Midterms 2026: Winners and Losers

My list of winners and losers of the historic 2026 midterm elections will be wildly incomplete, but I just want to get down on blog paper the ones that immediately came to mind as I watched the results come in on Tuesday night. Here are 6 winners and 6 losers. 

Winners: 

1. Comeback Crowley: When I interviewed Milwaukee pundit Joe Zepecki shortly after David Crowley's miraculous victory in the Wisconsin Democratic Party primary for governor, Joe said the "Crowley Comeback" will be talked about 100 years from now. At the time I thought Joe was exaggerating, but after Crowley's convincing victory against Tom Tiffany, it's clear he was spot on. 

Sure it's true that Donald Trump's historic unpopularity made this a good year for Democrats, and it's also true that Congressman Tiffany was not the strongest Republican candidate. But anyone who tells you they predicted a year ago that Wisconsin would choose a young African-American from Milwaukee to lead the state after Tony Evers is probably fibbing. Comeback Crowley broke a glass ceiling that existed far too long in Wisconsin. 

2. Fair Maps: As noted by Dan Shafer, "In the first full post-Gerrymander election in Wisconsin, Democrats have won a trifecta."  Dan followed that up with, "Proof once again that the Republican legislative majority was not earned, it was rigged. The GOP could have won fair and square some years, but not every year for 12 straight years. Every last thing they did from 2012 to 2024 has an asterisk attached."  

Before you say it: YES, historically both parties have engaged in extreme gerrymandering. In 2030 one of the major parties will have more power to rig the maps in their favor. Is it possible that they might be able to reach some bipartisan agreement on having the fairest possible maps? Not likely, but possible. 

3. Democratic Doctors: This was a great year for Democratic doctors. The major ones were Doctor Annie Andrews (first Democrat elected to the US Senate from South Carolina since Fritz Hollings in 1998), Dr. Amy Acton (first Democrat elected Governor of Ohio since Ted Strickland in 2006), and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan (first Muslim US Senator in the history of the nation). These candidates were supported by the interest group 3.14 action, an organization "focused on recruiting, training, and electing Democrats with a background in science to public office." 

4. Christian Democrats: In my lifetime (born 1961), I think one of the biggest mistakes the Democratic party made was essentially ceding Christianity to the Republicans. That happened in the 1980s during the rise of the late Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority." The Moral Majority and other organizations very effectively framed Christian faith as being primarily about opposition to abortion, LGBTQ rights, and other "culture war" issues.  For reasons that have never been clear to me, the Democratic party in those years did not embrace the Reverend Jesse Jackson's vision of a social justice Christianity. 

It's going to take a lot more than one election cycle for Christianity and religious faith in general to again become part of a Democratic coalition, but the party had to be encouraged by the victories of James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas. Talarico has been pursuing a Master of Divinity at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and Hamilton is Pastor at the largest Methodist congregation in Kansas. Both of them mix secular and religious rhetoric in a way that is persuasive and perceived as authentic by deeply religious citizens in their respective states.  

5. Millennial Politicians: Joe Biden's decline was a huge wake up call for all who had been warning that the Dems needed to pass the torch on to younger generations. Well we certainly saw that on November 3rd: 

• James Talarico (US Senator-elect) of Texas is 37
• Jon Ossoff (reelected to US Senate) of Georgia is 39
• David Crowley (Governor-elect) of Wisconsin is 40
• Melat Kiros (Congresswoman-elect) of Colorado is 29
• Abdul El-Sayed (US Senator-elect) of Michigan is 42
• Sam Forstag (Congressman-elect) of Montana is 32
• Annie Andrews (US Senator-elect) of South Carolina is 46
• Manny Rutinel (Congressman-elect) of Colorado is 31
• Rob Sand (Governor-elect) of Iowa is 44

Dave Wasserman, election analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, called November 3rd's results a "generational wipeout." 

