Seasoned pollster and commentator Frank Luntz warned CNN last week that flawed polling practices may be giving Democrats a false sense of security about the upcoming midterms and could crush their hopes of a blue wave.
Luntz appeared on “CNN News Central” and discussed President Donald Trump’s recent negative poll numbers before pivoting to potential polling flaws.
He was asked what the “polls may be missing” and if polling firms are “under-sampling the kind of voter that Trump usually brings out.”
Luntz noted that Trump voters tend to ignore phone calls because they feel the system is rigged against them.
“I got 2016 wrong. I believed in the exit polls,” he said, referring to when Hillary Clinton was projected to defeat Trump in a landslide.
“Trump voters walked away, refused to participate because they thought it was against them,” Luntz continued, referring to the polling.
“They thought that the polls were all biased. And that’s what Republicans are being told right now. Don’t believe the polls. They’re not accurate. Well, they may be. We’re about to find out. But I’m still skeptical.”
He outlined why voter turnout is the most important statistic in an election, then described how the polling industry has failed to ask the right questions to determine those numbers.
“I’m most interested in turnout, in the end,” Luntz declared. “And there are ways to measure it and I’m not convinced that they’re doing it. That they’re polling how the electorate overall feels, and not polling the people who are actually going to participate.”
He also said a simple focus group can reveal which voters are engaged and which voters are more likely to sit on the sidelines.
“That’s why you have to do focus groups,” Luntz explained. “That’s why you have to do one-to-one interviews. I can tell, by looking at you, if you’re going to participate or not. And these are people who are counted in the polls, but know they’re not going to vote… And turnout determines everything.”
“I ask the viewers, pay attention to how they’ve asked the questions about turnout,” he added.
“It’s not whether you say you’re going to vote or not, because people lie. How interested are you in the election, number one. Number two is, how often do you collect election news, political news? And number three, how often do you talk politics to your friends and neighbors? Those are three essential questions in determining turnout. And I hate to say this, but a lot of polls don’t ask it.”
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Luntz was asked how he could admit Trump supporters feel frustrated and betrayed, yet still have doubts about the midterm results.
He replied, “I have to be skeptical because I got it wrong once before. And I was so convinced that I was right.”
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten expressed similar sentiments earlier this month, when he said the Republican Party has a substantial chance of maintaining its Senate majority if polling numbers are off by only a few points.
He said the polling industry has consistently favored Democrats in past elections, adding that it wouldn’t take much for Republicans to flip vital toss-up seats into their column.
“Let’s just say we have the 2026 Senate polls, but if the polls are underestimating the Republicans by 3.5 points, which you know is really possible, because we’ve seen it through the history, right? You go back to 2020, that’s basically what happened,” he stated.
“Even in 2024, in a number of the key states we saw it happen, including places like Texas.”
CNN: If early October polls keep the pattern of underestimating Republicans, they will keep the senate
🔴 Republicans: 52
🔵 Democrats: 48States:
Michigan: 🔴 Flip
Maine: 🔴 Hold
Texas: 🔴 Hold
Ohio: 🔴 Hold https://t.co/dVUU90nSHj— OSZ (@OpenSourceZone) October 12, 2026
Enten then rattled off several high-profile contests, some in ruby-red states, and said voters could easily defy pollsters, thereby flipping the script entirely.
Moreover, he cited the early October generic congressional ballot, noting that it has underestimated Republicans in 14 of 16 elections since 1994 by an average of four points.
Do you think polling firms are accurately capturing Trump voter sentiment?
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Polling for Senate contests in reliably Republican states like Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Kansas, and Iowa has consistently put the Democrat ahead or within the margin of error.
Even in states that Trump won in 2024, such as Georgia and North Carolina, the Senate contests have already been deemed “lean Democrat” or “likely Democrat.”
As for the House of Representatives, despite the Republicans’ successful mid-decade redistricting efforts and the Supreme Court eliminating race-based congressional districts by striking down part of the Voting Rights Act, various polls and media outlets have declared that Democrats will easily retake the lower chamber.
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