The final New York Times/Siena polls are in, and Democrats are ahead in almost every Senate battleground. They are also ahead in a far more important race: picking up the phone.

From October 23 to November 1, the Times surveyed 5,708 voters across Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas. Democrats led in nearly all of them. Then, in the fine print, where newspapers keep their confessions, the paper reported that registered white Democrats were about 30 percent likelier to respond than registered white Republicans. The Times called that "a bit higher" than in its final polls of 2020.

You remember 2020. The year the polls missed Trump's support by about four points, according to the Times' own polling analyst. That was the warm-up act. This year they brought a bigger band.

Here's how a modern poll works. A stranger calls you from an unknown number during dinner and asks you to spend a while discussing your feelings about Ohio. Nearly 98 percent of respondents were reached on cellphones. Half of America sees that number and lets it ring. The other half sees it and says, "Finally, someone wants my opinion." Guess which half is the Democrat.

That's not a sample. That's a support group.

The Times, to its credit, says this doesn't doom the polls. It points out that its 2022 final polls were "on the money" even when white Democrats were 28 percent likelier to respond, thanks to a technique called "weighting." In weighting, if you don't hear from enough Republicans, you take the few Republicans you did reach and count them extra. So somewhere in Kansas there's a retired farmer who answered his phone once and is now legally worth 1.3 voters. Congratulations, sir. You're a swing district.

The Democrats, naturally, are celebrating. And why not? They have finally found the one place where their message lands every time: on a pollster's spreadsheet. Out in the real world, Democrats are still trying to explain the price of groceries. In the poll world, they're up in Iowa. In the poll world, everyone is up in Iowa. The poll world has never been to Iowa.

The polling industry insists this year's methods are new, improved and adjusted for everything. It also insisted that in 2016. And 2020. At this point, "we've adjusted for it" is the pollster version of "I've changed, baby." Maybe it's true. Tuesday will tell us.

Meanwhile, every Republican in America just got another call from an unknown number. They didn't pick up. That wasn't a protest. That was a habit.

So here's the scoreboard going into Election Day. Democrats lead among likely voters. Republicans lead among people with voicemail. And the Times leads the nation in footnotes that say, politely, "Check back Wednesday."

The voters who actually decide this thing are the ones who don't answer pollsters, don't post about it, and don't care what the Times thinks. They'll answer once, on Tuesday, and that call they'll take.

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The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is parody and commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations and fictional elements are not factual claims. Quotes attributed to real people are drawn from published reporting.

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