Post bold 2022 predictions

[Chips]

-Contrary to expectations Republicans have greater success in the Senate, flipping AZ, GA and NV.

-The House while it still flips only gives the GOP a 10 seat gain for a 223-212 house.

-PA GOV is to the right of MI GOV and WI GOV.

-WI SEN is to the right of NC SEN.

-There's one highly shocking upset, what it is I couldn't tell you but there will be one highly surprising result whether it be in the House, Senate or in the Governors races.

-DeWine survives Renacci's primary challenge.

[Schiff for Senate]

-Contrary to expectations Republicans have greater success in the Senate, flipping AZ, GA and NV.

-The House while it still flips only gives the GOP a 10 seat gain for a 223-212 house.

-PA GOV is to the right than either MI GOV or WI GOV.

-WI SEN is to the right of NC SEN.

-There's one highly shocking upset, what it is I couldn't tell you but there will be one highly surprising result whether it be in the House, Senate or in the Governors races.

-DeWine survives Renacci's primary challenge.

-

The fifth one's bound to happen. Sixth one seems likely. 4th one's pretty plausible. The only legitimately bold takes here are the first three, particularly the first two.

Anyway, my bold take is Rubio cruises to reelection (not a hot take) and FL SEN is more Republican than OH SEN (hot take).

[Biden his time]

ME-GOV is to the right of NV-GOV

[zoz]

Right now Republicans have no real shot at either PA GOV or SEN despite the national atmosphere

[Schiff for Senate]

ME-GOV is to the right of NV-GOV

I mean, I know it's supposed to be bold, but this is honestly very unlikely. I know you theorize about ME trending rightwards, but the truth is, it won't because while rural ME02 trends rightward, the coastal and (I daresay) urban ME01 is actually trending leftwards (though only slightly since 2012). So ME will get redder for a bit more, but ME02 will lose population and ME01 will gain population, and ME will stay blue, by at least Clinton's 3 point margin.

[beesley]

ME-GOV is to the right of NV-GOV

I mean, I know it's supposed to be bold, but this is honestly very unlikely. I know you theorize about ME trending rightwards, but the truth is, it won't because while rural ME02 trends rightward, the coastal and (I daresay) urban ME01 is actually trending leftwards (though only slightly since 2012). So ME will get redder for a bit more, but ME02 will lose population and ME01 will gain population, and ME will stay blue, by at least Clinton's 3 point margin.

I agree that ME is not really heading dramatically for the Republican column, and it certainly won't be to the right of NV (not least because Sisolak has nothing going for him). However there's good reason to believe that ME-Gov has a chance of going red this cycle, and it's much more of a credible Republican target than say, Minnesota.

[Schiff for Senate]

ME-GOV is to the right of NV-GOV

I mean, I know it's supposed to be bold, but this is honestly very unlikely. I know you theorize about ME trending rightwards, but the truth is, it won't because while rural ME02 trends rightward, the coastal and (I daresay) urban ME01 is actually trending leftwards (though only slightly since 2012). So ME will get redder for a bit more, but ME02 will lose population and ME01 will gain population, and ME will stay blue, by at least Clinton's 3 point margin.

I agree that ME is not really heading dramatically for the Republican column, and it certainly won't be to the right of NV (not least because Sisolak has nothing going for him). However there's good reason to believe that ME-Gov has a chance of going red this cycle, and it's much more of a credible Republican target than say, Minnesota.

I agree MN is much less likely to go Republican than ME, but that doesn't mean either are very feasible targets or that ME is likelier to flip than NV. Here are my ratings -
MN: Safe D
ME: Lean D
NV: Tilt D (much closer to Tossup than to Lean)

[SaintStan86]

2022 House Predictions with winners in appropriate color; red for Republicans, blue for Democrats (would be nice if we had a map for this; includes speculative CDs not set in stone):

Democratic gains (3):
AL-02/Montgomery & Mobile (due to redistricting)
IL-13/Springfield, Champaign and East St. Louis (due to gerrymandering)
NY-22/Syracuse, Ithaca and Utica (due to gerrymandering)
These are pretty much the only gains the Democrats will be making in the current environment, all due to either redistricting or gerrymandering. Alabama's districts are now going to require a second district where a Black candidate (likely a Democrat) is capable of winning, while the linear district above in Illinois is the result of Illinois' power-grabbing Dem leadership and the New York seat is probably the one district that does flip, even with the New York legislators now calling the shots (big mistake) and creating a number of districts where Biden won by single digits - which is still not conducive to victory for Democrats in the current environment where a lot of GOP-held Biden districts are likely to exist after the midterms unless Biden's fortunes improve.