6. Texas and Ohio: As noted already, Texas elected Mr.Talarico to the US Senate. Voters there also elected  progressive  populist Gina Hinojosa as their new governor in a stunning upset over incumbent Greg Abbott.  Meanwhile, Ohio returned Democrat Sherrod Brown to the Senate after he lost his seat a few years ago, and also elected Amy Acton as their new governor. 

Obviously, there is still substantial Republican influence in both Texas and Ohio, and it is not yet clear if their movement toward blue will last more than an election cycle or two. In my view, the deep red phase that both of those great states have been wrapped in for at least two decades has not served their citizens very well. And like every state that becomes deep red or deep blue, they have essentially removed themselves from having to be taken seriously during presidential campaigns.  Why campaign in states that you know are sure winners or sure losers?  My hope is that both Ohio and Texas (and Wisconsin too for that matter), can go back to their purple selves so that their needs have to be taken seriously by national leaders. 

Losers:  

1. Gerrymandering Schemes: President Trump famously bullied Republican states into creating more extreme gerrymanders so as to increase his chances of holding on to the House of Representatives. That shameful effort ended up being an utter disaster for the GOP, as the Democrats held on to nearly every seat they were supposed to be gerrymandered out of. How gratifying that voters in those districts stood up to the president in such a powerful way. 

2. Nepotism: I have no desire to bash Darline Graham, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham who became the first Republican to lose to a Democrat in a US Senate race in South Carolina in many years. She was put in a terrible position by President Trump and other GOP cynics who thought that rank nepotism would be a winning strategy in a Bible belt state. Nepotism lost. 

3. Haley Stevens: Representative Stevens lost to Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary in Michigan, even though special interest funding gave her a 9-1 spending advantage. After losing the primary she indicated support for El-Sayed, but as the campaign went on she continued to give currency to the criticisms of El-Sayed launched by his mostly bad-faith opponents; specifically that he had not sufficiently denounced antisemitism or distanced himself from provocative online streamers like Hasan Piker. A few days before the general election, Stevens inexplicably announced she would be voting for Republican Mike Rogers, whom she had condemned on an almost daily basis during her own primary campaign. 

Does Stevens have a future in the Democratic party? Perhaps if it turns out that El-Sayed is some kind of rabid antisemite, she will claim vindication. But does anyone other than those who already oppose El-Sayed seriously think his intention is to persecute Jews? Clearly the voters of Michigan, including a majority of Jewish voters in the state, rejected that characterization of him. 

4. Entitled Billionaires. Specifically, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Mr. Musk tried to do in Texas what he tried in Wisconsin last year: literally buy a seat.  When Wisconsin citizens told him to take his money and get the fuck out, many of us hoped he would stay out of politics. Instead he ended up putting half a billion dollars into the midterm cycle, with about $168 million going to support the loser Ken Paxton in Texas. 

As for Mr. Ramaswamy, the billionaire loser of the governor race in Ohio, he will be remembered as the person who released what may be the most shameful political ad in the history of the United States. Even though the ad exploited Amy Acton's mother and tried to cast doubt on Acton's well documented victimization by her stepfather, Ramaswamy doubled down on it till the bitter end. Awful. 

5. Trumpism: If we define Trumpism as a mish mosh of trolling, tribalism, tariffs, and various forms of cruelty--that took a huge hit on November 3rd. There's never just one explanation for what national voting results mean, but it seems pretty clear millions of voters were looking at the POTUS and saying STOP. Will he listen?  I think we all know the answer to that. 

It's not clear that President Trump's midterm rallies did much to help his preferred candidates . . . BUTT he did keep MAGA entertained.

6. Racists, Misogynists, Homophobes, Islamophobes, Transphobes. and assorted other haters: Not a good night for these kinds of folks. In Wisconsin, we elected a Black Governor (David Crowley), a White woman Lt. Governor (Sarah Godlewski), a Latina Secretary of State (JoCasta Zamarripa), and a Hmong Treasurer (Yee Leng Xiong). New Hampshire elected the first openly gay United States Senator (Chris Pappas). Georgia elected the first Black female Governor (Keisha Lance Bottoms) in the history of the United States. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed in the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Senate. In New Mexico, Deb Haaland in the first Native American woman elected governor in the history of the United States. Even conservative states had some important firsts: Floridians elected their first Black Governor in Byron Donalds, and Tennesseans elected their first woman Governor (Marsha Blackburn.). See other firsts here. 

