In Reply to: Get ready for this scenario. posted by mh on July 22, 2026 at 21:03:07
Over the last five election cycles (the extent of my readily available historical data), polls of likely voters have typically leaned more Republican than polls of registered voters or all U.S. adults. That’s because Democrats have typically held an edge with lower-turnout groups, like young Americans and non-white voters, that skew coarser samples to the left. More reliable voters, historically speaking, have been more Republican-leaning than the population as a whole (this was not true in 2024).
But data on likely voter turnout this election cycle points the other direction. According to a new analysis of pooled survey interviews from Strength In Numbers/Verasight polls since January 2026, Americans who say they are most likely to vote in November are actually more pro-Democratic than registered voters.
In fact, in every wave of our poll this year, the people likeliest to show up have leaned a little bluer than registered voters as a whole.
Our July poll has Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot by 7 points among registered voters, 50% to 43%. That 7-point advantage itself would be enough to flip the House majority (Democrats need to win the popular vote by about 3 points to win 218 seats) and to make the Senate majority competitive, and would be a swing of 9 points since the 2024 presidential race (about the same swing as from 2016 to 2018).
But when we filter our polling data to the people who say they’ll definitely or probably vote in November, the Democratic Party’s lead grows to almost 9 points — a boost of about a point and a half on average across polls. The size of the premium bounces around from month to month (see image below), but the direction never changes. In all seven surveys since we started asking the turnout question in January, likely voters have leaned bluer than registered voters, by anywhere from one to two and a half points.