As RedState reported this morning, a major poll released on Wednesday showed a massive swing towards the GOP. The YouGov/Economist poll had previously shown Democrats up four points. The latest iteration, which finally included a likely voter screen, now has Republicans up one point.
That was enough to put the GOP back in the lead in the RealClearPolitics generic ballot average. It was also enough to send the left into apoplectic rage given that the YouGov survey had been one of the best for Democrats all cycle.
Never fear, though. Fox News showed up later in the day with a round of polling to give the left a morale boost.
To start, these are registered voter polls, which is just ridiculous this late in the game. If a pollster is too scared or too cheap to come up with a good likely voter sample, they should just shut it down for the year.
Past that, the numbers just make no sense. We are supposed to believe that Herschel Walker, who has led in several recent polls, is actually trailing Warnock by five points. That seems improbable. More improbable is the idea that Walker is going to lag behind Brian Kemp, the other Republican at the top of the ballot in Georgia this year, by nine points. I would put my house on that not happening.
The Pennsylvania numbers are more believable, but they are also far rosier for Democrats than other recent surveys. Perhaps Fox News is just better at this than everyone else, but I kind of doubt it, which leads me to my next point.
The real reason to outright dismiss anything Fox News puts out regarding polling is that their track record is horrific. This is the same outfit that had a Democrat winning the Senate race in Indiana during the 2018 election. Fox News had Joe Donnelly up a whopping seven points in their final poll. The actual result was Braun by 5.9 points. In an even more hilarious result, Fox News had Mark Kelly up 17 points in their final poll of 2020 in Arizona. The actual total? Kelly +2.4 points.
You get the idea. Fox News or whoever they subcontract to do their polling is just terrible at this. I’m not saying to forget their polls because I don’t like the outcome. There are other polls I take seriously even when they show Republicans down. But I am saying that Fox News specifically just provides nothing of value in this arena. Any Democrat clinging to their surveys to provide hope does so at their own risk.
