Why Did Pollsters Get Michigan And Wisconsin Primaries So Wrong?

Polling for races in Michigan and Wisconsin did not accurately reflect the actual election results due to open primaries and the willingness from the further-left candidates’ bases to be surveyed, pollsters said.

Surveys indicated that Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong held double digit leads ahead of their primaries, although El-Sayed narrowly won his race and Hong lost. Pollsters stated it was difficult to properly conduct surveys in these states because of their open primaries, while supporters of further-left candidates are more enthusiastic and willing to participate in polls.

An Emerson College Polling/WLNS/WOODTV survey, a Mitchell Research & Communications poll and other polls indicated El-Sayed led Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens by over 20 points. El-Sayed only beat Stevens by one point, 48.5% to 47.5%.

In open primary elections, it is difficult to determine likely Democratic voters since Republicans and independents can vote in Democratic primaries. Eli McKown-Dawson, a senior elections analyst at Silver Bulletin, told the Daily Caller News Foundation it was difficult to poll in Michigan and Wisconsin because they hold open primaries, meaning voters do not register with a political party.

“The polls in Wisconsin and Michigan did miss in a big way. But primary polls in general are more prone to error than polls of general elections. For example, the average polling error in polls of presidential primaries historically is about 9 points. It’s even higher, easily in the double digits on average, in polls of House and Senate primaries. So, while the misses in Wisconsin and Michigan were large, they weren’t extreme outliers for a primary,” McKown-Dawson told the DCNF.

“That’s because primaries are just harder to poll than general elections. Increasingly, polls rely on weighting and other kinds of statistical modeling to produce their final samples,” McKown-Dawson continued. “But many of the variables pollsters use to benchmark their general election polls aren’t available for primaries. It’s especially difficult in Wisconsin and Michigan because both states hold open primaries, meaning voters don’t need to be registered with a particular party to participate in its primary.”

The polls in both races surveyed too many young people and voters who were enthusiastic about the election, who tend to vote for further-left candidates like El-Sayed and Hong.

“It also looks like polls of both races contained too many young voters, and too many voters who were very enthusiastic about the election. That can be a general problem with polls that are increasingly conducted online or via text, if they’re missing anyone, it’s often older voters. In both Wisconsin and Michigan, younger more enthusiastic voters were the exact coalition who were fired up about Hong and El-Sayed, respectively,” McKown-Dawson said.

Democratic pollster Adam Carlson, the founding partner of Zenith Research, also wrote in a post-mortem of the Michigan primary that El-Sayed’s base was more “fired up” and willing to be surveyed. However, enthusiasm before Election Day does not mean more votes at the ballot box.

“Now, in a state like Michigan that has open primaries, it’s notoriously very difficult to nail the electorate/gauge who is voting in each primary,” Carlson wrote. “There was a competitive Republican gubernatorial primary this time, but turnout was 65% higher on the Democratic side than on the Republican side … “El-Sayed’s supporters were more fired up and willing to take polls down the stretch, but more enthusiasm does not necessarily equal more votes.”

Carlson also argued his poll misrepresented seniors, voters with a household income less than $50,000 per year and Republicans who may have voted for Stevens to stop El-Sayed from winning. He suggested that pollsters in Michigan should “err on the side of an older electorate” and pay close attention to party identification and income.

Stevens won the older, non-college educated and lower-to-middle income electorate, while El-Sayed was most successful in counties with white, college educated and higher-income populations. The congresswoman ran as the moderate candidate, campaigning on reforming rather than abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, implementing a public option over Medicare for All and expressing strong support for Israel.

El-Sayed received endorsements from the anti-establishment, including independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cotez and Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer quietly endorsed Stevens and asked party donors to support her, according to The New York Times.

In Wisconsin, several surveys published by State Navigate, Marquette University and Public Policy Polling repeatedly showed Hong leading her opponent, Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial nominee David Crowley, by over 20 points. Crowley defeated Hong by less than 1% in Tuesday’s election.

Pollster G. Elliot Morris wrote the average error of a Senate or gubernatorial primary is around 13 points. He explained that the polls misinterpreted the average age and ideology of most of the voters. State Navigate, which conducted polls in Wisconsin, described a much younger electorate than the ones that show up to an August primary.

“It looks like both of these processes failed to anticipate an older, more moderate primary electorate. Or, at the least, weighting to a slightly older benchmark would have improved performance,” Morris wrote for State Navigate.

The August survey was also a recontact survey, meaning it polled the same participants who responded in July. It appeared that Crowley gained momentum later in the election cycle, meaning the polls did not accurately reflect his base’s support.

In 2016 and 2024, polls misrepresented the types of Democrats and Republicans who turned out on Election Day, Morris wrote. Moderate Democrats and Republicans were more likely to refuse pollsters, and it appeared that Hong’s supporters were more willing to answer.

“The right reading of this is that primary polling is hard in ways that general-election polling is not. It is reassuring that most of the 20-point miss by the polls came from two problems that are either (1) fixable (weighting model) or (2) unavoidable in primaries (late movement), rather than, e.g., pervasive non-response by moderates,” Morris wrote. “The first problem is fixable with accurate voter-file targets (and bias is further reduced with some handy guesswork about ideology and income). The second is fixable by fielding later — and by everyone, poll-readers included, treating a primary poll as a snapshot with a very short shelf life.”

A Marquette Law School poll found that 34% of respondents were undecided on how they would vote in late July. It appeared that undecided voters wound up supporting Crowley at the last minute, which likely helped push him across the finish line.

McKown-Dawson told the DCNF that primary elections change rapidly, adding there were many undecided voters up until Election Day.

“In Wisconsin, for example, you had candidates drop out quite late, and the eventual winner got back into the race just a few weeks before Election Day. It can be hard for polls to pick up late-breaking movement like that, especially when many voters were undecided even in the final pre-election polls,” McKown-Dawson told the DCNF.

“Pod Save America” co-host Dan Pfeiffer explained on X why he believed undecided voters likely picked Crowley over Hong.

“Crowley and Evers made electability a central issue down the stretch, and Hong’s media tour, trying to explain her past tweets, amplified voters’ concerns about her ability to beat Tiffany,” Pfeiffer said. “Bernie and AOC not endorsing further raised questions.”

Hong called on Thanksgiving to be cancelled in a November 2020 X post, claiming Americans should stop “celebrating colonialism.” She said on Election Day that she would not cancel the holiday.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez did not campaign with Hong ahead of the primary.