Election Season Brings About New Trust Issues With Polling

The year 2026 has in store an abundance of politics and election cycles coming. Primaries for the midterms are coming in just a short two months, then before we know it, November and the midterm elections will be here. Locally and nationally, these elections this year are critically important, and knowing who to trust when it comes to polling as important as it is tricky.

Polling manipulation has been going on for quite some time and was never more evident than in 2024. A Des Moines Register poll had Kamala Harris winning Iowa, it was doom and gloom for Republicans. President Trump went on to win the state by 13-points. Polling has been wrong in other elections since then, and really it has become a guessing game more than an art for most.

Pollster and Founder of The Trafalgar Group Robert Cahaly says the quality of the polls is based on results. Looking at how the polls did compared to the results. In the most recent elections, the success has been mixed to mostly negative.

"People have good and bad cycles, but year in and year out, you can see quality companies are going to rise...this was a great year to demonstrate it," says Cahaly.

There is an art to correct polling, which takes actual hard samples and can present real data. But many polls now are just a show and nothing more than manipulation.

Democrats have been guilty of this for years; they are just good about not leaving a true trace.

"They are very clever...they take the weakest Republican in a primary and artificially raise their polling so they look like the winner with momentum and donors backing them, with the hopes they will be the nominee," Cahaly says. "Then they have an easier time defeating them."

Early polling is another thing to be very cautious when viewing.

"Some of these races have only one or two polls early...some of them are just jokes...but then some of them end up affecting if the candidates can raise money," says Cahaly.

You could even look to Texas for an example of that. Jasmine Crockett has been virtually declared the winner of her primary for the Senate over James Talarico. You take away the idea of hope from people, they will not want to support it.

Cahaly adds this is all the reason why who you listen to is very important.