Final Midterm election predictions

[MT Treasurer]

I was also going to change my gubernatorial prediction on Atlas and submit my final map, but it was too late. Otherwise, I would have flipped MI and NM to the GOP.

Anyway, my final prediction:

Senate - 54R, 46D

House - 247R, 188D

Governor - 31R, 19D

Crossposting from the Congressional board thread, while adding my NH/PA prediction:


SENATE

It is hard for me to see how Republicans do not pull off or at least come very close to a clean sweep (54R-46D) today. Whenever you see people predicting a major divergence between the Senate and the House, it’s largely because they are more emotionally invested in the Senate and want Democrats to hold it because it is the more powerful chamber of the two. As far as the individual races are concerned, I’d be shocked if NV didn’t flip (and I maintain that it won’t be particularly close). In AZ, Masters is favored based on state fundamentals (I do not trust polling in AZ, and I think Masters is a more competent candidate than Oz and Walker, both of whom could conceivably lose even on a very good night for the GOP). North Carolina is not competitive (the close race in summer polling was basically a mirage due to asymmetrical polarization), and Wisconsin is only winnable for Democrats if they get a very favorable turnout gap (unlikely — yes, their base is energized, but so is the Republican base in a midterm under a DEM trifecta). Vance's margin will be underwhelming relative to the national environment and the state's partisan lean/trend, but I don’t see how he actually loses (although I disagree that national groups didn’t need to spend any money on his behalf, even if he’s now on track to win by high single digits/low double digits). In Georgia, I was going back and forth on whether the race would go to a runoff or not, but I am now predicting an outright win for Walker in part because I think Republicans will make enough inroads with Black and Latino voters (particularly male voters of color) for a statewide sweep. In Washington, I predict that Smiley will have the biggest overperformance of any Senate candidate, but partisanship should bail Murray out (~4-point win) unless we’re really looking at a tsunami of historic proportions. I actually think CO has less upset potential for the GOP than WA, with Bennet potentially falling below 50% but still holding on by a 2016-type margin. That leaves us with two races: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. I think Republicans will win at least one of those, and I am honestly pretty close to giving them both states. The only reason I still have some doubts about PA even as I’m predicting a major national wave for the GOP is because Oz is the single most flawed candidate on the Republican side on a basic human (as opposed to just candidate) level this cycle, lacking sincere convictions and basic empathy, having a background which screams ruthless selfishness instead of commitment, and demonstrating an unscrupulous willingness to lie to people in a very transparent manner. A candidate having a somewhat unappealing personality to voters is nothing out of the ordinary; a candidate combining this many undesirable traits and this amount of baggage very much is. While voters have gotten used to holding their nose for certain candidates, I think the prospect of voting in a candidate who exhibits as many psychopathic traits as Dr. Oz will give at least some people pause. While some of the attacks against Fetterman are potent, I am less sure that they are all that effective when it is Mehmet Oz who is making them (his handling of Fetterman's stroke could have been a lot worse, but it might still have reinforced the perception that the man lacks empathy). Of course Oz has also done a rather pathetic job of making himself palatable even to Republican base voters (his willingness to throw Mastriano under the bus for his own electoral gain is only the latest example here). Does all of this matter enough to voters to make a difference in a year like this? Probably not, but I think the potential for a serious Oz underperformance in the Republican-trending parts of the state has been seriously underdiscussed (I am not only talking about potential crossover votes for Fetterman here, but also about people leaving the race blank or voting third party). I also believe the coverage of the PA races has (predictably) paid a disproportionate amount of attention to the stereotypical Oz/Shapiro voter, who is probably also overrepresented in polling in addition to focus groups. I do not actually expect the same gulf between Oz's and Mastriano's performance that polling is indicating and pundits are forecasting, although the former is still more likely to win. In NH, I think Bolduc is basically in a 50/50 position, and I expect that race to be extremely tight all night. At the end of the day, I think Bolduc has run a solid enough campaign against the (unpopular) incumbent that he rides the wave to victory, but the state's partisanship may yet prove too big an obstacle for him. Gun to my head, Bolduc wins by half a point.

Notable races:

AZ: Masters +3.5 (FLIP, Lean R)
FL: Rubio +11.5 (Safe R)
GA: Walker +3.5 (FLIP, Toss-up/Tilt R*)
NV: Laxalt +6 (FLIP, Likely R)
NH: Bolduc +0.5 (FLIP, Toss-up/Tilt R)
NC: Budd +8.5 (Safe R)
OH: Vance +11 (Safe R)
PA: Oz +1 (Toss-up/Tilt R)
WA: Murray +4 (Lean D)
WI: Johnson +7.5 (Likely R)

*GA gets a different rating than AZ only because of the runoff law.

GOVERNOR

AZ: Lake +6 (Likely R)
FL: DeSantis +13.5 (Safe R)
GA: Kemp +9 (Safe R)
KS: Schmidt +5.5 (FLIP, Lean R)
ME: Mills +1.5 (Toss-up/Tilt D)
MI: Dixon +1 (FLIP, Toss-up/Tilt R)
MN: Walz +4 (Lean D)
NV: Lombardo +6 (FLIP, Likely R)
NM: Ronchetti +1.5 (FLIP, Toss-up/Tilt R)
NY: Hochul +4.5 (Lean D)
OK: Stitt +9 (Likely R)
OR: Kotek +1 (Toss-up/Tilt D)
PA: Shapiro +3 (Lean D)
WI: Michels +4 (FLIP, Lean R)
TX: Abbott +12.5 (Safe R)

Note: Oregon was basically a coin flip for me. I went against the conventional wisdom in NM because I’m expecting polling to underestimate Republican strength in the Southwest this time around (and in the foreseeable future, most likely), but I have very little confidence in that prediction, in part because NM is still a structurally Democratic state that has been less affected by GOP gains in demographically similar places and has a large white liberal & Native base that should be very reliable even for Lujan Grisham. Also, NM polling has been very accurate in the recent past (then again, the same was true for other states, until it wasn’t). I would also add that I would not be shocked if one of Walz or (especially) Hochul lost. A Republican win in NY would be this cycle's equivalent of MD-GOV 2014 — we didn’t have one of those upsets in 2018, but we might get one in this election.

HOUSE:

Not going to post individual seat predictions here (although I have done my share of simulations), but I will again note that Biden's biggest problem is that he has no sustainable or reliable coalition for him (rather than against Trump, like in 2020). Much like in VA-GOV 2021, I suspect the swing away from Democrats to be relatively uniform, with occasional overperformances by particularly skilled candidates (e.g. Hung in VA-10, Fung in RI-02). However, I think the Republican wave will hit districts with a large proportion of working-class, non-college-educated voters particularly hard, whether in rural/small-town/midsize-city (parts of New England, the Black Belt in GA, Rio Grande Valley/South Texas) or metropolitan areas with a substantial non-white population (e.g. Clark County NV, Southern CA).

TL;DR: In terms of the actual number of D/R seats after this election, I basically expect a repeat of 2014 across the board (Senate, House, Governors).