Pollster Frank Luntz gave four reasons on Monday morning why so many pundits, including himself, wrongly predicted that Republicans would win the House and Senate during last week’s elections.
Support for former President Donald Trump was overestimated, people changed their votes at the ballot box, Independents broke for Democrats and redistricting affected results, Luntz told “CNN This Morning.”
“We knew from 2016, 2018 and even 2020 that Trump voters tended not to respond to pollsters because they thought that the results would be used against them,” said the communication strategist, adding that past errors caused pollsters to over-index Republicans.
Luntz claimed that 8-9 percent of the public go into their voting precincts planning to vote for one party and choose to vote for another candidate, swaying election results compared to preliminary polls.
The pollster added that Independents broke 50/50 for Democrats during last week’s elections, where they normally break 55/45 for Republicans.
“If they break 60/40, Republicans win,” said Luntz. “In this case they broke 50/50. That’s a real problem for the GOP, it’s a major drop.”
Luntz predicted before Tuesday that the GOP would win 233-240 House seats; however, the party has 212 seats so far with about 20 races uncalled.
He also forecast that Republicans would take control of the Senate, according to a tweet from last week.
