Kayleigh McEnany’s Definition Of ‘Good Polling’ Has Critics Facepalming

Josephine Harvey
·2 min read
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Kayleigh McEnany made a comical slip while analyzing Democratic victories in Tuesday’s elections.

The White House press secretary-turned-Fox News host pointed to Republican disappointments in Kentucky and Ohio, noting they are both red states.

Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won reelection in deep-red Kentucky. In Ohio, voters passed a ballot referendum to codify abortion access into the state’s constitution, as well as another ballot initiative to legalize cannabis for recreational adult use that Republican state lawmakers opposed.

“Tonight, the midterm elections, the last few elections — we must recognize as a party, good polling does not always translate into resounding victory,” McEnany said.

“It must be operationalized” with early voting, mail-in ballot and get-out-the-vote strategies, she added.

There has been much debate about polling methods in recent years amid surprises in the 2016 and 2020 election cycles. In last year’s midterms, though certain surveys led many pundits to predict a “red wave” which did not materialize, post-election analyses found the polls were actually much more accurate overall.

It appears McEnany, who served in former President Donald Trump’s administration, confused favorable polls with predictive ones, and the X, formerly Twitter, brigade promptly pounced:

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