Again, this is a wildly incomplete list of midterm winners and losers? What would you add to the list? 

Why We Need "Vocal Minorities"

In October I had the pleasure of interviewing Cari Ann Tetzlaff on my Media Rants podcast on the topic of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) technology. (You can subscribe to the channel for free HERE). Cari is an Oshkosh resident, animal behavior specialist, and an active citizen. 

How did an animal trainer become so passionate about ALPR technology? 

In the interview Cari said that some of the passion came from a commitment to advocating for civil liberties, and concerns about the way such technologies can be used to help ICE "disappear" people in the Trump era. But it was more than that: when City Hall tried to defund the Oshkosh Area Humane Society, Cari (who worked at the Humane Society for more than 10 years) became incensed at the suggestion that the OAHS was somehow overcharging for its services. She became further incensed after learning that city leaders were willing give much more money to a surveillance corporation (i.e. Flock Cameras) than what OAHS ever received. So she became part of the movement to raise awareness about ALPR technology, and persuade local governments to rescind Flock contracts, or not renew them, or not sign them in the first place.   

At the Oshkosh City Council's October 13 meeting, Mayor Matt Mugerauer argued without evidence that the majority of Oshkosh citizens actually support Flock, and that the opponents represent a "vocal minority."  I asked Cari about the Mayor's comments, and her response reminded me of why representative democracies require "vocal minorities" in order to arrive at sound public policy: 

"If you want to be a change agent and you want to help your community understand a problem better and you want to work towards change, you're going to start out as a member of a vocal minority. That's actually something I'm really proud of . . . being willing to take a stand when an issue isn't well known yet, and helping bring--through education, advocacy, and awareness--that information to a wider audience." 

Cari's comments were channeling a number of principled leaders from America's past, including the legendary urban planner, journalist, and  activist Jane Jacobs: 

"Perhaps people with my point of view are a minority today. But the fact of being in a minority does not, in itself, trouble me, nor do I see anything un-American about being in a minority position. Quite the contrary. The minority views of one day are frequently the majority views of another, and in the possibility of this being so rests all our potentiality for progress." 

If you think about it, almost everything most people today consider to be part of a decent society--from women's suffrage to the 40-hour work week to ending child sweatshop labor to much else--started off as a plea from a vocal minority. (Today we are in a dystopian reality where not even a vocal majority can ensure basic decency in public policy. Keeping corporate money out of politics, guaranteeing health care for all, universal background checks for all firearms sales, and paid family and medical leave would be just four examples off the top of my head of policies that have huge majority support but are not yet law.). 

But practically speaking, was the mayor correct? Is the opposition to ALPR technology a minority position upheld by a small group of vocal activists? Here's what Cari had to say about that: 

"I would say that our mayor may have been correct last year or in the very first couple months of this year that we were a vocal minority, but I don't think we are vocal minority anymore . . . we're watching people from all different political ideologies develop mistrust for this technology." 

The most recent poll data on the subject validates Cari's position. In September, the Marquette Law School poll asked this question to a random sample of Wisconsinites: "Flock Safety has a network of 120,000 cameras which allow the company and law enforcement to track the movement of vehicles. Do you think these cameras are an important tool for police investigations, or an unacceptable violation of Americans' privacy rights when driving for everyday activities?"  Sixty-three percent overall said that the Flock cameras were an unacceptable violation of privacy rights. A majority of Republicans (52 percent) did respond that Flock cameras were an important tool for police investigations, but that would hardly be considered a ringing mandate for the use of such technology. Moreover, it is hard to imagine how the popularity of Flock would increase at this point, given the success that critics have had at reminding people of the civil liberties principles at stake. 

