Senate Ratings and Predictions - Final Map (well, almost)

[MT Treasurer]

So yeah, we're (almost) done here. Thanks to everyone who participated in this. I'll be locking all of these threads at midnight on November 8th, so make any changes to your predictions that you want to make today or tomorrow. Here are our current ratings and predictions, which I will update if any changes occur.

There will of course be a Louisiana thread in December as well. It would be great if everyone who participated in this could go over some of the older threads (especially the competitive races) and maybe revise their predictions if necessary (no need to bump all of them, though).

I will also post my final predictions for every race (with percentages) in this thread tomorrow evening.

Current balance of power

Republicans 49  
Democrats 50

Without assigning the Tossups to either party:

Republicans 46
Democrats 48
Tossup 5

Ratings

Safe R: Alabama (Richard Shelby), Alaska (Lisa Murkowski), Arkansas (John Boozman), Idaho (Mike Crapo), Kansas (Jerry Moran), Kentucky (Rand Paul), North Dakota (John Hoeven), Oklahoma (James Lankford), South Carolina (Tim Scott), South Dakota (John Thune), Utah (Mike Lee)
Likely R: Arizona (John McCain), Georgia (Johnny Isakson), Iowa (Chuck Grassley), Ohio (Rob Portman)
Lean R: Florida (Marco Rubio)

Tossup: Nevada (Harry Reid), North Carolina (Richard Burr), Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey), Missouri (Roy Blunt), Indiana (Dan Coats)

Lean D: New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte)
Likely D: Colorado (Michael Bennet), Wisconsin (Ron Johnson)
Safe D: California (Barbara Boxer), Connecticut (Richard Blumenthal), Hawaii (Brian Schatz), Illinois (Mark Kirk), Maryland (Barbara Mikulski), New York (Chuck Schumer), Oregon (Ron Wyden), Vermont (Pat Leahy), Washington (Patty Murray)

Predictions

Past winners

Richard Shelby (R-AL)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
John McCain (R-AZ)
John Boozman (R-AR)
Kamala Harris (D-CA)
Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)
Marco Rubio (R-FL)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Brian Schatz (D-HI)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
Maggie Hassan (D-NH)
Todd Young (R-IN)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Jerry Moran (R-KS)
Rand Paul (R-KY)
Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
John Hoeven (R-ND)
Rob Portman (R-OH)
James Lankford (R-OK)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Katie McGinty (D-PA)
Tim Scott (R-SC)
John Thune (R-SD)
Mike Lee (R-UT)
Pat Leahy (D-VT)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Russ Feingold (D-WI)

Previous threads (You can still vote in these!)

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana New Hampshire Iowa Kansas Kentucky Maryland Missouri Nevada New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Utah Vermont Washington Wisconsin

[Heisenberg]

I went back and changed my Nevada vote from Tossup/Heck to Tossup/Masto. PA and MO were the hardest ones for me to predict (still predicting McGinty and Blunt, but both will go down to the wire, I think).

The Philadelphia transit workers are on strike, and a court date is set for Monday. If the union can't reach an agreement, many people will be left without transportation on election day, and Democratic turnout could fall because of that. And even if they do reach an agreement, it's possible that the workers are not happy and call in sick on Tuesday in protest. That could help Toomey.

[Xing]

Thanks for doing this series. There are still several races that could go down to the wire (especially MO and NC), and even some lean races like PA could still be interesting. I'll see if there are any polls tomorrow morning before I decide on any final changes to my previous predictions.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Well, Democrats, enjoy your rather useless Manchin majority for the next two years.

[DavidB.]

Thanks for doing this, TNVol!

The hardest ones for me are NH and MO and I'm not ready to make a final prediction yet. Will wait for tomorrow's polls. For NC I guess I'll predict tossup/Burr and expect to be totally wrong because that race will be incredibly close too, but at least there is a tilt there. MO hasn't had enough quality polls and NH is just a mess. Both could go either way and I don't have a clue. Tossups go in the direction of the winning party so I suppose I am going to predict Kander and Hassan, but especially in the latter case it's going to be a coin flip. As for NV, the early voting figure has convinced me that CCM will eventually have it, but it's going to be a nailbiter too. It's even more than tilt D though, somewhere between tilt D and lean D. FL, WI and PA will also be much closer than expected on election night, but Rubio, Feingold and McGinty will win. I'm still not totally comfortable about FL, but Murphy has literally not led in a single poll, so Rubio should be alright... even if it won't be comfortable at all (and I still prepare for the worst). IN is a bit of a gamble but Bayh's advantage has evaporated and Young should win thanks to Trump's coattails, though still a total tossup. NH and MO are the ones that are hardest to predict.

WI - lean D
PA - lean D
NV - tilt D / lean D
MO - total tossup
NH - total tossup
IN - total tossup
NC - tilt R
FL - tilt R / lean R

Everything above Indiana should be expected to go D, but IN, NC and FL (with decreasing likelihood) could well go D too.

[Green Line]

Democrats win IL, PA, NV, and one of NH and WI.  I feel like Wisconsin is going to be the surprise of the night.  Johnson is a great campaigner and there was late movement.

