Democrats have closed the gap in Decision Desk HQ’s Senate forecast. Their chances have particularly been boosted by strong polls in red-leaning states like Ohio, Alaska, Texas, and Iowa. But is there reason to doubt some of this positive polling news for Democrats?To dig into that question, Decision Desk HQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley spoke with Patrick Ruffini, a founding partner at the Republican firm Echelon Insights. Patrick recently published an analysis on his Substack, The Intersection, that found Senate polls in recent cycles have tended to overstate Democratic performance relative to the final outcome — especially in some of the red-leaning states that Democrats need to win.
---► Geoffrey Skelley on X: https://x.com/geoffreyvs► Patrick Ruffini on X: https://x.com/PatrickRuffini► The Intersection on Substack: https://patrickruffini.com/---► DDHQ Votes: https://votes.decisiondeskhq.com/► DDHQ SUBSTACK: https://decisiondeskhq.substack.com/► JOIN DDHQ’s OFFICIAL DISCORD SERVER: https://discord.com/invite/ddhq
---CHAPTERS1:35 Introducing Patrick and his findings7:00 Error in midterms vs. presidential cycles13:45 Competitive races with more polling aren’t immune16:20 The redder the state, the worst the error19:24 Potential demographic explanations for error27:20 Error by state: Texas, Ohio, and elsewhere31:12 What this could mean for the 2026 Senate map36:10 What to make of Alaska43:05 Maine and Susan Collins, the overperformer
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