Is it conceivable that Oshkosh is somehow an outlier in all of this? Is is possible that there really is a silent majority in Oshkosh who want the cameras?  I would seriously doubt that. Suffice it to say that there will be elections for city council and mayor in Oshkosh in April of 2027; I don't think candidates who come out uncritically in support of ALPR technology, or who try to obfuscate and triangulate on the issue, will be doing themselves any favors at the polls. 

You can see the full interview with Cari Ann Tetzlaff here: 

Trump's Press Ban and the Responsibility of Journalists

Claiming unfair press treatment, President Trump recently barred journalists from CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House. All three organizations have sued to have their press privileges restored. Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., lead attorney for all three, told the Associated Press the that the ban was “a blatant violation of the First Amendment and due process.” He went on to say, “The president and his administration have continued to make clear that this ban has only one purpose: to punish reporting he doesn’t like . . . That’s retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, pure and simple." 

There's little doubt that the three news outlets are on solid legal ground, and will have access restored. Winning in court will be framed in mainstream media circles as an historic victory for the First Amendment and freedom of the press. But beyond fighting to restore access to a White House that continues to use them as hate objects to fire up the MAGA base, and/or as amplifiers for lies and disinformation, the mainstream press should be using this moment to reconsider what exactly should be the responsibilities of their top journalists in the Trump era. 

Here is an only slightly exaggerated version of a typical interaction between Trump and a journalist from CNN, MS NOW, Politico, and most other mainstream outlets: 

REPORTER: Mr. President, why do you continue to insist there is widespread voter fraud in America when few examples of it can be found?

TRUMP: I won three elections by a landslide, including 2020. 

REPORTER:  Mr. President, there is no evidence you won in 2020, and the other elections were two of the closest in history. 

TRUMP:  You are fake news. You are a disgrace. 

That pattern plays out continuously, on issue after issue, no matter if Trump is speaking at a formal press conference, getting ready to board a helicopter, gaggling on Air Force One, or standing on the White House lawn. If he's not around, his team of toadies repeat back the same delusions and distortions. Exactly how is reporting and broadcasting in this fashion serving the cause of informing the public? 

There's little doubt that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico will have their access restored. But is it really in the best interests of the press and the public for their best journalists to participate?

So should mainstream journalism just ignore Trump? Should they impose a White House ban on themselves until the building is once again populated by someone who at least pretends to be a good faith actor? 

Of course not. The question has never been whether or not to cover the Trump White House, but HOW to cover it. 

Indulge me in a thought experiment.  For those old enough to remember the Nixon years, you know that Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's Watergate reporting was an extraordinary and rare example of two talented young journalists doing everything in their power to find proof of a criminal conspiracy, involving the president and his top aides, to persecute Nixon's political opposition. The Washington Post provided the critical institutional support necessary so that Woodward and Bernstein could do their jobs. 

Now suppose the Post's legendary editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham had refused that institutional support. Even worse, suppose they had said to Woodward and Bernstein, "do what you can to get in front of the president. Ask him to deny involvement in corruption. When he denies, ask him again. If he's not around, ask the press secretary. If the press secretary is not around, ask the chief of staff. We will continue publishing their denials and obfuscations, and at some point the public will turn against them. You will be viewed as heroes." 

Not only would that have been a complete waste of Woodward's and Bernstein's time and talent, but it would have had the even worse consequence of dedicating fewer resources to do the investigatory work necessary to find and vet the evidence establishing that the corruption charge was not some kind of partisan smear resulting from "Nixon Derangement Syndrome." (NOTE: I'm sure if we could relive the past and go back to the Nixon years, Spiro Agnew, H.R. Haldeman, Bob Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, and other Watergate conspirators would have accused the media of NDS after the Washington Post's first report on the matter.). 

