Thom Tillis victory marks another polling failure in 2020 elections

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Republican Thom Tillis wins reelection to Senate from North Carolina

Incumbent holds off Democrat Cal Cunningham in a closely watched race; Mark Meredith reports.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis' victory in the North Carolina Senate race marks another failure for the polling industry, whose polls had widely shown Tillis trailing his Democratic opponent, Cal Cunningham. 

Fox News called the race for Tillis Tuesday night after Cunningham conceded. Tillis led Cunningham by just under 2% with few votes remaining when the Democrat conceded. 

Cunningham had consistently led Tillis in the RealClearPolitics polling average since late June. The Democratic candidate went into election night with a 2.6% lead in the RCP average. 

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Polls showed Cunningham with a variety of leads going into the election. 

One NBC News poll taken within a week of the election showed Cunningham leading by 10 points, an Emerson poll that concluded Oct. 31 showed Cunningham up by three points, and CNBC and Change Research released a poll the day before the election showing Tillis down four points. 

Pollsters have taken criticism after races across the country were much closer than the polls had projected. 

FRANK LUNTZ: POLLSTERS 'HAVE NEVER BEEN AS WRONG' 

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, won her re-election bid by more than eight points, despite steadily trailing in the polls for months. The final three polls showed Collins' challenger, Maine House Speaker Sarah Gideon, leading Collins by seven, four and six points. 

"It’s not too early to say that the polls’ systematic understatement of President Trump’s support was very similar to the polling misfire of four years ago, and might have exceeded it," New York Times analyst Nate Cohn wrote Tuesday.