This is the fifth issue of an AEIdeas series that focuses on elections and demographic voting patterns. During the 2022 campaign, we look weekly at demographic subgroup averages from a month of polls.

As we approach Election Day, we share the conventional wisdom that, based on a fairly robust historical trend, the GOP will hold the House, but not by the margin some suggested in the spring. Democrats need to be stronger than our averages indicate to upset the pattern.

Key Findings

• Republican voters remain enthusiastic about Donald Trump running for president in 2024, but far fewer are willing to identify themselves as MAGA Republicans. The recent Economist/YouGov poll finds 58 percent of Republicans would like Trump to run again, while 24 percent prefer he remains on the sidelines. Forty-four percent, however, call themselves a MAGA Republican, compared to 43 percent who do not identify with the phrase.
• Throughout the summer, Democrats maintained a lead of around six points amongst the highest-income voters. Since Labor Day, however, this advantage has almost entirely evaporated and Democrats are now ahead by just two points—well within the margin of error. Donald Trump carried high-income voters in 2020, so national Republicans hope for continued improvement among this group in the final weeks of the campaign.
• The latest Marist poll found a shocking 11-point Democratic deficit—41 percent to 52 percent—among Latino voters. This is the first public poll this fall to show a Republican lead with this crucial demographic group. Such a result would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, but, as our average indicates, the Democratic advantage continues to shrink.
• Though losing Latinos outright remains unlikely for Democrats, Marist has a long track record of accurately predicting Democratic Hispanic vote share. Their September 2016 poll showed 68 percent of Latinos voting for Hillary Clinton. She would eventually win 67 percent. Before the 2018 midterms, Marist predicted 66 percent of Latinos would support Democrats—67 percent ultimately did. In 2020, Biden won 61 percent of Latinos, whereas Marist’s October poll slightly underestimated his support at 56 percent. This strong track record—combined with the latest abysmal result—should worry Democrats as we draw closer to Election Day.
• The black vote, too, as Harry Enten has noted, seems to be lagging historic Democrat support in most polls. Our average (a 57-point Democratic advantage) confirms this; the current advantage is quite a bit below Democrats’ advantage in 2020 (79 points) and 2018 (84 points). More than 13 percent of black voters remain undecided, however, so Democrats have room to grow.

Previous election data is drawn from Catalist crosstab estimates. Catalist is a Democratic data analytics organization.

*How we did this: This month-long average is a compilation of online and live caller polls that release crosstabs. Internal and explicitly partisan polls are excluded. This edition averages polls from Monmouth University, Grinnell College/Selzer & Company, Washington Post/ABC News, Economist/YouGov, Quinnipiac University, Morning Consult/Politico, Harvard/Harris, CBS News, Emerson, The Wall Street Journal, Rasmussen, Echelon Insights, Marist College/NPR/PBS NewsHour, New York Times/Siena College, and Fox News.

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