Trump Casts Doubt on Midterm Results as Polls Miss the Mark

Donald Trump seemed to take the midterm results in stride at first. Seven days later, he went on social media to sow doubt, writing: “Does anybody really believe that this ‘election’ was honest. How could the polls be so wrong???”

The 3 November vote flipped a swathe of seats from red to blue, handing Democrats control of both the Senate and the House for the remainder of Trump's presidency. The scale of the swing surprised plenty of observers: in some key states, the Democrats' vote count landed far above what pollsters had predicted.

The BBC's More or Less took up the question of whether the polls genuinely called the race wrong, and how much weight polling deserves in an era of surprise results. Presenter Lizzy McNeill put it to Lenny Bronner, founder of political data company Broome Street Labs, and Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution.

The episode was produced by Sarah Turnnidge, with Tom Colls as series producer, Brenda Brown as production co-ordinator, Dave O'Neill on sound mix and Richard Vadon editing.