Tony Fabrizio, a top pollster working for Republican Mike Rogers, is aggressively disputing public polls showing Rogers trailing in Michigan’s high-stakes Senate race.
Fabrizio argues that recent surveys are over-sampling Democratic-leaning voters, specifically college-educated and Black voters, according to an internal memo obtained by POLITICO.
A Susquehanna poll released this month showed progressive Abdul El-Sayed leading Rogers by seven points, while a TIPP poll placed El-Sayed ahead by four points.
Fabrizio wrote that El-Sayed’s lead in those surveys amounts to a “fake narrative,” framing the public polling as a distorted picture of the actual race.
His own polling for AARP, conducted alongside Democratic firm Impact Research, told a starkly different story, showing the race essentially tied between the two candidates.
Fabrizio pointed to what he described as catastrophic polling failures in recent Democratic primaries in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida to bolster his argument against the current public surveys.
He characterized those primary polling misses as “some of the most egregious examples of public polling failures in recent memory,” raising questions about methodological reliability heading into November.
The pushback signals that Republicans are paying close attention to the string of unfavorable numbers for Rogers in a race widely seen as critical to determining Senate control.
Jim Lee, CEO of Susquehanna Polling and Research, directly rejected Fabrizio’s over-sampling claim, telling POLITICO that the firm did not oversample any demographics.
“I think their head is in the sand,” Lee said, pointing to what he described as a notable enthusiasm gap between Democratic and Republican voters during this election cycle.
TIPP did not respond to a request for comment, leaving Fabrizio’s specific criticisms of that poll unanswered as the race continues to draw national attention.
Michigan’s Senate contest has emerged as one of the most closely watched matchups of the cycle, with both parties viewing it as a potential tipping point for chamber control.
