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GOP questions the accuracy of polling leading up to the midterms

Republicans nervous about the midterms are increasingly turning to the same salve: The polling will be wrong.

They aren?t suggesting Republicans will have a good night come Nov. 3 ? or that the party will hold the House. But they?re clinging to the possibility that it could be a typically bad midterm year reminiscent of 2022, when polls projected Democrats would be pummeled, only for those predictions to fall short.

It?s happened in other cycles, too, they note. President Donald Trump outperformed final polling averages in all seven swing states in 2024 and defied the national polls in 2016 as well.

This story is based on conversations with more than a dozen people, including veteran GOP operatives, pollsters, strategists working on battleground races and national party officials. Most conceded the national environment is bad for Republicans and has only gotten worse over the last few months. But even a small sampling error, they say, could completely change how election night turns out for the GOP.

?Part of the challenge here is polling still has not figured out how to model Republican voters who either don?t answer the phone or just aren?t really interested in polling, and so I do think that the Senate map across the board, there?s more reason to doubt the polls than you would guess by seeing how both media and Democrats are treating this,? said Matt Whitlock, a GOP strategist and former National Republican Senatorial Committee senior adviser.

Republicans? growing reliance on bad polling to ease their pain reflects the dour mood gripping the party. With less than three weeks until Election Day, Republicans are increasingly pessimistic about their prospects, as persistent inflation, high prices on everyday items, elevated mortgage rates and a lingering war in the Middle East hamper campaigns. On Wednesday, the Labor Department reported inflation accelerated more than expected in September driven by soaring gas prices, the latest blow to Republicans who are facing voters? ire over cost-of-living concerns.

And this week, top Republican super PACs aligned with Trump and congressional Republican leadership pulled money from a handful of GOP House members seeking reelection. Senior House Republicans have privately concluded that the chamber is all but gone and party leaders are shifting resources to save the Senate.

Both the White House and RNC said polls have sold short GOP support. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said ?underestimating? Trump and his administration ?have proven the experts and pollsters wrong every single time,? while RNC national press secretary Natalie Baldassarre added that ?bed-wetting strategists who aren't in the game always take the bait.?

?Republicans are united in exposing the far-left?s extreme agenda and will leave it all on the table to defy history in November,? she said.

But the polling, like the economic headwinds, has only worsened in recent weeks. Democrats hold a roughly 9-point national lead on the generic congressional ballot, up from about 6.5 points around Labor Day. That?s slightly wider than the Democrats? lead at this point in 2018, when the party rode a blue wave to a 41-seat gain in the House. Senate seats in GOP strongholds such as Texas, Alaska, Iowa and Kansas are in play, as independent voters sour on the president and his policies.

Still, GOP strategist Colin Reed said the polling industry is ?very much in transition? and that making predictions in the Trump era is a ?risky gambit.?

GOP pollster Patrick Ruffini, co-founder of Echelon Insights, found that in three Midwestern states ? Iowa, Michigan and Ohio ? 93 percent of Senate polls overestimated the Democratic candidate?s performance. In both midterm and presidential election years, polls a month out from the election were off by an average of more than 6 points in Democrats? favor.

?We can get the environment right, but the map wrong,? Ruffini said. ?Even if you buy this idea of a Democratic wave, a good Democratic year, a very solidly pro-Democratic environment, we should be concerned about the track record of the polls ? particularly in some of these red states where there have been some pretty large misses, and especially in the Midwest.?

Part of the challenge is no one knows what the midterm electorate will look like, making it hard to know if the polling is accurate. A White House official, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they didn't think that Black voters would show up for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, but it?s unclear whether that means they vote for Republican Mike Rogers ? or just stay home.

"There is a narrative building process in all of these different polls,? the official said, adding that ?it's different in every state. There's not a one-size-fits-all. Whenever you look at which poll is overweighting which subset of voters, they're all over the place."

That?s partly why Trump is appearing in red states ? to shape the electorate and make sure it?s reflective of the MAGA coalition that carried him to victory in 2024.

Multiple GOP strategists pointed to 2022 when Democrats outperformed expectations, and held the Senate, even as they lost the House. The Biden White House, even with the loss of the lower chamber, took a victory lap, celebrating the better-than-expected election night as a ?good day.?

?Republicans? only hope in ?26 is that what happened to us in ?22 happens to Democrats in ?26,? said a GOP strategist working on battleground races. ?There?s a part of me that thinks there is a scenario where 2022 repeats itself. But if the polling is right ? then I think it?s setting up to be one of the worst cycles in history for Republicans.?

Polling over the last decade has struggled to capture Republican voters. The data underestimated Trump?s support in 2016, 2020 and 2024, and Republicans argue similar errors could be happening again this cycle, particularly in competitive Senate races.

