Final Midterm election predictions

[Schiff for Senate]

PA: There's no other state this cycle where prognostication and punditry has bothered me more than this. While the election mafia was saying Oz couldn't win because summer polling showed him down double digits (which was because the Republican base wasn't united!), they were fluffing up Fetterman as some all-star candidate. Well, how does that look now? They still to this day are pretending everything is fine with him and that the debate performance he had didn't hurt him. Why couldn't they ("non-partisan" analysts) just be honest and say the stroke clearly has hampered his ability to think and speak correctly, and that he shouldn't be in the race? Well, unfortunate as it is, I suspect he's now going to lose by much more than just about anybody expects. And there's few places where I expect polls to do worse this cycle than PA as far as swing states.


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MI: Regardless of the outcome here, and I am making a bold move by predicting Dixon over Whitmer, I knew the early polling which showed Whitmer ahead by huge margins was nonsense. She was never going to win by her 2018 margin or even get close to it. The reality is, Whitmer is literally a 2016 error away from losing, and given other fundamentals this election, I'm leaning towards she will.

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PA: While this race is much likelier than not to stay Dem this cycle, I think the margin will be much closer than the polls suggest and will underestimate Mastriano (who has a Trumpier coalition) more than Oz. I think after the election, we'll sit here wondering why we ever believed Shapiro was going to win by double digits in a perennial swing state in a poor national environment for Democrats. Seriously folks, when fundamentals and polling collide, skew towards fundamentals.

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WI: While many suspected Evers would not be favored this time, many polls still show him in contention to win, while they show Barnes behind. In general, it has been my feeling that polls overestimate the amount of "ticket-splitting" in the electorate, and this is no exception. While Michels will do worse than Johnson, I don't think it'll be by more than 3 points. Given how WI voted relative to the polls in 2020, Evers will have a good performance if he loses by 2. There's just no fundamental reason to expect him to win here, other than believing some cherry-picked polls that only have him up 1. His rural WI support will likely collapse.

WI: “Evers will have a good performance if he loses by 2.” Then what do you call his winning by 3 points?

PA: “The margin will be much closer than the polls suggest.” Yeah, Fetterman did better than most polls said he’d do - he won by over 13 points. Try again.

MI: “Predicting Dixon over Whitmer.” Yeah. Whitmer’s won, and it’s looking like it’s not going to be particularly close, either. Better luck next time.

PA: “I suspect he’s going to lose by much more than just about anybody expects.” Yeah, you’re actually right, Oz DID lose by more - oh, wait, you’re talking about Fetterman? Wrong again.

[Schiff for Senate]

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

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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).

I seriously hope your “predictions” were ironic? Because as for your “54-46 R senate”…yeah, the GOP should consider themselves VERY lucky if they can get to 51 at this point.

Going specific with your predictions - You underperformed the FLGOP a lot (but so did us all, to be fair), but other than that, many of your predictions were, uh, borderline hackish for the GOP. Michels+4, Shapiro+3? Really? Especially the former prediction - to be fair, your PA prediction isn’t too unreasonable, but Michels wins by 4? LOL. Even better - Schmidt+5.5 when Kelly won. HOWEVER, credit where credit is due, that’s not a hackish prediction - Kelly DID outdo expectations. MI and NM - NM has gone for Grisham, and it seems comfortably; MI has been won by Whitmer (and it doesn’t look particularly close). Also abundantly clear that if Lake wins in AZ, it won’t be by 6 points. Half of that, maybe, if she’s doing pretty well.
Love your NH-SEN prediction, given that it sees Hassan will do better than Biden, lol.