No one believes there is an easy answer to the question of how to cover the White House in the Trump years. But if we just narrow the question to the specific issue of how to cover the press briefings, I think journalism scholar Jay Rosen's plea from 2017 still makes a hell of a lot of sense: "Send the interns." According to Rosen, the Trump White House press briefings operate on three levels: (1) they tell any staffer working for Trump that they repeat back the president's alternative facts, even at the cost of sacrificing their own personal dignity; (2) the briefings turn the press into "hate objects" and are a form of "theater of resentment" in which the press star as public enemies; (3) the briefings tell Trump's core constituency that the alleged "liberal bias" of the press will finally be confronted and the reporters will be "roughed up." Meanwhile, people hostile to Trump are told "you don't count," and people not for or against the president are essentially told "don't bother" because all the briefings will produce for you is confusion and frustration. 

Jay Rosen's 2017 message to the mainstream press is even more valid today: "When I say #sendtheinterns I mean it literally: take a bold decision to put your most junior people in the briefing room. Recognize that the real story is elsewhere . . ."
 

Rosen argues that the press should simply refuse to cooperate with this charade. By sending their modern day equivalents of Woodward and Bernstein to the briefing, they lend legitimacy and credibility to it. So what does Rosen mean by "send the interns?": 

"When I say #sendtheinterns I mean it literally: take a bold decision to put your most junior people in the briefing room. Recognize that the real story is elsewhere, and most likely hidden. That’s why the experienced reporters need to be taken out of the White House, and put on other assignments."

In other words, the press should flip the script. Instead of continuing to cover the White House from what Rosen calls the "inside-out," they should cover it from the "outside-in," the places "where the action begins on the rim, in the agencies, around the committees, with the people who are supposed to obey Trump but have doubts." 

By continuing to obsess over inside-out reporting, the press reduces itself to unwitting mouthpieces for the administration's alternative universe. A better role for them can be found in a quote often attributed to George Orwell:  "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations."  Contrary to what a journalist educated at an accredited journalism school might think, Trump wants his rantings and ravings reported. When CNN's Kaitlin Collins and her equivalents at MS NOW and Politico become featured characters in the theater of resentment, the only real beneficiary is Trump. 

What the Trump administration absolutely does not want is the outside-in reporting that continues to connect the dots linking the president to everything from Epstein to the tech bros to crypto to foreign gifts and on and on. He'd much rather the headline be, "Trump banishes reporters from White House" as opposed to "Documents prove that Trump made $2.24 billion in 2025 by blending government and personal business." How do we know Trump does not want the latter? Because he has filed over $70 billion worth of lawsuits against media outlets since declaring his candidacy in 2022. 

Way back in 1904 Joseph Pulitzer wrote, "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together." If the mainstream press wants to help save the Republic--and the press--they can start by sending the interns to cover White House briefings. 

Note To Journalists: You Don't Have To Cover Polls!

The campaign season that started my life long fascination with political communication was the 1977 race for mayor of New York City. Living in Brooklyn and not even old enough to vote at the time (I was 16), the Democratic party primary that year captivated me. It featured the eventual winner Ed Koch (a former liberal congressman from Manhattan) going up against the young Mario Cuomo (who was then New York's Secretary of State and who would later become governor). The wild Democratic Party primary race also included New York City feminist icon and former congresswoman "Battling" Bella Abzug (known for her large brimmed hats), and other candidates with backgrounds in city politics.

Ed Koch (left) and Mario Cuomo were the main participants in one of the most spirited political campaigns in history: the 1977 race for mayor of New York City. 

Because the incumbent mayor Abe Beame had the misfortunate of being in office as the city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in the mid 1970s, everyone thought the fiscal crisis would be the dominant campaign issue. But lo and behold, the city had a massive blackout in July which led to widespread looting and chaos. Suddenly law and order dominated the campaign rhetoric zone. Koch that year hired political PR guru David Garth--a kind Don Draper Mad Men character--to reinvent him as a tough on crime moderate. They found out that Cuomo had at some point in the past taken a strong stand against the death penalty, and I remember the death penalty coming up in every televised forum; Cuomo was hounded with questions about his death penalty stance for the entire campaign. None of the journalists seemed to know or care that the New York City mayor has absolutely no impact on the death penalty.  

