The West may be the region where the Red Wave was most needed by Republicans. Arizona and Nevada in particular had close races in which Republicans lost two possible senate pick-ups and a governor’s seat in presidential battleground state.
Polling identified the close and noncompetitive western races but there were also some anomalies. In Washington, for example, the Patty Murray race had polls that said it was close, but Murray won by 15 points. There were late polls conducted in several states that created brief news bubbles but were viewed by local experts as of questionable credibility.
The table below shows the RealClearPolitics average on October 3 and the final on November 8. In Arizona, the late RealClearPolitics’ average was off by 4 points in the senate race and reported the wrong direction for governor (Hobbs not Lake won). The Nevada senate average had the wrong candidate winning and polls did not record the size of the Colorado Democratic victory. In Oregon, the Republican lost to the Democrat.
Factors that contributed to some of the news distortion as to existence of a Red Wave and changes in momentum and direction of several races were first a flood of late polls, mostly partisan, showing close races and second as the polls narrowed and the margins became smaller, tiny shifts were reported as significant when in fact they were mostly just statistical noise.
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