Why were people writing Fetterman off so bluntly near the end?

[Spectator]

I can’t speak for others but I was worried about Republicans doing better than their poll numbers again given it’s happened in this area of the country in every election since 2012 and it was an open race in a Trump/Biden state.

Yeah, I think the long, well-documented history of polling misses in the Midwest and the “red wave” narrative being pushed the last two weeks caused me to go against my priors (originally having Dems as favorites in the Senate due to the extreme candidate quality differences)

[Spectator]

For me it was all the fake polls that flooded the discourse in that last month. I changed my prediction about a week before the election in both Pennsylvania and Arizona Senate to favor the Republicans.

Conventional wisdom still had Kelly winning. But most people also thought Laxalt would win NV, and while a runoff in GA was considered more likely than not it was expected that Walker would lead the first round.

We also saw this with Hassan's race. And in the governor's races a lot of people believed that Whitmer was now in a dead heat with Dixon.

Masters was leading the final polling average.