Pollster John McLaughlin, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, is sounding the alarm about polling ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. With less than two weeks remaining before Election Day, he says some surveys appear to be intentionally structured to favor Democrats.
McLaughlin delivered his warning Friday during an appearance on the Just the News, No Noise television show. He described [1] an election landscape packed with competitive races while questioning whether several prominent polls accurately reflect the voters expected to participate.
Among the examples troubling McLaughlin was a New York poll that placed the Republican share of its sample at 22%. He contrasted that figure with the last gubernatorial race, when Republican turnout reached 30%.
That gap led McLaughlin to question whether the sampling choices were merely accidental. “I think it’s deliberate because a lot of the media that covers those polls has a bias,” he said.
McLaughlin also argued that liberal pollsters are not always subjected to equal examination when their surveys produce questionable results. “Sometimes they don’t put the liberal pollsters through the same kind of scrutiny.”
The consequences, he said, can extend beyond media narratives about which party is winning or losing. Polls that understate Republican support may discourage financial backing for candidates, with McLaughlin saying simply, “It affects donors.”
His concerns come as predictions of a Democratic wave compete with a much tighter picture across congressional races. McLaughlin said numerous seats in both chambers remain tossups, making the outcome uncertain despite confident claims that Democrats are positioned to surge.
He pointed to polling and media coverage from recent presidential elections as reasons for skepticism. McLaughlin recalled predictions that Hillary Clinton had the 2016 election locked up, that Joe Biden would lead a blue wave in 2020, and that Kamala Harris was in a favorable position at the same stage in 2024.
According to McLaughlin, those missed calls have not prompted pollsters to retreat from questionable methods. Instead, he said, they appear to be repeating the problem during the current cycle, particularly when the internal composition of some surveys is examined.
“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.”
McLaughlin highlighted a 2024 Texas survey as another example. That poll showed Harris leading Trump in the state by 49% to 41%, but Trump ultimately won Texas with 56% of the vote.
He said a similar polling problem could be affecting the Texas Senate race. Some surveys show Democrat James Talarico defeating Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, though McLaughlin’s broader warning focused on whether the samples properly represent the electorate.
Recent polling has also suggested that Democrats could flip a chamber of Congress. McLaughlin cautioned that early voting often favors Democrats because Republicans have historically been more likely to cast their ballots on Election Day, leaving the final result open in either direction.
“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.”
The John McLaughlin segment on Just the News, No Noise is cued up in the video below.
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With eight Senate contests described as tossups and more than 70 House seats considered in play, McLaughlin presented a far less certain outlook than the promised blue wave. His warning was straightforward: Look beyond the topline numbers and examine whether the poll’s internal assumptions match the voters who will actually decide the election.