民意调查专家称，由于调查准确预见了美国中期选举中席卷全国的民主党“蓝色浪潮”的大部分走势，该行业迎来了“伟大的一夜”。
Political polling experts hailed a “great night” for the industry after surveys accurately foresaw much of the Democratic blue wave that swept across the US in midterm elections.
仅在包括德克萨斯州和新罕布什尔州在内的少数几场美国参议院选举中，关键民调未能准确把握民主党击败共和党的胜选规模。
In only a handful of US Senate races, including Texas and New Hampshire, key polls failed to gauge the scale of the Democratic victory over Republicans on Tuesday.
罗格斯大学伊格尔顿公共利益民意调查中心主任阿什利·科宁说：“我们所知的一些最具可信度的选前民调，准确预见了迄今为止已揭晓的每场选举的走势。”
Ashley Koning, the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, said: “Some of the most credible pre-election polls that we know of correctly saw the direction of every race that’s been called so far.”
她在一次采访中补充说：“如果说有什么不同的话，今年的民调低估了一些民主党人。”
“If anything,” she added in an interview, “the polls underestimated some Democrats this year.”
近年来，美国民调的准确性备受关注，尤其是在唐纳德·特朗普在2016年、2020年和2024年总统选举中表现优于民调预测之后。
The accuracy of US polling has come into sharp focus in recent years, especially after Donald Trump outperformed polls in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections.
在本周中期选举前夕，民调显示民主党有望赢得众议院，并可能在足够多的州领先，从而夺得参议院控制权。周二晚间，民主党赢得了两院控制权，并在全国范围内取得胜利。
In the lead-up to this week’s midterm elections, polls had indicated that Democrats were poised to win the House and might lead enough states to also take the Senate. On Tuesday night, Democrats flipped both chambers, with victories across the country.
周日发布的《纽约时报》/锡纳民调最终结果显示，民主党在爱荷华州、堪萨斯州、缅因州、密歇根州、俄亥俄州和德克萨斯州的参议院选举中领先，而他们最终赢得了所有这些席位。
The final New York Times/Siena Poll, published on Sunday, put Democrats ahead in Senate races in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas, all seats they ultimately won.
然而，在其中几个州，民主党的表现优于民调数据，这标志着近年来民调往往低估对共和党支持（尤其是特朗普支持）的趋势出现了逆转。
In several of those states, however, Democrats outperformed their polling numbers, marking a reversal of a trend seen in recent years in which surveys have tended to underestimate support for Republicans, especially under Trump.
宾夕法尼亚大学公民与政治研究所所长戴安娜·穆茨将选前民调描述为“相当不错”，称它们总体上准确反映了结果，没有出现重大失误。
Diana Mutz, director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics at the University of Pennsylvania, described the pre-election polls as “pretty good”, saying they had generally captured the results without any major errors.
她指出，民调人员面临的最大挑战之一是“知道谁真正会去投票”——尤其是中期选举，其投票率通常低于总统选举。
One of the biggest challenges for pollsters, she noted, was “knowing who is actually going to turn out to vote” – especially in midterm elections, which typically see a lower turnout than presidential contests.
德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校政府学教授克里斯托弗·韦利恩观察到，选前民调的准确性因个别胜选幅度的大小而异。
Christopher Wlezien, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, observed that the accuracy of the pre-election polls varied on the size of individual victories.
“有些（选情）要接近得多，”他说。“但这很难做到，因为像这样的大幅波动很难预测……你必须设法捕捉谁会去投票，这总是很棘手。”民调行业还在应对回复率下降的问题。皮尤研究中心9月报告称，回复率已从1997年的36%降至近年的个位数低位。该中心还指出，有越来越多证据表明，共和党人比民主党人更不愿意参与民调。
“Some were much closer than others,” he said. “But it was hard to do, because the big swings like this are hard to predict … you have to try to capture who’s going to vote, and that’s always tricky.”The polling industry has also grappled with decreasing response rates. In September, the Pew Research Center reported that rates had fallen from 36% in 1997 to the low single digits in recent years. It also pointed to what it described as growing evidence that Republicans had become less likely than Democrats to participate.
贝尔韦瑟研究与咨询公司总裁克里斯汀·马修斯表示，在本轮选举周期中，“如此关注民调是否低估了特朗普选民——正如特朗普出现在总统大选选票上时所发生的那样——以至于关于民调是否可能低估民主党选民的讨论明显减少，而这才是实际情况。”
In this cycle, there was “so much focus on whether polls were underestimating Trump voters, as they have done in presidential elections when Trump has been on the ballot, that there was significantly less conversation about whether they could be underestimating Democrats, as was the case”, said Christine Matthews, president of Bellwether Research and Consulting.
马修斯说，民调“准确预测了2024年被特朗普吸引的部分选民（指西班牙裔和年轻选民）出现向民主党的戏剧性转变”。
Polls “accurately forecast dramatic shifts toward Democrats among some of the voters who were drawn to Trump in 2024”, Matthews said, referring to Hispanic and younger voters.
佛罗里达北部大学公共舆论研究实验室负责人肖恩·弗里德表示，他认为这可能是十多年来民调首次“低估了民主党得票率，而非共和党得票率”。
Sean Freeder, who oversees the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida, said he believed this was likely the first time in more than a decade or so that polls “underestimated the Democratic vote rather than the Republican vote share”.
弗里德说：“我认为这里的一个主要影响是，这次选举可能增加了民调机构的风险偏好。过去民调机构曾因现实情况而‘烧手’，而且具体来说是朝着一个方向。现在突然出现了一场另一党被低估的选举，我认为民调机构现在可能会说：我要相信我的结果，我要继续发布。”
“I see one of the major effects here being that this might this election have increased the risk appetite for pollsters,” Freeder said. “Pollsters have been burned in the past by reality, and specifically in one direction. Now that, all of a sudden, you have an election in which the other party was undercounted, now I think it’s possible pollsters would say: I’m going to trust my results. I’m going to go ahead and release it.”
展望2028年及以后，萨福克大学政治研究中心主任大卫·帕莱奥洛戈斯表示，民调机构需要确保自己不仅仅总是在问：“你们是否低估了共和党人？是否低估了特朗普选民？”还要问：“你们是否也低估了民主党选民？”
Looking ahead to 2028 and beyond, David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said pollsters need to make sure they are not always just asking: “Are you undercounting Republicans? Are you undercounting Trump voters?” but also: “Are you undercounting Democratic voters, too?”
宾夕法尼亚州立大学调查研究中心定量工作负责人小蒂姆·塞文斯基表示：“由于近年来的失误，民调机构担心高估民主党的表现。最终，”他补充道，“民调结果是对的，但它们可能低估了南卡罗来纳州、得克萨斯州和佐治亚州等地的民主党热情，而且因为这些地方不被视为有竞争力，我们在密西西比州几乎看不到任何民调。”
“Pollsters were wary of overestimating Democratic performance because of misses in recent years,” according to Tim Servinsky Jr, who leads the quantitative work at the Center for Survey Research at Pennsylvania State University. “Ultimately,” he added, “the polls got it right, but they possibly underestimated Democratic enthusiasm in places like South Carolina, Texas and Georgia, and because it wasn’t considered competitive, we saw virtually no polling in Mississippi.”