{"id":41370,"date":"2026-08-12T18:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T13:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41370"},"modified":"2026-08-12T18:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T13:29:10","slug":"wtf-is-up-with-these-polls-experts-flummoxed-by-stunning-20-point-misfire-in-wisconsin-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41370","title":{"rendered":"\u2018WTF is Up With These Polls?\u2019 Experts Flummoxed by Stunning 20-Point Misfire in Wisconsin Primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5728619\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5728619\" class=\"wp-image-5728619 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1-39-05-PM.jpg\" alt=\"Francesca Hong\" width=\"1536\" height=\"950\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5728619\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Hong campaign via AP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Critics were baffled and lashing out Wednesday at the quality of primary polling in Wisconsin after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/opinion\/francesca-hongs-top-six-wildest-takes-from-years-of-trolling-on-the-internet\/\">Democratic Socialist <strong>Francesca Hong<\/strong><\/a> lost to fellow Democrat <strong>David Crowley <\/strong>in the race for the governor&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>Crowley, 40, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/democratic-socialist-francesca-hong-concedes-after-falling-agonizingly-short-in-razor-thin-wisconsin-primary\/\">defeated Hong by 3,000 votes<\/a> and will take on Trump-backed Rep. <strong>Tom Tiffany<\/strong> (R-WI)\u00a0in November.<\/p>\n<p>Polling had consistently ranked Hong \u2014 who made headlines for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/tv\/should-thanksgiving-be-canceled-socialist-candidate-cant-give-cnn-a-straight-answer\/\">past remarks about Thanksgiving<\/a> and her &#8220;proximity to whiteness&#8221; \u2014 well above Crowley by a margin of roughly 20 points, critics pointed out.<\/p>\n<p>One poll released earlier this week showed <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PpollingNumbers\/status\/2086896785750925440\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hong at 46% to Crowley&#8217;s 23%<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hong might come back, but wtf is up with these primary polls?&#8221; pollster <strong>Nate Silver<\/strong> asked on X Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed_container\" id=\"ca27f42e7e564cfb82dbd46adc1a3402\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hong might come back, but wtf is up with these primary polls? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sPdEhG2Iyl\">pic.twitter.com\/sPdEhG2Iyl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NateSilver538\/status\/2087351422056591582?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>Silver went on to note the difficulty of polling primaries.<\/p>\n<p>To answer my own question: a lot of polls now are basically models, but primaries are very hard to model from first principles, whereas general elections are relatively easy given very high partisanship and usually predictable demographic relationships,&#8221; he said <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NateSilver538\/status\/2087352065169215593\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in another post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Fox News Digital Columnist <strong>Dave Marcus<\/strong> also took issue with the polling in Wisconsin, calling it &#8220;grotesque.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed_container\" id=\"31c1d360e4ae8385d89901e77f1997ac\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Can we stop obeying the polls? This is grotesque. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bNTSyP5kRG\">pic.twitter.com\/bNTSyP5kRG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BlueBoxDave\/status\/2087365199606988961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>Some claimed primary polling should be ignored altogether, with political scientist <strong>Larry Sabato<\/strong> specifically calling out Wisconsin and Michigan, where progressive candidate <strong>Abdul El-Sayed<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/abdul-el-sayed-fends-off-30-million-aipac-ad-buy-to-win-michigan-primary-nbc-projects\/\">defeated<\/a> Rep. <strong>Haley Stevens<\/strong> (D-MI) in the Democratic primary for Senate.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed_container\" id=\"556cb708c91440ca97674e1f4f296b87\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Let\u2019s all remember to ignore primary polls in the future, at least in MI and WI.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LarrySabato\/status\/2087367446382399627?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;What amazes me is that just a few days ago, the same polling train wreck happened in Michigan. Few learned anything,&#8221; he added in a subsequent post.<\/p>\n<p>Pollster <strong>Frank Luntz<\/strong> agreed.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed_container\" id=\"0ca056f0a992ac77e3ebe6e4996455a1\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of primary polling in the Midwestern United States until we can figure out what the hell is going on. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Wm6TwTuaUG\">https:\/\/t.co\/Wm6TwTuaUG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FrankLuntz\/status\/2087422376690798761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong> Patrick Ruffini<\/strong>, a pollster for Echelon Insights, pumped the brakes on talk of mistakes in the process.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Before we talk polling error: Hong will very likely hit what the polls said she&#8217;d get. The election was polarized for and against her and polls are still a crude measure for consolidation, which only happens at the very end,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PatrickRuffini\/status\/2087359432640332194?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sarah Longwell<\/strong>, publisher of The Bulwark, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SarahLongwell25\/status\/2087505315835019526\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">had predicted a close race<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s just going to be closer than what it seems like,&#8221; she said Tuesday on <em>The Next Level<\/em> podcast, pointing to primary polls that missed el-Sayed&#8217;s Michigan victory.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/wtf-is-up-with-these-polls-experts-flummoxed-by-stunning-20-point-misfire-in-wisconsin-primary\/\">\u2018WTF is Up With These Polls?\u2019 Experts Flummoxed by Stunning 20-Point Misfire in Wisconsin Primary<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Hong campaign via AP) Critics were baffled and lashing out Wednesday at the quality of primary polling in Wisconsin after Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong lost to fellow Democrat David Crowley in the race for the governor&#8217;s office. Crowley, 40, defeated Hong by 3,000 votes and will take on Trump-backed Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI)\u00a0in November. Polling&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1-39-05-PM.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}