?Polling is getting much more difficult to do,? said veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove, adding that if the polls reflect Democratic overperformance ?then every one of these races that we?re talking about today ? Texas, Michigan, Maine, Alaska, Iowa ? they're all within the margin of error.?

An RNC official argued that public polls skew toward Democrats.

?It's not to say that the environment's wildly different from what we anticipated it was going to be, which is a tough one in a midterm, which is what history tells you a midterm environment is going to be,? the person said. ?I think generally speaking, the polls are far more pessimistic than the reality is for Republicans in the midterms.?

Text polling has skewed the responses because it overpresents young liberal voters and progressives, especially in states that have a large white population, as many of the Great Plains states do, said a second GOP strategist working on competitive midterm races. Pollsters try to balance their samples, but can only do so much to correct for that.

The strategist also noted that the polling right now reflects a change in the electorate as profound as those seen after Watergate and 9/11.

?It would be so historically unprecedented you?d have to presuppose we?re staring down the barrel of a generational national trauma that no one is aware of,? the strategist said.

Adam Wren contributed to this report.

In the midterm elections, meat is on the menu.

As Democrats and Republicans argue over high prices and the Iran war, they also are having a food fight over who is the most red-blooded carnivore.

The latest example came this week in Mississippi, where Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom released a video with a snippet of Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent, saying that if consumers are upset over high beef prices, ?you know you have so many proteins to choose from.?

The video cuts to a man grilling burgers who says, ?Pick another protein? I'd rather pick another senator instead.?

The Mississippi race is somewhat unusual because it is the Democrat hammering the Republican over beef. Elsewhere, Republicans have branded Democrats as vegans or otherwise opposed to meat, trying to show that they are culturally out of step with voters, hostile to local cattle industries or just not manly enough.

In Texas, Republicans seized on an old interview in which Democrat James Talarico, the current U.S. Senate nominee, boasted that his campaign at the time for the Texas Statehouse was going vegan. Talarico has since been publicly scarfing down barbecue to rebut allegations that his dietary choices mean he is not a real Texan.

Chowing down on barbecue and tacos

In Colorado, Republicans have gone after Democratic congressional candidate Manny Rutinel for his activism against meat production and factory farming. In college, he was photographed shirtless with a banner for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals around his chest. In 2021, Rutinel founded Climate Refarm, which advocated for cutting down on the use of meat and has signed onto letters advocating for raising taxes on meat and dairy. He also supported a 2024 ballot measure to ban a lamb slaughterhouse in Denver, which failed.

Rutinel, 31, is now running against Gabe Evans, the Republican who represents Colorado's 8th Congressional District. The vast swath in the northeastern part of the state is dotted with ranches, dairy farms and meat processing facilities, including the headquarters of beef production titan JBS Swift. Republicans have hammered Rutinel over advocating veganism, to the point that the conservative media group Daily Wire this week released an undercover video of a campaign official saying Rutinel eats meat ?as little as possible.?

Rutinel has made a point of publicly eating steak tacos during the campaign and is backed by the meatpackers' union. ?I don?t think Coloradans care about what?s on my plate,? he said in an interview after a recent campaign stop. ?I think they care more about being able to afford what?s on theirs.?

Evans said the issue goes beyond Rutinel's meal preferences. ?I don't care what he eats personally,? Evans said in an interview. ?I care that he wants to use the power of the government to make everyone eat that way.?

High-stakes role for meat in the debate over rising consumer prices

Republicans, in the same way, have gone after two other Democrats running for the U.S. House. They are hammering Lindsay James in Iowa's 2nd District, an area filled with hog farms, over a 2020 Facebook post supporting ?meatless May," and Amish Shah in Arizona's 1st District for his long-standing vegetarianism and animal rights activism.

Also in Iowa, Republican U.S. Senate nominee Rep. Ashley Hinson slammed her opponent, state lawmaker Josh Turek, for opposing a bill banning lab-grown meat from being sold in the state. ?He?d rather have meat that comes from a lab than from our family farms,? the congresswoman said at a campaign appearance.

Democrats have spotlighted meat as well, but mainly as one of the staples that cost more under Trump, squeezing voters' pocketbooks. Trump has tried to lower prices by opening U.S. markets to beef imports, especially from Argentina, which is governed by a close Trump ally.

Those moves, however, have angered U.S. producers as prices have remained stubbornly high, creating a potential weakness in Republican-leaning states where Democrats hope to gain ground this year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pound of ground beef cost $6.79 last month, up from $5.55 in January of 2025, when Trump returned to office.

