have lower turnout than presidential election years, tend to conform better to polling averages.
This is a snapshot of where the midterms stand 176 days from the midterms, based on a pretty in-depth review of seven major pollsters and their crosstabs. I relied on a couple of pollster friends and also Claude.AI to dig deep into the data and pull together the data for a comprehensive snapshot of where things are right now.
As I always say, events change things. As the pollsters I worked with noted, the polling trajectory for the GOP right now is not good, even with redistricting trends, but there are events outside the scope of existing public opinion that can dramatically change things.
For now, with 176 days to go, here is where the 2026 election stands.