Republican gains (46):
AZ-02/Flagstaff & Casa Grande
AZ-04/Ahwatukee area of Phoenix and SE suburbs
AZ-06/Tucson suburbs & Sierra Vista
CA-09/Stockton
CA-13/Modesto & western Fresno suburbs
CA-26/Thousand Oaks & Simi Valley (major upset)
CA-49/Laguna Niguel & north coastal San Diego County
CO-07/Lakewood & western Denver suburbs + rural central Colorado fringes
CT-02/Norwich & Storrs
CT-05/most of Litchfield and western Hartford suburbs
FL-07/northern Orlando suburbs
FL-13/Pinellas County
FL-23/Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale (major upset)
GA-02/Albany & southwest Georgia
IL-06/southwest Chicago suburbs in SW Cook and SE DuPage counties
IL-11/western exurbs of Chicago
IL-14/exurban areas southwest of Chicago
IL-17/Rockford, Peoria & Moline
IA-03/Des Moines and southern Iowa
KS-03/Overland Park and other Kansas City suburbs
ME-02/Bangor and all areas north of Portland area
MI-07/Lansing and Livingston County
MI-08/Flint, Saginaw and Bay City
MI-10/southern Macomb & Rochester Hills
MN-02/southern Twin Cities suburbs
NV-01/Las Vegas and Henderson
NV-03/Summerlin and Laughlin
NV-04/North Las Vegas and Area 51
NH-01/Manchester and the southeast
NH-02/Concord, Nashua and the North Country (major upset)
NJ-07/Westfield, Hackettstown and the Skylands
NY-03/North Shore areas of Long Island
NY-17/Rockland and Orange counties (major upset)
NY-18/northern Lower Hudson Valley exurbs
OR-04/Eugene and southern coastal Oregon
OR-05/Southern Portland suburbs (Lake Oswego) to Bend
PA-06/Chester County and Reading
PA-07/Allentown and Lehigh Valley
PA-15/western Pittsburgh suburbs
TN-05/south Nashville, some eastern suburbs and southern rural fringes
TX-15/McAllen to eastern San Antonio exurbs
TX-28/Laredo to eastern San Antonio suburbs
VA-02/southern Hampton Roads including Virginia Beach
VA-07/exurban Northern Virginia incl. eastern Prince William County
WA-08/eastern Seattle suburbs to Wenatchee
WI-03/western Wisconsin incl. La Crosse and Wausau areas
My current prediction has the GOP picking up 46 seats in a lot of rural, exurban, suburban and mid-sized market territory, where voters will flip these districts on a combination of factors including top-tier GOP candidates in open swing districts, Biden's continuous weak showings among WWC voters, a maintained shift of Latino voters to the GOP brand (especially in more spread out areas like along the Rio Grande in Texas and in certain communities like Miami's Cuban diaspora), and suburban voters who either come back to the GOP with Trump no longer on the ballot or who like Biden but are preferring to have a check on the President (not unlike they did under Trump in 2018, Obama in 2010, and vice versa). Some of these seats were already predicted to flip anyway, such as TN-05 where Jim Cooper got redistricted out and WI-03 where Ron Kind is retiring, while others could be big upsets like CA-26 in Ventura (where there is a well-funded Republican running as of last check) and NH-02 (which despite being drawn as a safer seat for Annie Kuster may still go GOP anyway, as is likely to be the case with NH-01).

New seats (7 GOP, 1 Dem):
CO-08/Thornton to Greeley (northern Denver suburbs)
FL-15/northern and eastern Tampa suburbs
MT-02/Billings and Great Falls
NC-04/Fayetteville and southeast Raleigh suburbs
OH-13/Akron to Canton
OR-06/Salem and SW Portland suburbs (Tualatin)
TX-37/Austin
TX-38/West Houston and northwest Harris County
Save for OH-13, which is really Tim Ryan's old seat minus Youngstown, the seats being eliminated appear to be a mix of 4 Republican and 3 Democrat seats, so the net gain for the GOP will be 2. Only the TX-37 seat in Austin (Lloyd Doggett's new, restored seat from before Tom DeLay's big 2003 redraw) is safe for Democrats. The next more Democratic seats on this list is the new Oregon seat, which is likely to be a suburban battleground, and the aforementioned OH-13 that voted twice for Trump as well as Richard Cordray and Sherrod Brown in 2018, and the rest are either full-out battlegrounds or heavily Republican.

Incumbent-on-incumbent general election races:
NY-20/Binghamton, Schenectady, Cooperstown and the Catskills
OH-05/Toledo area
PA-08/Scranton and Wilkes-Barre
This is where the likely incumbent-on-incumbent battles are going to be in November. In this current environment, all will be won by the GOP despite being competitive for the Democrats in past elections, as they are the sort of mid-market, Reagan Democrat and WWC districts that Trump most likely won in either once or twice. In each of the respective cases, Claudia Tenney defeats Antonio Delgado, Bob Latta defeats Marcy Kaptur, and Dan Meuser defeats Matt Cartwright.

