The phrase "midterm polling" is correct and usable in written English.
It refers to public opinion polls taken before a midterm election. For example, "The midterm polling suggests that the incumbent Senator is likely to be re-elected."
Despite poor midterm poll prospects for the Democrats, it is far too early to conclude that Barack Obama's presidency is a spent force.
In every parliament, the midterm polls show, as they did this weekend, that the party was losing a shocking proportion of previous support.
Critics see the bill as election year politics, with the Republican party trying every trick in the book to stave off losses in the midterm polls, which are less than a week away.
So, the midterm polls have finally closed in some states, slamming shut the 2014 election season and marking the beginning of the fresh cycle of 2016 (you better believe it!).
But in addition to including the eventual nominee, early polls also correctly identified the top tier contenders, especially since 2004 when pre-midterm polling become more robust.
Identifying the field is one thing, but how have pre-midterm polls done in identifying the eventual nominee?
Significantly, however, the eventual nominee for each party has been included in at least one pre-midterm poll in every cycle since 1984.
With such a small sample — only five election cycles for each party — and just a few pre-midterm polls available in each cycle before 2000, it could be risky to read too much into the pattern of Republican accuracy and Democratic inaccuracy in pre-midterm primary polls.
For both the Republican and Democratic parties, pre-midterm polls have generally guessed only about 50 percent of the field of candidates correctly — about half of the candidates included in early polling decided not to run, and roughly just as many candidates not included in any early polls entered the race.
Since 1984, however, we have at least two pre-midterm polls for each party for each election, and those surveys have followed a consistent pattern: the early leader on the Republican side is very likely to become the nominee, while the early leader on the Democratic side is not.
