Republicans are predicting a “red wave” that will crush any hopes for a Democratic majority this election cycle. But that prediction has been dashed as the dust has settled and the counting has concluded.
While Republicans have succeeded in states like Florida and New York, Democrats have fared better in swing states where polls tend to significantly understate their support. On the eve of the election, the FiveThirtyEight polling average had Dr Mohammad Oz leading by just half a percentage point, but lost by 4 percentage points at the final tally. In Michigan, the same average gave incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer just a 5-point lead over her Republican challenger; but on Election Day, she won by more than 10 points.
Many Democratic strategists and White House officials attribute the disparity to record numbers of young people voting this year, a demographic that leans heavily toward Democrats. According to Tufts University Civic Learning and Engagement Some 27 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 voted before Election Day, according to early estimates from the Center for Information and Research, also known as CIRCLE.
As recently as 2014 and in previous decades, youth voter turnout has been around 20% every year. But that changed in 2018, when youth turnout soared 16 percent, to a total of 36 percent.
Not everyone is convinced. Popular Democratic data guru David Shor argues that there is “no ‘youth earthquake'” because youth turnout is down in 2022 compared to 2018 numbers. But even then, early exit polls show that while young people may not be showing up everywhere, they do show up where they matter most to Democrats. In nine contested states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, CIRCLE’s exit polls showed overall youth voter turnout at 31 percent, 1 percent above the national average in 2018.
“It’s a combination of technology and then missing the story about what’s going on in this country.”
“It’s a combination of technology and then missing the story about what’s going on in this country,” Rise CEO Max Lubin told The Verge Wednesday.
Robotic calls and text messages have increased dramatically over the past few years. In general, pollsters rely on people answering the phone or clicking on links they send via text to complete their surveys.
According to RoboKiller, an app that blocks spam calls and text messages, Americans received more than 6 billion robocalls in October alone, including nearly 25 million political robocalls and 12.9 billion political bot text messages.
“Young people are savvier than others and more likely to ignore these connections,” YouGov Blue’s polling director John Ray told The Verge this week. “They’re much more disciplined with their devices.”
Voting has evolved over the past decade to catch up with the rise of social media platforms in popularity among young people, but experts say companies aren’t there yet Going far enough. Meta’s ad-targeting tool enables voting companies to reach young voters through platforms like Facebook and Instagram, but the service’s targeting accuracy has declined over time, especially after Apple changed its privacy and third-party data permissions last year Finally, for iPhone users.
“Facebook is down strongly, but it’s at such a high point, and it’s likely to last through the end of the upcoming cycle,” Ray said.
Unlike corporate marketing firms, political pollsters have tighter budgets and a greater need for accurate data returns, making it harder to experiment with reaching younger audiences. But the possibility of looming robocalling and texting regulations, as well as stricter online privacy laws, could force polling companies to adapt to more nontraditional platforms, such as YouTube.
“This cycle I’m telling people they need to figure out what their strategy is for Discord and Twitter,” Ray said. “We’re exploring more ways to recruit people to survey the YouTube channels they watch.”
In the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Snap launched a new Snapchat lens that encourages users to answer questions like Surveys of exit polls that will appear in their stories. While these surveys are not as scientific as those created by professional firms, the data collected could help Snap, whose users are primarily young, fill in the youth voting gap.
“Pollers are stuck in an outdated mindset that young people don’t show up,” Lubin told The Verge. “While young people broke turnout records between 2018 and 2020, and I expect we’ll see some record-breaking new turnout numbers this year, pollsters are sticking with this conventional wisdom.”
In states like Michigan, hundreds of students lined up to vote for hours on college campuses on Election Day. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is in a tight race against her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, who has Trump’s backing. Opinion polls have them evenly matched. According to The New York Times, Whitmer ended up being re-elected by more than 10 percentage points .
“At this point, the polls are often wishful thinking,” Michigan Democratic communications director Rodericka Applewhaite told The Verge on Wednesday. “Pollsters are going to have to do a lot of self-reflection on how to stay relevant in this area.”
