Republican Senate candidates outperformed the polls

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Democrats did better than expected in Michigan, Minnesota and Montana -- but almost certainly all within any margin of error. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire did best of all of the Democrats.

Republicans in every other race outperformed. Even in New Jersey, where Cory Booker (D) walked to reelection, he didn't do as well as polling predicted. In fact, as the dotted red line shows, Republicans did better against the polling average the better they did in their races.

Politicians often claim the polls are wrong when they're on the brink of defeat. In this case, the polls largely predicted the correct winners, but -- with select exceptions such as the Des Moines Register poll last weekend that showed Joni Ernst (R) ahead by as wide a margin as occurred -- the scale of the victories was way off.

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Below is what I would call a unity graph. If the RPC average were equal to the actual results that point on the graph would fall right on the unity line (solid yellow line). MT is a good example of the RPC average and the actual results.

As you can see, the GOP senate candidates outperformed the RPC averages. The Dems generally performed as the RCP average predicted.



Take away? Enthusiasm for GOP senate candidates was underestimated by the polls.

LINK