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Polls underestimated Democrats almost everywhere, but there was also a regional effect: polls missed by a particularly large amount in the South. Here are the competitive Senate races with significant polling, ordered by size of polling miss.
Here's how much polls underestimated Democrats in each state (based on latest results / my extrapolation):
NC: 9.2
TX: 9.1
GA: 8.5
NH: 7.1
SC: 5.5
MN: 5.4
MS: 5.0
ME: 4.5
IA: 3.5
MI: 2.7
OH: 2.3
KS: 1.9
AK: ~0
NE: -4.9
Polls underestimated Democrats the most in the South.
Eric Neyman retweeted
There's a correct answer to the question of which Democratic faction is better at winning elections, and I was gratified to see my fave moderate Dems like Bobby Pulido and Jamie Ager overperform last night.
But the core story of the midterms is Republicans deciding to lose. The last two years have been a complete and utter dismissal of public opinion. The Trump administration has taken zero interest in addressing voters' top concerns, and Republican congressional candidates took no interest in breaking from a deeply unpopular president. It was a generational defeat, and it was deserved.
I'm grateful to live in a country where the kind of abject disregard for the electorate's preferences that Republicans have shown results in such a large shift in the balance of power. You shouldn't be able to govern like that without consequences—and, it turns out, you can't.
It's a good day in America. Lots of work to do, but it's a good day.
Eric Neyman retweeted
No legislator in the country has done more for AI safety than Senator @Scott_Wiener.
He campaigned strongly on his AI safety record and earned the support of hundreds of AI safety advocates from the very beginning of his campaign.
I can’t believe we can now call him Congressman-elect Wiener.
San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan has conceded to state Sen. Scott Wiener in the race to succeed Nancy Pelosi in Congress, saying “we do not have a clear path to victory,” though the race has not officially been called for Wiener. sfchronicle.com/election/art…
Eric Neyman retweeted
I know the "smart" conventional wisdom is that midterms don't predict future election results. But then I look at this. And 2006 is the only modern lame-duck term with a wave like this.
Eric Neyman retweeted
Bad policy, bad character make bad politics: erratic tariffs, impulsive Iran war, blanket pardons, apparent corruption, weaponized justice, ICE brutality, mountainous deficits, hiding Epstein, abandoning allies and coddling enemies. Hoping for a course correction, for the country and for my party.
In my opinion, it would be a big mistake for Democrats to pursue this. I may write more about this in the coming days/weeks.
Yesterday, voters were profoundly at odds with Republicans over AI. Furthermore, 90% of voters (!!) said that government corruption was a crucial or major factor in their vote. In the end, Big Tech billionaires enabling government corruption really hurt the Republicans.
Last night was an *awful* night for polling -- we saw the largest polling bias in decades. But NYT/Siena's final polls were really good!
In the end, our final polls did not skew toward either side. Our old weighting approach would have overestimated Dems by 3.
The lesson: nonresponse was probably a bigger problem than in prior midterms, but weighting to a 2024 electorate (like many other pollsters) obviously wasn't a solution, either
Eric Neyman retweeted
To illustrate how the value of early voting analysis:
Two months ago, I prob had a worse forecast than any of these.
On my final forecast, finalized a few hours before polls close, I called 22 races wrong, and had a Brier score of just 0.03379 (using the same races as Lakshya)
This is a wonks-only postmortem, so please forgive me for one more: I think @NateSilver538 used to say that he'd prefer you just use Classic in a competition.
But if you allow it (and we should!), then the best Brier Score model of the cycle is clearly Silver Bulletin's Deluxe.
Eric Neyman retweeted
Statement from Humans First, the conservative pro-AI safety and anti- data center expansion group helmed by longtime tea party leader @AmyKremer & GOP operative @ChrisRBarron, on last night:
“Republican leadership in Washington gambled our majorities on big AI money and lost. They ignored their own voters, dismissed legitimate concerns, and put the interests of powerful donors ahead of the families and communities they were elected to represent. The leaders responsible for those decisions should resign from their leadership positions. Accountability cannot stop with the voters who paid the price.”
“This spring, I met with Speaker Johnson’s staff to warn them that a revolt was brewing at the grassroots level over this issue. I begged the Speaker’s office to do something, anything, to show that they understood these concerns. Those warnings went unheeded. Speaker Johnson should step aside and allow House Republicans to choose new leadership."
"If Republican leaders will not stand up to big AI and put their own voters first, they should step aside for leaders who will.”
Eric Neyman retweeted
Surreal to see @ossoff discussing catastrophic risk from AI in his victory speech.
Huge win for @ossoff, who is one of the most informed members of the Senate when it comes to AI risk.
I’ll never forget his incredible line: “Tech titans build bunkers while warning the artificial intelligence they're creating risks human extinction.”
Let's go!
Eric Neyman retweeted
Okay, I've seen enough.
We are soon going to have a boatload of new AI safety champions in Congress and in state houses across the country.
Great news for humanity!
Eric Neyman retweeted
I have a 250-million key model where one key represents one eligible voter. Whichever party wins the most 'keys' wins the popular vote (no promises on Congress or the Presidency). Now, of course, we can't directly observe most keys, so we try to get a representative sample...
