Analysis: Wisconsin results throw more doubts on 2026 polling as youth vote sags

The polling industry is under attack again after results in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race cast doubt on public polling throughout the campaign.

More ominous for progressive Democrats, the youth vote they once counted on failed to materialize again.

Democratic Socialist (DSA) Francesca Hong lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley by 0.5% in the race to become Wisconsin’s next governor.

Going into election day, the publicly released polling had Hong up by 18-22% based on the last two surveys, one of which was produced by local Marquette University.

In fact, Crowley previously dropped out of the race because he was polling so badly.

“It has become clear that I will not be the Democratic nominee for Governor, so today I am stepping out of this race,” Crowley said in a statement July 8 before he was drafted by current Democrat Gov. Tony Evers to re-enter.

Increasingly the left is becoming concerned by polling bias, which used to be solely the worry of the GOP.

“Polls showing overwhelming victories of DSA in big races were mirages to disorient the competition which in some cases even suspended campaigns,” said center-left consultant Mark Penn, who worked on election campaigns for Bill and Hillary Clinton along with British Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Combined with other high profile prediction misses, the botched polling has some on the left arguing the public surveys are just selling a partisan story.

“The only thing less reliable than the polls are the prediction markets,” said Amy Siskind, a prominent feminist and Hillary Clinton supporter. “Please stop citing them as predicting anything, which some of you are doing because they have paid partnerships with your networks. Looking at you @ForecasterEnten.”

The last was a shot at CNN polling guru Harry Enten.

A company called Kalshi, a prediction market allowing people to bet money on the outcome of elections and then posts the likelihood of success based on this data, entered into an agreement with CNN to become the network’s data partner.

Going into election day, CNN announced Hong had a 95% chance at victory, citing its paid advertiser Kalshi as the source.

But the conflict-of-interest problem runs deeper, longtime politicos say.

Editors at Washington Monthly have said the voter survey results depend on who is paying for it. And that’s having an effect on campaigns.

Polls “have been increasingly shaping media narratives and warping public perceptions,” editors wrote.

They cited Democrat pollster Public Policy Polling (PPP), which had Hong up 18% in the election’s final public poll, as one of the most striking examples.

At the same time PPP was declaring an 18-point lead for Hong, PPP completed an internal poll for David Crowley showing him in a statistical tie with Hong after factoring for voters who would show up on election day.

“When considering the electorate that actually votes, the race is close,” the Crowley campaign said, based on the survey.

Age was the sharpest dividing line in the primary, according to the PPP’s Crowley survey.

“In our survey’s published age crosstabs, Hong wins voters under 46 by roughly 50 points,” the poll said. “Among voters over 65 she trails David Crowley head to head.”

Some of the discrepancies have been noted outside Wisconsin.

In Maine, internal polls created the illusion that progressive candidate Graham Platner was politically bulletproof until scandal after scandal finally convinced Democrats he was not viable, the Washington Monthly editors said.

In the U.S. Senate race in Michigan, polls similarly fed expectations of an Abdul El-Sayed landslide that ended as a thin one-point victory.

Much of the polling that claimed the progressive had a big lead on his rivals came from ideologically aligned outfits that may have skewed public perceptions.

El Sayed won by less than 1%, but polls consistently showed him up by 10-15%. 

One pollster who predicted a double-digit win for El Sayed said just as in the case of Hong, the polls likely got the age mixture of voters wrong.

Age is always difficult to forecast in a primary, Steve Mitchell of Mitchell Research and Communications told local WLNS in Lansing.

“My guess is that the turnout when we look at those final numbers is going to be a much older electorate than what we were expecting,” he said.

Still, the divergence between polls and results are causing some on the left to question their utility.

“There’s no actual alternative to polling but I just don’t believe they capture public sentiment in any reliable way anymore,” said one user on Bluesky.