Election results show that pollsters tended to over sample Democrats again in 2018

Rowan Scarborough:
Pollsters on Tuesday avoided their disastrous 2016 election forecasts by correctly predicting that Democrats would regain control of the House, though botching some important statewide races.

Unlike 2016, when political gurus at The New York Times, The Washington Post and other media said President Trump had little or no chance of winning, surveyors this time captured voting in blue-state congressional districts where a number of Republican seats flipped.

But pollsters did not fully redeem themselves for the sins of 2016 when they collectively botched Trump wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. There were glaring survey errors in 2018 as turnout models over-counted Democrats. By Tuesday night, Republicans had won important Senate and governor races.

The misses in the days before voting, based on polls posted on Real Clear Politics:

⦁ Florida governor. The last 10 polls had pegged Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum the winner. But former Rep. Ron DeSantis won by 0.7 percentage points. While some wrong polls lay within the margin of error, Quinnipiac College in New York picked Mr. Gillum to win by 7 points. The St. Petersburg poll, NBC/Marist, Emerson College and the University of Florida had Mr. Gillum winning by 4 to 6 points.

⦁ Florida Senate. Nearly every late survey picked Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson to retain his seat. He lost to GOP Gov. Rick Scott by 0.4 percentage points. Again, Quinnipiac was way off, predicting a 7-point Nelson win. Emerson College also botched it, saying Mr. Nelson would win by 5 points. The St. Petersburg poll nailed the race at a 1 percentage-point Scott victory.

⦁ Missouri Senate. Several polls missed Republican Josh Hawley’s 6 percentage-point win against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. NBC/Marist had her up by 3 points. Emerson and the Republican firm Trafalgar correctly saw the Hawley win, at 3 and 4 percentage points, respectively.

⦁ Georgia governor. Trafalgar badly overestimated Republican Brian Kemp’s final tally. An outlier in this race, the company said Mr. Kemp would defeat Democrat Stacey Abrams by 12 points. He won by 1.6 percent. Emerson and the Atlanta Constitution were spot on.

⦁ Nevada Senate. Trafalgar missed this race, forecasting a 3 percentage-point win for GOP Sen. Dean Heller. Democrat Jacky Rosen won by 5 points.

⦁ Indiana Senate. Fox News badly missed here, predicting an easy win for Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly against Republican Mike Braun. Fox said Mr. Donnelly would win by 7 percentage points. He lost by 7.8 points, meaning Fox was off by 14 points. NBC/Marist also saw a Donnelly win, by 3 points.

⦁ Arizona Senate. Again NBC/Marist was off, saying Democrat Kirsten Sinema would win by 6 percentage points; CNN said by 4 points. Republican Rep. Martha McSally is leading by 2.2 percentage points, but a large number of mail-in ballots are still to be counted.

⦁ Ohio governor. A number of forecasters botched this race. Former Sen. Mike DeWine beat Democrat Richard Cordray by 4.3 percentage points. NBC/Marist’s last poll had it a tie. Quinnipiac had Mr. Cordray up by 2 points, Emerson by 3 and Gravis by 5 in their final polls.
...
They did get a few right including Ted Cruz win over Beto O'Rourke in Texas.   By election day the pollsters were also backing off the blue wave predictions of earlier days and showing Democrats edging out a narrow win for House seats.

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