Why? For two reasons. First of all, the numbers, as eye-watering as they are, may be setting us up for disappointment, even if Democrats have a solid night next month. They simply seem too good to be true. According to polls and forecasts, the Democrats are virtually guaranteed to win back the House. Fairly progressive Democrats (Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, Maine’s Troy Jackson) are leading in blue-leaning swing states. More centrist Democrats (North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Georgia’s Jon Ossoff) are comfortably ahead in swing states that traditionally lean a bit red.
I’m not done. Democrats could win enough governorships and state legislatures that a majority of Americans live in states with a Democratic trifecta next year. A Black politician from Milwaukee (David Crowley) is favored to win the governorship in Wisconsin, overcoming long-standing resentment against the state’s biggest city. In Georgia, Keisha Bottoms has a real chance of becoming the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history.
Some data experts say that we should trust the polls; others argue that they might be inflating Democrats’ chances. In my view, polls are generally reliable, but they can’t predict the winner of a race that’s within three to five points—as many of these contests are.
And honestly, to assume that the big blue wave that’s being projected won’t happen is probably better for my mental health. I was saddened when the 2016 and 2024 elections did not permanently force Trump out of politics and put a woman in charge of the country for the first time. I was dismayed at how close the swing states were in 2020, considering how terrible Trump’s presidency had been.
Here’s a second reason to be wary of the polls: They are creating expectations that the mainstream media might use against Democrats. In January 2025, if you told reporters at AP, The New York Times, CNN, NBC News, and other centrist news outlets that Democrats were going to win 225 House seats and 49 Senate seats in November 2026, they might have been skeptical Democrats would do that well. In January, I wrote a piece that was titled “Amazingly, the Democrats Have a Shot at a Senate Majority,” reflecting how unlikely that seemed even nine months ago.
If Democrats fall short of these projections, even if they win 229 House seats and 50 in the Senate, I am quite confident the mainstream media will revert to its preferred approach to covering politics: centrism/false equivalence/balance/both sides/“independence.” Centrist news outlets will use headlines like “Voters Dislike Trump but Aren’t Sure About Democrats Either,” “Americans Hate Both Parties,” “American Voters Deliver a Mixed Verdict.”
So for now, I’m taking the polls seriously but not literally, to borrow a formation from earlier in the Trump era. I am confident that Republicans will do worse in Kansas, Texas, Iowa, and other red states than usual. I am sure that some Democrats will win by larger margins in many swing states than seemed possible two years ago. But I will be delighted and surprised if there are Governors Bottoms, Crowley, and Hinojosa or Senators El-Sayed or Talarico. It could happen, though. The polls in 2026 look as rosy for Democrats as 2008. They were right back then. They could be right again.
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