US midterms: which polls are sound?

"Sound" in the sense that the poll methology is sound, with little intentional bias. Not saying "accurate", for many reasons a sound poll can turn out to be inaccurate.

The motivation comes from a Wall Street Journal article pointing to President Trump being at a record job approval low (36%), according to Fox News. Both media are widely deemed conservative media.

Further research led me to a Wikipedia survey of polls, where all but one (Harvard/Harris Poll/HarrisX) give the advantage to the democratic party.

Encouraged guidelines to promote discussion:

• being specific and staying on topic
• general criteria for assessing the soundness of polls are welcome
• if a particular poll is considered sound or unsound, briefly hint why

References:

• Wall Street Journal, Trump Says: ‘Pretend I’m on the Ballot.’ Democrats Comply - https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-says-pretend-im-on-the-ballot-democrats-comply-083b24c8?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1
• Wikipedia, 2026 United States elections - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_elections

predictive markets where people are actually putting $ down on results (tend to be quite accurate really) - are giving 90%+ odds to democrats to take the house - not so much a poll but its interesting data

Caltech researchers have posed a related question: how predictable are elections? To which their answer seems to be: more than thought of. Their model includes three variants:

1. Historical results and candidates only
2. 1 + national polls
3. 2 + local polls

Interestingly, it seems it may be possible to make high confidence predictions without any polling at all (variant 1).

Caltech news: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/elections-are-more-predictable-than-they-look

Model forecast for incoming US midterms: https://gking.harvard.edu/electit

there are things outside of polling that give very strong indicators - it's extremely clear that trump is incredibly unpopular right now... and prices are very high - the latter alone is usually enough to lose an incumbent control of congress.

I thought that political talk wasn't allowed on lichess?...

@THE_IR0N_KNIGHT said ^

I thought that political talk wasn't allowed on lichess?...

I don't think it's allowed on chess.com, but here, sometimes I think it's even encouraged...

Personally, I avoid political and religious threads. Life is too short to be wasting hours every day typing out long posts that never change anyone's mind. Especially since some of the posters might actually be AI bots.

@THE_IR0N_KNIGHT said ^

I thought that political talk wasn't allowed on lichess?...

I thought violating ToS was not allowed either ...

@NeuralGnat said ^

Personally, I avoid political and religious threads. Life is too short to be wasting hours every day typing out long posts that never change anyone's mind. Especially since some of the p...

Then you should avoid conversation like

Metallica - Enter Sandman Moscow 1991
...

@notsoneutral said ^

Personally, I avoid political and religious threads. Life is too short to be wasting hours every day typing out long posts that never change anyone's mind. Especially since some of the p...

Then you should avoid conversation like

Metallica - Enter Sandman Moscow 1991
...

I thought it was a thread about Metallica. Isn't Metallica a band?

Not anymore the conversation derailed after someone wrote this :

Ah. The splendors of Socialism, recalled.

A ruling elite who "knows better" than the individual and begins to make more and more rules "for the good of all."

It's hard to believe many will be voting to promote such a future in the long run, and don't even realize it.

And before somebody decides to take me down a peg, they should recall what the initials USSR stood for.

Wheeeeee. The meanest and most egocentric and most controlling get to make the rules. What a brilliant future.