The other thing I remember about that campaign was the Republican candidate, a very decent man named Roy Goodman. The kind of guy who has been banished from today's Republican Party. He happened to show up at a Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs restaurant in Queens that I was employed by at the time. He and his staff were sitting at a table munching on hot dogs and fries. He was impressed when I approached the table and asked if I could have a piece of campaign lit. He said of course, shook my hand, and asked for my vote. When I told him I was not old enough to vote, he smiled and said something like, "well make sure your parents get that lit, okay?"  

You know what I have no memory of in that campaign?  Public opinion polls. Oh I am sure there was polling data out there, but I honestly cannot recall one television or newspaper story (I read the New York Daily News religiously every day back then) that gave polling data more than a sentence or two of coverage. Everything was on the clash between the candidates and how their platforms were playing in various NYC neighborhoods. I especially enjoyed the polemical print columns by two legendary writers: Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. Each of them were great at highlighting the hypocrisies and hyperboles of the candidates--and they did it in a moralistic and often humorous style that would later impact my own political writing. 

I think it's time for mainstream and independent media to rethink their use of polls in political campaign coverage.  Ever since the Chicago Tribune in 1948 famously published the "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline based on flawed poll data, there's been suspicion of polls. 

Since then the accuracy of polls has increased dramatically, and the reputable polling firms usually do predict the results within the margin of error. Today, fake polls are a problem. but the obsessive reporting on reputable polls has been much worse for political journalism. News editors and reporters will claim that poll stories get more clicks, views, and shares than other campaign coverage, but that sounds like a cop out. Are they that lacking in creativity that they cannot find better ways to get and keep attention? Here's a few reasons why news editors and reporters should stop reporting on polls: 

1.  The Polls Promote Lazy Journalism. I have not calculated just how many, but the number of stories covering poll data--in print, broadcast, and digital sources--for the August primary in Wisconsin was patently absurd. It was the worst kind of "horse race" coverage of the campaign, with the emphasis on "who's winning" and "who's losing" far outpacing any meaningful coverage of issues, candidates' experience and records, interviews with voters, and other content that might help voters make a reasoned choice in the election. 

Shortly after David Crowley's comeback win in the Democratic Party primary, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was already running a front page, above the fold story on a poll. 

To be clear, horse race coverage of campaigns is not inherently bad. If the horse race is used to grab readers', viewers', and listeners' attention, that's fine. But ethical, rigorous journalism requires that once you've got attention, you then direct it to something that will make people think more critically about what's at stake in the election. 

2. The Polls Allow Journalists To Pretend To Be "Neutral." In literally every occupation in the world, someone has to do the "heavy lifting." Think of what doing the heavy lifting means for an ethical news organization. Does it mean simply reporting that "40 percent like coke," "30 percent like Pepsi," and the rest are undecided?  I mean, that's the most "neutral" way to talk about Coke v. Pepsi, right? Wrong. 

Here's the way this usually plays out in Wisconsin politics: A journalist reports that "48 percent of likely voters support Crowley and 44 percent support Tiffany, but they are tied among registered voters." The journalist then cites spokespersons from each campaign to "explain" these results, usually by exaggerating the support for their candidate and taking cheap shots at the opponent. Exactly what is "neutral" about this kind of reporting? It's actually the opposite of neutral, because it legitimizes the worst qualities of the major parties and the campaign industrial complex. It's a kind reporting that empowers the political consultant class, while dumbing down the rest of us. 

What I loved about Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill back in the day (the great Mike Royko was their equivalent in Chicago) was that they did not see their jobs as reporters as being on the side of the political hacks. Rather, they saw themselves as being on the side of THE PEOPLE. That's what's so sorely lacking in the coverage of polls: it pretends to be informing people, but actually succeeds in making us less informed. 

"You don't have to print or re-report ANY poll, let alone EVERY poll." That's probably the smartest thing former NBC Meet The Press host Chuck Todd has ever said. 

