In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "4 Reasons to be Skeptical About Election Polling Results," Jennifer Rubin lays out, well, 4 reasons why we should be skeptical about recent polling results showing a late Republican surge in races all around the country.
One of the claims that caught my attention is that recently-released polling results are heavily dominated by Republican-leaning polling organizations, who have conducted their polling in a way that skews results toward GOP candidates. When averaged together with all polling results, these "junk polls" skew the averages towards GOP candidates, making it look like a "Red wave" will inundate us on November 8. While some interesting arguments have been made to support this claim that the GOP is deliberately "flooding the zone," there's probably no way to prove definitively to what extent this is really affecting results.
I recommend reading this article if you have anxiety about the way polling results are going. Remember, races always tighten up right before the election, as undecided voters are forced to finally become decided voters. And I'll end with a spoiler quote from Rubin's article:
In the end, the only sane approach to understanding the election is to ignore all the polling noise and focus on what really matters: turning out to vote.
So, be sure that YOU turn out to vote -- and encourage everyone else that you can influence to do the same.
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