Conservative pollster John McLaughlin warned Friday that the 2026 midterms appear very close just two weeks away from the election, but that polls can be misleading.
McLaughlin acknowledged the upcoming election has a lot of toss-up seats in both chambers, but reflected on how the media and polls indicated President Trump would lose the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton.
"Remember when there was a Hillary lock in 2016," McLaughlin said on the "Just The News, No Noise" TV show. "Remember when there was going to be a [Joe] Biden blue wave in 2020, and remember [former] Vice President Kamala Harris at this point in time in 2024.
"So there's been, you know, a lot of bad calls, bad polling, and it seems like they're doubling down on the bad polls in this election cycle because when you get into the internals of the polls, they just don't make sense," he continued. "They don't match up with the electorate, what they're going to look like in a midterm election."
The pollster highlighted that a 2024 survey in Texas had the former vice president polling ahead of Trump in the state, with 49% for Harris to 41% for Trump, and yet the president won the state with 56% of the vote. He stated the case may be the same for the Texas Senate race, where some polls show Democrat James Talarico beating GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton.
McLaughlin also noted that although polling has indicated recently that Democrats could flip a chamber, early voting often favors Democrats because Republicans historically vote on election day and the upcoming election could go either way.
"I've never seen it so close," McLaughlin admitted. "There are eight Senate races that are toss-ups. [In] the House, there's over 70 seats in play. There's 17, at least pure toss-ups. So it really is a toss-up election."
Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.
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