Opinion > Opinions - Campaign The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill Will the 2026 midterms be a ‘blue wave’? Here’s what to watch as polling ramps up by W. Joseph Campbell, opinion contributor - 03/06/26 10:00 AM ET by W. Joseph Campbell, opinion contributor - 03/06/26 10:00 AM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email Getty Images One of the safe wagers about this year’s midterm elections is that polling of competitive congressional races will be frequent and abundant — and maybe even misleading. After all, the “red wave” of sweeping Republican victories  anticipated four years ago  turned out to be a very modest “ red trickle .”  While Democrats are favored  to win control of the House of Representatives this year, it may be months before clarity emerges about how November’s congressional elections will turn out. Even so, it is none too early to be aware of some realities about election surveys this year, especially as polling  already has been conspicuous in unfolding U.S. Senate races in Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire and Georgia.  Pollsters in 2026 are coming off back-to-back disappointments. In 2024, polls overall understated Republican Donald Trump’s support for the third time in as many presidential elections, despite modifications  to survey techniques that sought to avoid such an outcome. In 2025, polls collectively underestimated support  for victorious Democrats in gubernatorial campaigns in New Jersey and Virginia — the year’s two most prominent statewide races.  Of course, past results are no sure indicator of future polling performance, as the recent experience of AtlasIntel  makes clear.   A Brazil-based company, AtlasIntel was the most accurate pollster in the U.S. presidential race in 2024, correctly projecting Trump would win the national popular vote  as well as carry the seven swing states where the Electoral College outcome turned. No other pollster  was so successful. In 2025, however, AtlasIntel signaled a far closer race  for governor in New Jersey than what transpired. Its final preelection poll reported that Democrat Mikie Sherrill led by a single percentage point; she won by 14 points .   AtlasIntel also failed to anticipate the magnitude of Abigail Spanberger’s victory  in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.  “We literally run hundreds of polls every year,” Andrei Roman, AtlasIntel founder and chief executive, said  in a post on X as the 2025 results became clear. “We’ll inevitably get a couple wrong, in particular if turnout patterns shift dramatically. And we’re always looking to learn and improve our methods.”  Should their work turn out to be misleading about this year’s elections, pollsters will likely escape much public accountability — which has been the case in recent national elections. There has been little appetite among polling organizations and the news media to scrutinize or direct much critical attention to polls that veer off target in their final pre-election estimates.   This tendency was reflected in a detailed report  commissioned by the American Association for Public Opinion Research  about polling the 2024 presidential election . The report studiously avoided specific reference to individual pollsters.  As a result, the performance in 2024 of  prominent , media-sponsored polls — including those of CNN  and  The New York Times , both of which estimated Kamala Harris led in enough swing states to win the Electoral College — received no attention in the report.  The 2026 campaign coincides with turbulence in election polling, given the departure of some prominent entities in survey research. For example, the popular polling-data site FiveThirtyEight was shuttered last year  by ABC News amid staff cuts  ordered by its parent, Walt Disney Co. The polling institute at Monmouth University in New Jersey was closed last year , reportedly in a cost-cutting move.  And one of the country’s most lauded pollsters , J. Ann Selzer of the Iowa Poll, retired  following the disastrous survey she released late in the 2024 presidential campaign. Selzer’s poll indicated Harris had opened a 3-point lead  over Trump in Iowa, a reliably Republican state in recent national elections. Selzer’s poll, published by the Des Moines Register newspaper, was dramatically in error, as Trump carried Iowa by 13 percentage points . That meant Selzer’s poll had missed by 16 points.  “Polling is a science of estimation,” Selzer was quoted as saying