Pollster Patrick Ruffini argues that summer polls have consistently overrated Democrats in recent election cycles, specifically pointing to instances where Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen and Jaime Harrison lost by significant margins in Tennessee and South Carolina respectively. According to Ruffini's analysis of four election cycles from 2018 to 2024, summer polls tend to favor Democrats more than they do in other periods. This trend may be a problem for forecasting models like FLIPR, but it is not yet clear if the pattern will repeat itself in 2026. Ruffini has already implemented "defense mechanisms" to account for this potential bias in his model.
Written by the local model on 2026-08-25,
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Story summary
Kamala Harris reached her peak in presidential forecast on Aug. 14, 2020, but by Aug. 29, Trump was the favorite again. This pattern is not unique to one election; summer polls over the past four cycles (2018-2024) have consistently overrated Democrats, according to pollster Patrick Ruffini's analysis. In particular, Democrat Phil Bredesen led polling averages against Republican Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee in August 2018, but eventually lost by 11 points. Similar patterns emerged in other elections, such as the 2020 South Carolina U.S. Senate race, where Democrat Jaime Harrison was initially tied with Lindsey Graham before losing by 10 points. This phenomenon has raised questions about whether polling tends to overrate Democrats in the summer and whether it could be a problem for predictive models like FLIPR's.
Written for “Midterm Election Trends” on 2026-08-31,
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Two years ago on this date, we were still in the waning days of Brat Summer.
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we → wan → Summer
Kamala Harris reached her peak in our presidential forecast on Aug. 14, though she’d never really achieved escape velocity, and by Aug. 29, Trump was the favorite again.1
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Trump → reach → Aug.
That’s not the only summer memory that can give Democrats anxiety.
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that → ’ → anxiety
In August 2018, Democrat Phil Bredesen led polling averages against Republican Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee, but the advantage flipped to Blackburn in September, and she eventually won by 11 points.
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she → lead → points
In the 2020 South Carolina U.S. Senate race, Democrat Jaime Harrison was tied in some polls with Lindsey Graham (RIP) well into September, raising a truly insane amount of money … before losing by 10 points.
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Harrison → tie → points
But is this part of a broader, predictable pattern of polling tending to overrate Democrats in the summer?
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polling → tend → summer
Patrick Ruffini, a pollster at Echelon Insights, published a newsletter yesterday at his Substack detailing how summer polls over the past four cycles (2018 through 2024) have fairly consistently overrated Democrats.
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polls → publish → Democrats
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the pattern will repeat itself in 2026 — and FLIPR already has various defense mechanisms against this.
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FLIPR → mean → this
But these questions are tailor-made for a Model Talk column.
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questions → make → column