[DavidB.]

I feel like Wisconsin is going to be the surprise of the night.  Johnson is a great campaigner and there was late movement.

I feel like doing a prayer session to make this true. Johnson winning WI would be the best troll of the evening even if the GOP lose the Senate.

[DavidB.]

Thanks! Yeah, a crazy result like Blunt losing by 3-4 points while Johnson wins narrowly wouldn't surprise me at all. I have a feeling that this "outsider thing" is going to help Greitens and Kander more than people here think. I've always felt pessimistic about Blunt's chances in Missouri, and I'm preparing for the worst case scenario in this race (and everywhere else of course, lol). This is not like KS or GA in 2014, where I always knew that Republicans were going to hold their seats, despite polls showing a close race there. Blunt's race is something special and I don't think he will benefit at all from Trump winning the state decisively. I hope to be proven wrong on election day, of course.

I agree with this feeling about Blunt. Rationally seen it should become one of the closest races but a Kander upset by 3-4 would really not surprise me at all. Blunt really is the worst candidate.

[ElectionsGuy]

My votes for the series (after revisions)

AL: Safe R, Shelby
AK: Safe R, Murkowski
AZ: Likely R, McCain
AR: Safe R, Boozman
CA: Harris
CO: Likely D, Bennet
CT: Safe D, Blumenthal
FL: Lean R, Rubio
GA: Safe R, Isakson
HI: Safe D, Schatz
ID: Safe R, Crapo
IL: Likely D, Duckworth
IN: Toss-Up, Young
IA: Safe R, Grassely
KS: Safe R, Moran
KY: Safe R, Paul
MD: Safe D, Van Hollen
MO: Toss-Up, Blunt
NV: Toss-Up, Cortez-Matso
NH: Toss-Up, Hassan
NY: Safe D, Schumer
NC: Toss-Up, Burr
ND: Safe R, Hoeven
OH: Likely R, Portman
OK: Safe R, Lankford
OR: Safe D, Wyden
PA: Toss-Up, McGinty
SC: Safe R, Scott
SD: Safe R, Thune
UT: Safe R, Lee
VT: Safe D, Leahy
WA: Safe D, Murray
WI: Lean D, Feingold

Thanks for the series TN V

[DavidB.]

Thanks for doing this, TNVol!

The hardest ones for me are NH and MO and I'm not ready to make a final prediction yet. Will wait for tomorrow's polls. For NC I guess I'll predict tossup/Burr and expect to be totally wrong because that race will be incredibly close too, but at least there is a tilt there. MO hasn't had enough quality polls and NH is just a mess. Both could go either way and I don't have a clue. Tossups go in the direction of the winning party so I suppose I am going to predict Kander and Hassan, but especially in the latter case it's going to be a coin flip. As for NV, the early voting figure has convinced me that CCM will eventually have it, but it's going to be a nailbiter too. It's even more than tilt D though, somewhere between tilt D and lean D. FL, WI and PA will also be much closer than expected on election night, but Rubio, Feingold and McGinty will win. I'm still not totally comfortable about FL, but Murphy has literally not led in a single poll, so Rubio should be alright... even if it won't be comfortable at all (and I still prepare for the worst). IN is a bit of a gamble but Bayh's advantage has evaporated and Young should win thanks to Trump's coattails, though still a total tossup. NH and MO are the ones that are hardest to predict.

WI - lean D
PA - lean D
NV - tilt D / lean D
MO - total tossup
NH - total tossup
IN - total tossup
NC - tilt R
FL - tilt R / lean R

Everything above Indiana should be expected to go D, but IN, NC and FL (with decreasing likelihood) could well go D too.

Final prediction: Kander wins MO, Ayotte wins NH. Ross wins NC despite R tilt.

WI, IL, PA, NC, MO: D gain from R
IN, FL, NH: R hold
NV: D hold

Democrats 51
Republicans 49

[tallguy23]

WI - D
PA - D
NV - D
MO - R
NH - D
IN - R
NC - D
FL -  R

[libertpaulian]

AL: Safe R, Shelby
AK: Safe R, Murkowski
AZ: Likely R, McCain
AR: Safe R, Boozman
CA: Solid Harris
CO: Likely D, Bennet
CT: Safe D, Blumenthal
FL: Likely R, Rubio
GA: Safe R, Isakson
HI: Safe D, Schatz
ID: Safe R, Crapo
IL: Safe D, Duckworth
IN: Toss-Up, Young
IA: Safe R, Grassely
KS: Safe R, Moran
KY: Safe R, Paul
MD: Safe D, Van Hollen
MO: Toss-Up, Blunt
NV: Toss-Up, Cortez-Matso
NH: Toss-Up, Ayotte
NY: Safe D, Schumer
NC: Toss-Up, Burr
ND: Safe R, Hoeven
OH: Safe R, Portman
OK: Safe R, Lankford
OR: Safe D, Wyden
PA: Toss-Up, McGinty
SC: Safe R, Scott
SD: Safe R, Thune
UT: Safe R, Lee
VT: Safe D, Leahy
WA: Safe D, Murray
WI: Lean D, Feingold

GOP barely retains their majority, 51-49.