The latest AtlasIntel poll before the November 3 elections leaves one of the most adverse figures for Donald Trump’s party: a 14.1-point Democratic lead in the national vote for the House of Representatives. The firm interviewed 3,566 American adults between October 28 and November 1. Its technical sheet states a margin of error of two points.
The data circulates summarized as a 15-point lead. There is an arithmetic explanation: if the support for each party is rounded first, the Democratic 55.5% becomes 56% and the Republican 41.4% becomes 41%. The subtraction gives 15. If the decimals are kept and the distance is calculated before rounding, the lead is 14.1 points, or 14 in whole numbers.
How close AtlasIntel came in 2020, 2022 and 2024
In the 2020 presidential election, the comparison that circulates exchanges the forecast and the result. According to the tally published by the firm itself, its latest national poll gave Joe Biden 50.9% and Trump 46.2%: a 4.7-point lead for the Democrat. Biden won the popular vote by about 4.5. AtlasIntel slightly overstated his victory, but it was within about two tenths of the final margin.
The 2022 legislative elections are the most comparable test. AtlasIntel gave Republicans a 3.1-point lead in the national question on the vote for Congress. The Cook Political Report count cited by Inside Elections in December placed the margin at 2.8 points; the PollingSource historical series uses 2.6. With either of those references, the deviation was half a point or less. Republicans regained the House.
In 2024, AtlasIntel again pointed to the winner of the popular vote, this time Trump over Kamala Harris. RealClearPolling collects its latest national measurement with a Republican lead of one point, with the rounded percentages, compared with the 1.5 points of the result. The data supports that the pollster was close; that record alone does not allow the exact tenth of the +1.1 attributed to it to be certified.
Why a 14-point lead does not say how many seats Trump would lose
In 2020 and 2024, the question pitted two candidates who appeared on ballots across the country. This time AtlasIntel measures the so-called generic vote: which party the respondent prefers for the House of Representatives. On Tuesday, however, Americans will elect their representatives in 435 different districts. A Democratic victory by 30 points in one district and another Republican by one in the neighboring district split the seats evenly, no matter how large the combined margin in votes may be.
Nor do all pollsters detect a gap of the same magnitude. The Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies poll for NBC News, conducted between October 28 and 30, gave Democrats 52% and Republicans 45%. That is a seven-point lead, approximately half of AtlasIntel's. There is a difference between the samples: NBC surveyed registered voters and AtlasIntel identifies its own as a sample of adults. Both measurements agree on who is ahead, but differ on the size of the lead.
AtlasIntel's examination will therefore have two different results. The distribution of districts will say who controls the House during the last two years of Trump's term. To check whether the pollster again missed by a few tenths, we will have to wait for the national popular vote: that is the figure that can really be compared with its forecast of 14.1 points.