3.  The Polls Deflate Candidates' Supporters or Makes Them Overconfident. The reputable polls in Wisconsin's Democratic Party primary for governor consistently found Fran Hong with wide leads over the other candidates. I understand that my experience is not universal, but for much of the campaign season whenever I spoke to a voter who really liked Kelda Roys, Missy Hughes, or even David Crowley, they would almost always say, "I'm not sure if I should vote for them because the polls show them so far behind." Meanwhile the Hong supporters got overconfident, completely emboldened by pollsters like Chaz Nuttycombe of State Navigate, who in late July was predicting that Hong was on track to win every county except Milwaukee, and that the race was probably over. The race ultimately got framed according to the "who can defeat" Hong narrative, which was completely a product of the excessive reporting on polls. Even though David Crowley had withdrawn from the race--in part because of low polling numbers--he ultimately became Governor Tony Evers' choice as the one who could beat Hong. The rest is history. 

4.  The Polls Drive Campaign Funding Decisions. Because of our  horrible and corrupt system of campaign financing, most candidates (especially in congressional and state wide races) have to rely on "deep pockets" to raise the resources necessary to hire competent staff and reach voters across a range of media platforms. How does the candidate show that he or she is worthy of the deep pockets? Often it is as simple as showing poll support. The polling data creates a kind of bandwagon effect, as people love jumping on board the winning wagon. But think about the absurdity of that for a minute: I'm going to support a candidate financially and/or in other ways not because they have some great policy ideas or personal qualities that I can get behind, but because they are . . . winning. 

5.  The Polls Are Weaponized To Uphold Anti-democratic Agendas. Here I am especially talking about state wide and national campaigns, in which independent or third party candidates are told they will only be invited to debate if they meet an arbitrary polling threshold. Say what you want about the late H. Ross Perot, but his presence at the presidential debates in 1992 and 1996 did more to shake up the two party duopoly than pretty much anything in history. So successfully did Perot reveal the Dem and GOP candidates as parrots for political insiders that the two parties said "never again." Since then, even when a candidate is on the ballot in enough states to be able to win the election (like Ralph Nader every time he ran for president, or the Libertarian candidate in most elections), his or her inability to reach the arbitrary polling threshold is used to keep them out of the debates. And of course, the candidate's poll numbers are unlikely to rise significantly without being able to debate. The same thing happens now in US Senate, congressional, and other partisan races. It's a disgusting example of weaponizing polls to uphold the anti-democratic agenda of those who control the two party system. It's a disgrace, really. 

6. The Polls Are Being Manipulated By Prediction Markets. On August 22, Reid Epstein of the New York Times wrote a fairly terrifying article on modern polling and prediction markets: 

The biggest new phenomenon influencing how campaigns are viewed is the spread of prediction market data.

The day before Michigan’s primary, Kalshi gave Dr. El-Sayed a 97 percent chance of winning. The morning of Wisconsin’s primary, Polymarket gave Mr. Crowley a 3.6 percent chance of victory. 

While betting-market odds are often based on the wisdom of crowds and opaque measurements, they are amplified by powerful companies and reported on by legitimate news organizations that in some cases have financial partnerships with the prediction firms. CNN has such an arrangement with Kalshi and regularly shows the prediction market’s betting odds on television. The Wall Street Journal’s parent company has a partnership with Polymarket to display its odds within Journal content.

News editors and reporters need to understand that poll driven reporting is now being aggressively used for purposes that have nothing to do with strengthening our democracy. That by itself should be reason enough to stop reporting on them. 

In conclusion, I understand that even if media outlets were to stop reporting on polls, campaigns would continue to use them. That's actually the way it should be. If Tom Tiffany or David Crowley or anyone else releases a poll showing their candidate in the lead, I as a voter immediately know that the results are probably being manipulated by bad faith actors in the campaign. But when a news organization releases poll data, that provides the data with a veneer of credibility that may or may not be deserved.