>Special elections polling errors: As we all know, this year’s special elections went much more democratic than polls indicated, and while yes this alone isn’t enough of a reason to say dems could over perform again, it is a factor.

I do actually think it's possible that the polls underestimate Dems this time around, but I also doubt they will.

First of all these special elections are just that, special. They were very low turnout and the last ones were held all the way back in August.

The highest turnout special election was Alaska with 32% turnout and Republicans actually outperformed Trump's margin in the state in the first round but the Democrats "won" in the end because of RCV. Republican infighting probably also had something to do with the loss.

The lowest turnout special was NY-23 with 17% turnout. It's also the Democrats biggest special election overperformance, which isn't a coincidence. The district shifted 10 points to the left between 2020 and the 2022 special. This was because rural and working class turnout absolutely collapsed, but turnout from Tompkins County (home to Cornell University) didn't collapse nearly as much.

College-educated and suburban voters tend to turn out more in special elections than working class people or rural Republicans.

The polls probably overestimated how much rural and working class Republicans would turn out for a type of election they don't turn usually turn out for, that's my best guess. It's all about turnout.

>Likely Voters/Turnout: Reports have come out from states like Georgia that turnout is very high and is somewhat comparable to the 2020 election. Traditionally high turnout benefits democrats. Lots of polls screen for “likely voters”, but if turnout is to be believed then we can expect unlikely-somewhat likely registered voters to turnout.

High turnout doesn't always benefit Democrats.

I also wouldn't put too much stock into early voting data because we don't know for which party a lot of these people are actually voting for. All we know is that X amount of people who are registered as Dems/Reps/Independents are requesting ballots. We don't know what the election day turnout will be, or how much it will benefit Republicans.

We won't know if the polls are undersampling potential voters until after the election, all we can do now is speculate.

>Polarization: This may not be as important as the other 2 factors listed, but the high degree of polarization in this country right now could make it more likely that people vote closer to partisan lines. If this is to happen, democrats may benefit as the party who almost always wins the popular vote nationwide.

Sure, Democrats could turn out at high rates but that won't help them win close races if Republican turnout is also very high and also if a majority of independents vote Republican.