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Jim Pfaff Says the Generic Ballot Is the Most Skewed Poll: Jim Pfaff on The John Fredericks Show | Oct 14, 2026

Published: October 14, 2026
Network: John Fredericks Media Network
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

John Fredericks opened the October 14, 2026 broadcast by sending listeners to Disruptor Sports Nation and a Caps column, Behind the Glass, after a loss to the Hurricanes. He then brought on Conservative Caucus president and CEO Jim Pfaff, with two and a half weeks left in the campaign.

Pfaff went straight at the polls. He said generic-ballot surveys are the most skewed, a Republican deficit of 15% is absurd, and a Harvard-Harris 2-point Democratic lead is the result that fits if Donald Trump turns his voters out.

Topics Covered

• A Sports Site, Then the Polls
• Democrats Responding Far Above Expectation
• Democratic Energy, Gas Prices, and the DSA Ick Factor
• Mike Rogers by 2 to 5, Whatley in Doubt
• Harvard-Harris and a 15% Gap He Calls Absurd
• Double-Digit Generic Ballots Are the Outlier
• Congress, the Senate, and a Culture of Death

A Sports Site, Then the Polls

Fredericks spent the open on the new sports site, disruptorsportsnation.com, which he pitched as “No lectures, just sports,” with paid writers and a Caps column due after the show. He noted live programming from 6 AM to 7 PM on weekdays, then turned the hour to politics and introduced Pfaff.

Democrats Responding Far Above Expectation

Pfaff said Trump is on the road trying to get the vote out, and that the polls in circulation are fake. He pointed to a response-rate test he had seen on X the day before.

“Democrats responded to polls with 129%, you know, 129% more than would be expected, and Republicans about +2%.” He said he would not claim to know precisely what that proves, and that November 3 will teach something about polling.

He gave pollsters one concession. Nobody has really figured out the turnout model. Every pollster, he said, gets a skewed mix of who answers and then has to fix it. “That’s the art of polling.”

Democratic Energy, Gas Prices, and the DSA Ick Factor

Pfaff said more Democrats answering the phone does signal real turnout energy, and Republicans have to match it. That is why Trump is traveling. He still rejected the turnout shape the polls are using.

the reality is I think that these pollsters are looking at a heavy Democrat turnout that heavily skews against Republican turnout, and I don’t see that happening.

He does expect Democrats to turn out in higher numbers. Republicans, he said, tend to live their lives and hear less about a midterm than about a presidential race, which is why midterms usually draw fewer voters. The economy is generally good. People are still angry about gas prices. Many Republicans and independents, he said, fear what comes next if Democrats take power.

The president’s party usually struggles in midterms. This year’s mix includes Abdul El-Sayed, whom Pfaff called an Islamist communist, or an Islamofascist and a communist, and what he calls the DSA ick factor. Republicans are spending more, and they need less of that money in Texas after James Talarico “went off the deep end.”

Elon Musk, he said, is putting money into on-the-ground work in Texas and elsewhere rather than mainly into ads. He compared that to Mark Zuckerberg in 2020, who “spent $400 million working on turnout” while saying he was helping local communities run elections, an effort Pfaff said was about Democratic turnout. Musk’s version may show up in ways the polls miss. Pfaff is positive Republicans will do far better than the coverage says. The polls, he said, are describing something he does not think exists yet.

Mike Rogers by 2 to 5, Whatley in Doubt

Pfaff agreed with Fredericks that Mike Rogers will win Michigan. He would not lock the margin where the host had it.

“I’m not sure if I put it at 5 points. It’s going to be between 2 and 5 points.” He said that result will shock a lot of people. Abdul El-Sayed is “saying all the wrong things,” and Black voters who usually put Democrats over the line in Michigan may sit it out or hold their nose. He expects the male Black vote to come to Rogers.

North Carolina is a different call. Trump’s coming rally in western North Carolina matters, and Pfaff still does not predict that Michael Whatley can win. Western conservatives, the voters who kept electing Mark Meadows and who form a MAGA core, are angry. In their view Whatley is a RINO, and they have not been excited about him. A mid-show sports-site read broke the conversation before Pfaff picked up Roy Cooper.

