The five-thirty-eight poll discouraged me as well. Even if Silver is only half right, Republicans will still sweep the House of Representatives and a large number of Governorships and state legislatures. Frank Luntz suddenly stepping into full Republican mode again, does not bear well either.

While I am trying to prepare myself for a Republican victory, something keeps nagging at me, chewing away, insistent and determined, it won’t leave me alone. First of all, the polls were so wrong about the 2016 Presidential election, pollsters were humiliated, and went berserk trying to figure out how they got it so wrong. I followed the discussions and debates, and one thing was certain, the pollsters had no idea how they’d screwed up.

In 2020, the pollsters correctly predicted Biden’s win, but they weren’t even close to predicting the size of that win. Deep in pollster-land a new consensus emerged. Pollsters have tons of data on the population who votes on a regular basis. However, they have no data on voters who rarely, if ever, vote – once known as the non-voting public.

Suddenly, the definition of “swing-voters” changed from “undecided voters” to voters who might suddenly decide to vote. In 2020, these suddenly voting voters were the people who threw the Republicans out of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Even now, pollsters still have no idea how to predict how this group of people might vote. All they know is that this group is huge - just about half the eligible voters of this country. In 2020, these people were just about 6-million strong and spread all across the country.

With pollsters still disabled by a lack of data on half the voting population, the Republicans and Democrats have been operating in the dark. The division among regular voters is set in stone. No matter what, regular voters will vote alone party lines – period. There are no undecided voters among regular voters anymore.

Next week, we will find out what half of the people of this country, who rarely, if ever vote, actually think, feel and believe. Will these people vote again next week, or will they stay home? The Republicans are counting on them to stay home. The Democrats are hoping they will vote.

That’s the long way of saying, don’t count of data, when there is none.