That was the dynamic that Hyde-Smith, a cattle rancher and former Mississippi agriculture commissioner, was addressing in her interview that was clipped in Colom's video. The prosecutor ? who also delivers the ?pick another senator? line in the spot ? is running a long-shot challenge in Mississippi.

A spokesman for Hyde-Smith's campaign argued that the Democrats deserve blame for high prices. ?It is Scott Colom who supports Biden-era policies that drove up inflation,? said Nathan Calvert.

___

Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that Manny Rutinel, a congressional candidate in Colorado, said in an interview, ?I think they care more about being able to afford what?s on theirs," rather than, ?I think they care more about what?s on theirs."

The US military has developed new strike plans that include potentially using the so-called ?mother of all bombs? to target Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites should President Donald Trump give the order to resume combat operations either before or after the midterm elections, according to multiple US officials familiar with the matter.

Using the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb or MOAB, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, for the first time in the conflict with Iran would mark a notable escalation, even though there are doubts over how effective it would be in accomplishing any of Trump?s stated strategic objectives or tipping the balance of the war, multiple sources familiar with internal military planning discussions about potentially deploying the weapon said.

Trump is facing pressure to bring an end to the deeply unpopular war ? as Republicans brace for potential political backlash from voters in the upcoming midterm elections and there is little indication the two countries are close to a negotiated resolution after more than six months of US bombing.

While the US military continues to provide Trump with options for potential strikes against outstanding Iranian targets, some officials continue to privately question whether the White House has a strategy that incorporates those plans in a way that could actually end the war ? something only the president has the power to do.

For months, Trump and his advisers have discussed options that could act as a ?definitive? end to the war, at least from a messaging point of view, aware of how unpopular the conflict has become among Americans.

While some administration figures have characterized the war as essentially won, Trump has been more guarded in recent remarks, stopping short of declaring victory and saying the US still has unfinished business in the country.

Behind the scenes, Trump has also cast doubt on some outside allies who have encouraged him to simply bring US troops home and move on. Doing so, Trump has argued, would look like defeat.

Over the course of the last several weeks, White House advisers have held meetings to discuss various options for Iran. While Trump announced publicly that he would not take new actions before the midterms, several advisers said privately they didn?t know whether that statement was definitive or could change before Election Day.

Trump has ordered the military to develop additional strike packages against Iranian targets that include ?a lot of energy infrastructure? and the potential use of a MOAB, one of the sources told CNN. The same source said the phrasing used was that this attack would come ?prior to US retrograde in CENTCOM AOR (area of responsibility),? indicating the administration could launch the additional strikes, attempt to declare victory and quickly pull everyone out.

A second source told CNN that military plans for striking Iranian nuclear sites, including Pickaxe Mountain, also explicitly call for using the MOAB. In recent months, Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike Pickaxe, where the US and Israel believe Tehran has stored components of its nuclear program, even after pausing full combat operations earlier this year, and Trump continues to emphasize that his goal is to ensure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.

Doubts MOAB would be effective

Another US official noted that when the military plans, it develops a menu of options for policymakers that range from the high-end to low-end. Higher-end targets, including those that are located deep underground, require bigger bombs, and the MOAB is the biggest, the official added.

But there are questions around whether the MOAB would be an effective munition to use against Iran?s nuclear facilities and other sites that are located deep underground. While the GPS-guided bomb is capable of destroying an area equivalent to nine city blocks, it likely lacks the capability to penetrate deep enough under the surface to destroy the suspected nuclear facilities at Pickaxe, which is believed to be fortified by layers of granite, and other remaining Iranian nuclear sites, sources said.

?The MOAB is a massive information operation type weapon that is great for huge area clearance but not much else,? a third source familiar with military planning discussions around Iran told CNN. ?It is definitely not designed as a deep penetration warhead.?

If used, the MOAB would have devastating effects on the area that it impacts but likely only at the surface level, the sources noted. And the bomb?s massive blast radius would almost certainly raise concerns about the prospect of civilian casualties ? particularly if it is used to target Iranian infrastructure targets located near populated areas and in close proximity to non-military sites.

Still, Trump could opt to use the MOAB as a psychological weapon at a time when the Iranian regime appears dug in and unwilling to bend to his diplomatic demands. While US officials warn that deploying it is unlikely to force Iran?s capitulation or achieve a strategic military victory ? it could provide Trump with an additional option, short of restarting full combat operations, to alter the conflict?s current status quo.

?POTUS has unfortunately put himself in a situation where he is almost compelled to do something and, without the ammunition designed to penetrate that level ? you have to look at psychological effects for which the MOAB is well-equipped,? the third source familiar with recent planning discussions added.

Many within the administration as well as outside analysts agree that the only way to decisively defeat Iran would be through a major operation involving ground troops, a commitment that could potentially cost thousands of American lives. The Pentagon considers all scenarios, so those plans exist, but as of now no one in the administration is arguing for such drastic action.

