Overview
Pollsmax tracks publicly released political polls for Senate, House, and governor (including primaries), presidential primaries, and national indicators. Each poll is entered with the topline results reported by the pollster, along with field dates, sample type, and sample size when available. Polling averages on race pages are designed to summarize recent survey evidence, not to predict outcomes on their own.
Poll Collection
We add polls when a reputable survey is released with citable toplines. Polls are dated by the end of the field period. When a release covers multiple days of interviewing, the poll is placed on the last field date. Individual poll rows on a race page show exactly what was reported; the trend line reflects our weighted average, not a pollster’s internal smoothing.
Race-Page Polling Averages
For Senate, House, and gubernatorial general-election pages, the polling average is a recency-weighted mean of all polls dated on or before each chart day. More recent surveys receive higher weight. On individual state and district race pages, the recency curve adapts to how many polls exist in the series so sparse races do not overreact to a single new survey.
Before averaging, each poll is shifted by that pollster’s measured partisan bias when the firm is in Pollsmax’s bias table. A bias of D+5.1 takes 2.55 points off the Democratic share and adds 2.55 points to the Republican share, whatever the published result. The same shift runs in reverse for a Republican bias. The numbers shown for each poll stay exactly as reported. A pollster with no entry in the table is not shifted, including firms tagged (D) or (R). When a poll names more than one firm, the average uses the biases of the firms that are in the table. If only one of them is listed, that firm’s bias is used. An exact partnership row is used when the separate firms are not each listed. On Senate and governor polls, an independent candidate is shifted with the Democrats. Primary averages are not shifted.
California open-primary House races with multiple candidates per party sum each party’s tested candidates into a single Democratic or Republican total before averaging. Those primary-style charts use steeper recency weighting and disable outlier downweighting so every valid reading counts equally aside from recency.
Outlier Downweighting
When at least three polls with paired Democratic and Republican toplines are available, we compute a robust consensus margin (median Democratic minus Republican) and measure each poll’s distance from that consensus using a median absolute deviation (MAD) scale. Polls far from the pack receive lower weight but are not deleted. On primary pages and some multi-candidate fields, outlier downweighting is disabled so every valid reading counts equally aside from recency.
National Indicators
Trump approval and the generic congressional ballot use national poll series. Each day’s value is a sample-size-weighted mean of polls in a rolling ~28-day window. When at least three paired toplines are available, we also apply a robust median / MAD outlier shrink on the net margin (approve−disapprove or Democratic−Republican) so far-from-pack polls retain only a small fraction of their sample weight. These series move slightly day to day even between new releases because older polls gradually age out of the average.
Primary Polling Averages
2028 presidential primary charts use a fixed lookback window (50 days of field dates) and weight polls by reported sample size only, with no exponential decay within the window. Each candidate’s average is calculated independently; a candidate missing from a particular poll does not affect other candidates’ averages for that day.
2026 Senate and governor primary pages use steeper adaptive recency than general elections so new surveys move the trend line more quickly. Outlier downweighting and pollster-bias adjustments are disabled; every valid reading counts equally aside from recency. Multi-candidate fields may sum party totals (for example open House or California governor primaries) before computing averages.
What We Show on Each Page
Poll tables list individual releases in reverse chronological order. Charts plot each poll as a point and overlay the weighted average as a trend line. Latest values in race summaries and full-chamber maps come from the most recent day on that trend line with valid data for both major candidates (or all listed candidates on primary pages). Polling averages feed forecast models separately; those projections use additional inputs beyond polling alone.