Hidden Democratic Undercount Risk

Polling errors sometimes run the other way: in off‑year races of 2025, some major polls substantially underestimated Democratic candidates (notably New Jersey), producing large forecast misses. Systematic underestimates of Democrats are as consequential as the more-discussed Republican underestimates and require symmetric diagnostic attention. — If poll bias can cut both ways, forecasters, journalists and campaigns must audit methods symmetrically and incorporate asymmetric‑bias corrections into averages and forecasts to avoid systematic surprises in elections.