Trump has indicated he has little interest in putting US boots on the ground in Iran but his desire to end the conflict as soon as possible presents a political dilemma for a president who is keenly aware of how unpopular the war has become yet has been unable to secure a diplomatic agreement that would bring it to a close.

Top Trump administration officials and military planners have been focused, for weeks, on finding an off-ramp that gives Trump a ?symbolic? win ? at minimum ? he can try to sell to the American people without preventing a potential diplomatic breakthrough, starting with an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, CNN has reported.

A fourth source familiar with the Pentagon?s recent planning discussions on Iran told CNN that military officials had developed some options that would amount to a ?fireworks show,? with the goal of providing Trump an off-ramp from the conflict even if those strikes fail to accomplish his stated goals for starting the war in the first place.

And despite Trump?s recent pledge to hold off on launching additional strikes before the midterms, the US military already appears to be preparing for potential Iranian retaliation should the president give the go-order.

The next turnover of US troops deployed to CENTCOM is also expected to take place within the next few weeks, according to a fifth source, a US official who acknowledged it is possible some of the personnel who rotate out of the region, may not be replaced by fresh service members.

Asked about the plans, a White House official told CNN that they do not comment on sensitive military plans that may or may not exist, adding ?President Trump keeps all options on the table to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.?

In response to CNN?s request for comment, a Pentagon official said: ?The Department of War plans for a wide range of operational scenarios to execute Presidential and Secretary?level direction and to ensure mission success in any operational environment.?

MOAB developed for ?psychological operations?

Developed during the Iraq War, the MOAB is an air blast-type warhead that explodes before hitting the ground to project a massive explosion from all sides.

During the final stages of testing in 2003, military officials told CNN the MOAB was mainly conceived as a weapon employed for ?psychological operations.?

Military officials said then they hoped such a huge blast would rattle Iraqi troops and pressure them into surrendering or not even fighting.

As originally conceived, the MOAB was to be used against large formations of troops and equipment or hardened above-ground bunkers. The target set has been expanded to include targets buried under softer surfaces, such as caves or tunnels.

Trump was the first US president to deploy the MOAB, during his first term when he authorized the military to use its most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS positions in Afghanistan in 2017.

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That strike targeted a network of fortified underground tunnels that ISIS had been using to stage attacks on government forces ? killing 36 ISIS fighters, Afghan officials said. The blast destroyed three underground tunnels as well as weapons and ammunition, but no civilians were hurt, Afghan and US officials added at the time.

At the time, the bombing marked a dramatic change in attitude for Trump, who advocated an isolationist, ?America first? foreign policy during his first election campaign.

Following the 2017 strike, US military officials were pressed on whether the 21,600-pound bomb was necessary for that particular target and would likely face similar questions if the munition is deployed against Iran.

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Jennifer Balkcom, a Republican running for Congress in western North Carolina, introduced herself to voters by informing them that her single mom once shot a home intruder.

"You break into my house, you're going to get shot," Balkcom's mother says in her twangy mountain accent in a campaign ad posted Sept. 29 on YouTube, which already boasts over 800,000 views.

The camera then pans to Balkcom, a 48-year-old state representative, whose mom says she would bring her family's mountain toughness from their house to the House of Representatives as both women hold white coffee cups at a wooden dining room table.

The commercial is airing in one of the nation's most competitive congressional races and illustrates the metamorphosis of how campaign ads are produced and consumed during this midterm cycle.

Advertisements must be attention grabbing as both parties fight for visibility ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3, political experts, including Travis Ridout, a professor of government and public policy at Washington State University, say.

Can you sue over targeted ads? 'Blockbuster' Supreme Court case to decide

"I think just the capacity to target nowadays and tailor those messages to specific audiences means it's less (of) the standard generic ad that we're trying to appeal to all voters with," Ridout told USA TODAY.

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Political spending during the 2025-26 election season has already surpassed $10 billion, exceeding the total ad spending in both the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 election cycles, according to AdImpact Politics, an ad intelligence firm. AdImpact estimates that this year will mark the most expensive election cycle in U.S. history with upward to $11.6 billion in spending.

But it's not just the sheer size of the ad buys that stand out.

Candidates across the U.S. have used everything from F-bombs to fortune cookies to help boost their own prospects. Wisconsin state Rep. Steve Doyle even held a pet alpaca: "Please, don't fall for emotional appeals. Oh, and this is my baby alpaca, Pasta. She hopes you'll vote for me!" he joked.

Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama cut ads to support a slate of Democratic candidates while some Republicans are using their own spots to seek distance from President Donald Trump, who faces sinking approval ratings.