WaPo’s KS Poll Blows Up: Dems Twice As Likely to Answer As Republicans — and They’re Admitting It

Stay tuned to see how this plays out on Election Day.

We polled Kansas. Democrats wanted to talk. Republicans, not so much. Gift link -> https://t.co/wfKuq8TQvd https://t.co/jMule4djir

— Scott Clement (@sfcpoll) October 30, 2026

The Washington Post and George Mason University began contacting voters last week in one of the country’s most competitive but least-polled Senate contests: the race in Kansas between Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton, who is trying to become the first Democratic senator from the state since the Great Depression.

After more than 85,000 phone calls and nearly 50,000 text messages, a potential problem emerged.

Democrats were far more enthusiastic about taking the poll than Republicans were. Registered Democrats were more than twice as likely as registered Republicans to complete the survey after answering an interviewer’s call — 32 percent versus 12 percent — with a similar partisan gap when texting voters to complete the survey online.

This was a supersize version of a concern that has vexed pollsters for the last decade.

Democrats are eager to say they are voting for Democrats. Probably because conservatives are used to their voting choices being weaponized against them and they don't want that hassle. No thanks.

Kansas Democrats picking up the phone when a pollster calls https://t.co/WWIwtXQ1Nf

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) October 30, 2026

We are living inside of a live political science experiment, where we will see in just a few days — in a cycle with an incumbent president and party this unpopular — to what extent lower survey response rates among the depressed party translates to lower base turnout. Kudos to the Washington Post/George Mason University polling team for publishing this for transparency reasons, despite it clearly being an outlier.

— Adam Carlson (@admcrlsn) October 30, 2026

Conservatives don't need to worry about answering surveys. Just go vote. Ask your friends to go vote. Just turn out.

very admirable transparency here -- worth a read

— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) October 30, 2026

It’s good for pollsters to release outliers, but that response disparity compared to the other states is crazy 🫪 https://t.co/tQ1jstaw8D

— Dj (@DjsokeSpeaking) October 30, 2026

Seems like conservatives don't trust media. Maybe organizations should reflect on that.

Dressing up as this chart to be the scariest possible thing to my Democratic friends this Halloween

— Kristen Soltis Anderson (@KSoltisAnderson) October 30, 2026

Literally the monster under their bed.

So completion rates were terrible for Democrats in a state where they have their worst candidate in ages, whereas they were very high in a red state where Democrats are desperate to win the senate race. For Michigan, that means polls are overstating El-Sayed’s support among Democrats because they’re not getting the many disgruntled Dems who don’t want to admit they won’t Vote Blue No Matter Who. For Kansas, where polls always underestimate Republican senators, you’re probably just not reaching any normie Republicans, just the very soft ones who might vote Dem. And then you’re taking that group and weighting them up to look like all Republicans. In short, you’re making all Democrats look like Strong Democrats in Michigan and all Republicans look like Weak Republicans in Kansas.

— Chris (@chriswithans) October 30, 2026

The best thing for Republicans is to believe we are in the hole and work hard to get out of it. Care more than Democrats. 

Dems were almost three times as likely to finish the poll. And that's why red state polls wind up with nearly 60 percent Harris raw samples. There's nothing you can do with that.

— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) October 30, 2026

At least they're admitting it.