Harvard-Harris and a 15% Gap He Calls Absurd

Roy Cooper, Pfaff said, is a good campaigner with money. Whatley is not a dynamic candidate, and Cooper can come across as more dynamic. A Whatley win would shock Pfaff. Trump’s travel can still move a race, he said.

He tied that to a Harvard-Harris generic-ballot poll from about a week earlier, with a 2-point difference, modeled on a turnout roughly like 2024, when many MAGA voters showed up. If Trump gets that base to the polls, the election will land nearer Harvard-Harris than the generic ballots that have “Republicans down 15%, which I just think is absurd.”

“I think the generic ballot polls in particular are the most skewed.” They are easy to skew, he said. Race-by-race polls may show less of it. He expects a close fight. If Republicans keep the House, the margin will likely be narrow. The Senate, he said, has moved out of Democrats’ grasp. Republicans could lose Ohio and North Carolina, pick up New Hampshire and Michigan, and maybe Minnesota. Michele Tafoya’s emphasis on being pro-choice does not help the conservative base there.

Double-Digit Generic Ballots Are the Outlier

Pfaff said Harvard-Harris is the wrong poll to dismiss. He expects more MAGA, Republican, and Republican-leaning independent turnout than the conversation allows.

The outliers are these polls that have a double-digit difference. Like, that’s absurd. We’ve, we’ve never had that in history, in the history of generic ballot polls, to be candid.

Anger about the Iran war and gas prices is a real dynamic, he said. A 5-point Republican deficit he can accept. A double-digit gap he called absolutely absurd. Mark Mitchell, who used to run Rasmussen and now does Honest Poll, has been affirming a 15-point difference. Pfaff said he respects Mitchell and still thinks that gap does not ring true.

Campaigns should take polling seriously. These polls are not telling him Republicans are 15 points down, and he said to take them with a grain of salt. Harvard-Harris, a legitimate firm, used a 2024 likely-voter model and found a 2-point Democratic lead on the generic ballot.

Fredericks offered a clickbait theory for why Mitchell would defend a 15-point generic ballot. Pfaff said he cannot reach Mitchell’s conclusion from Mitchell’s numbers. Clickbait is a possibility. Mitchell has seemed fairly honest, those may simply be the numbers he got, and Democrats are glad to hear them. Pfaff withheld judgment on Mitchell himself.

Congress, the Senate, and a Culture of Death

Some of Mitchell’s alarms are fair, Pfaff said. Republicans’ performance over the last 2 years, with Trump in the White House, is a real drag. “The weak part of the Trump agenda is Republicans in Congress.” They could have passed laws that would have put the public with them, above all the Save America Act. He called John Thune an absurd, weak leader, and said one upside of losing the Senate would be Rick Scott leading the caucus instead.

There are 60 new seats. For the next 3 weeks, he said, most of the new Republican candidates should say the person before them did not deliver what Trump needs, and they will.

Asked for a Senate prediction, he said, “I think Republicans are going to have between 51 and 53 seats at the end.”

On Tafoya, he said the country has a culture of death. Say nothing, or be pro-life. He thinks she is a fantastic candidate and would be a good senator, and he does not know her real feeling. Abortion is the foundation. Democrats call slavery the original sin. He said he can calculate that 5 to 6 million enslaved people were brought into the United States, and that “we’ve destroyed through murderous actions, 67 million babies in their mothers’ wombs since Roe v. Wade.” He called that obscene and absurd, and said Americans are ready for that message even where the polls differ.

Listeners can follow him at TheConservativeCaucus.com. He said he would try to make Fredericks’s November 3 election-night broadcast.

Key Takeaways

• Generic ballot: Pfaff said generic-ballot polls are the most skewed, and a 15% Republican deficit is absurd.
• Harvard-Harris: A 2-point Democratic lead, modeled near 2024 turnout, is the reading he trusts if Trump’s voters show up.
• Response rates: He cited a test with Democrats responding 129% more than expected and Republicans about +2%.
• Michigan: He expects Mike Rogers to win by 2 to 5 points.
• North Carolina: He does not predict that Michael Whatley can win.
• Senate and Congress: He puts Republicans at 51 to 53 Senate seats and calls Republicans in Congress the weak part of the Trump agenda.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Oct 14, 2026 on The John Fredericks Show with John Fredericks.