House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that polls showing Democrats with a wide lead ahead of next week’s midterm elections are wrong, arguing that surveys are missing Republican voters who no longer trust pollsters.
“Yes, the polls are wrong,” Johnson told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle,” after she asked him about a new Reuters/Ipsos survey, Mediaite reported. The poll found registered voters favored Democrats over Republicans 47% to 36% on the generic congressional ballot.
The Louisiana Republican spoke eight days before the Nov. 3 elections, which will decide control of the House and Senate for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
Mike Johnson questions the polls
Johnson cited a CNN report that the October generic ballot had underestimated Republicans in 14 of the last 16 elections, by an average of 4 points. “Laura, I think it’s even further off this time because more and more Republicans are unwilling to participate in these surveys,” he said.
“They’re calling it the partisan nonresponse bias,” Johnson said. “That’s the technical term for ‘Republicans don’t trust you anymore.'”
He also named two polling firms, Wedgewood and SoCal Strategies, which he said had been “exposed for completely fraudulent numbers” in the last 10 days. He did not offer evidence for that claim during the interview.
Nate Silver sees little sign of bias
Ingraham put a different view to Johnson. “People like Nate Silver say the polls would have to be really wrong, crazy wrong almost, for Republicans to pull out victories in the House, at least,” she said.
Silver, the election analyst, told The New York Times that polls in the past two midterms “were pretty accurate and unbiased.” He said polling errors could run in either direction, adding, “I could imagine Republican turnout collapsing, giving Democrats an even bigger rout,” The Daily Beast reported.
Trump’s approval ratings are underwater in major polls, with voters concerned about the economy and the war with Iran, according to The Daily Beast. Republicans are defending a narrow House majority on Nov. 3.