Close races:
AZ-01/north Phoenix and Scottsdale - more so due to David Schweikert's ethical issues
CA-06/north Sacramento
CA-25/Palm Springs and El Centro
CA-27/north Los Angeles County
CA-40/inland Orange County
CA-45/"Little Saigon" area of the OC
CA-47/coastal Orange County - more so due to Katie Porter's massive fundraising haul; would have been an all-Dem general if Harley Rouda ran given how divided the GOP field is so far
CO-03/Grand Junction & Pueblo - due to Lauren Boebert being Lauren Boebert
CO-06/Aurora and southern Arapahoe County, mostly due to the latter
CT-03/New Haven
DE-AL/all of Delaware
FL-22/Palm Beach County
FL-25/southwest Broward County
FL-27/Miami & Coral Gables
FL-28/south Miami-Dade & Key West
GA-07/southern Gwinnett County - two Dems up against each other in primary
IL-08/Schaumburg & northwest Chicago suburbs
IL-10/Waukegan & North Shore suburbs of Chicago
IN-01/Northwest Indiana
IA-01/Davenport and SE Des Moines metro area
IA-02/Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and NE Iowa
KY-06/Lexington and surrounding metro area
MD-01/Eastern Shore and southern Baltimore suburbs
MD-02/eastern Baltimore suburbs
MD-06/western Maryland and DC suburbs
MA-09/New Bedford, Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay
MI-03/Grand Rapids
MI-11/southern Oakland County - two Dems facing each other in primary
MN-01/southeast Minnesota
MN-03/western Twin Cities suburbs
MO-02/suburban St. Louis
MT-01/western Montana incl. Missoula and Bozeman
NE-02/Omaha
NV-02/Reno and northern Nevada
NJ-03/Burlington and Freehold
NJ-05/North Bergen, Passaic and Sussex - Josh Gottheimer has a massive cash advantage
NJ-09/South Bergen
NJ-11/Morris and west Essex - Mikie Sherrill is considered a rising star who might challenge Bob Menendez in 2024
NM-01/Albuquerque
NM-02/Las Cruces and southern New Mexico
NM-03/Santa Fe, Farmington & Roswell
NY-01/eastern Suffolk and the Hamptons
NY-02/South Shore areas of Long Island
NY-11/Staten Island and Brooklyn
NY-21/Plattsburgh and the North Country
NY-23/Southern Tier
NC-02/northeast North Carolina
OH-01/Cincinnati and Butler County suburbs
OH-04/Northern Columbus suburbs and west central Ohio
OH-06/Youngstown to Steubenville
OH-09/western Cleveland suburbs
OH-10/Dayton
OH-14/eastern Cleveland suburbs & Ashtabula
PA-01/Bucks County
PA-04/Montgomery and eastern Berks counties
PA-10/Harrisburg and York
RI-02/western Providence + Kent and Washington counties
TX-07/southwest Houston to Sugar Land
TX-23/San Antonio to El Paso along the Rio Grande
TX-32/eastern Dallas
TX-34/Brownsville and Weslaco to Kingsville
VA-10/western NoVa suburbs incl. Loudoun County
WA-02/Bellingham and coastal Snohomish County
WA-03/southwest Washington incl. Vancouver
WA-06/Tacoma and western Puget Sound region
WA-10/Tacoma suburbs and Olympia
WI-01/Kenosha and SW Milwaukee suburbs
These seats will all likely vote for either their existing incumbents or new ones from the same party as the departing incumbent, but will have close results in the end. In some of the districts, there are existing incumbents who likely won't be on the ballot for certain reasons, such as Jaime Herrera Beutler in WA-03 (who is probably going to lose to Joe Kent because of her vote to impeach Trump and the leading Democrat in the initial election) and Peter Meijer in MI-03 (who also voted to impeach Trump and has a Trumpian primary challenger), while MI-11 and GA-07 each have two Democratic incumbents battling each other in the primary. Some will be surprised that Delaware's at-large seat is potentially competitive, but it's important to note that Delaware isn't really that much of a blue state, particularly south of Wilmington and especially outside New Castle County.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The Election is still a long way off there is no Red wave yet, it's presumptuous to think Rs has this thing wrapped up

FL, NC, OH are still battleground States

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

People are underestimating Trumpist/America First candidates, most will win their Senate primaries and more than expected will beat incumbent Republicans. They will also practically sweep the open primaries.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

People are underestimating Trumpist/America First candidates, most will win their Senate primaries and more than expected will beat incumbent Republicans. They will also practically sweep the open primaries.

I thought this would be your take:

2022 AZ-SEN ELECTION:
✓Blake Masters (R): 65%
Mark Kelly (D-inc): 30%

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

People are underestimating Trumpist/America First candidates, most will win their Senate primaries and more than expected will beat incumbent Republicans. They will also practically sweep the open primaries.

I thought this would be your take:

2022 AZ-SEN ELECTION:
✓Blake Masters (R): 65%
Mark Kelly (D-inc): 30%

I think Masters would win by more than a Brnovich type, but I expect him to win by a ~4% margin, while I would expect Brnovich to win by a ~2% margin.

[Xing]

People will overreact to the results, whatever they are.

[Chips]

In the senate, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada will very likely (70-ish% chance) vote in unison. I think a split of those three states is unlikely and they either all vote GOP or all vote DEM. I think the difference in the results will be very small so unless we have three recount-level races, I'd say a split is unlikely.

[GregTheGreat657]

2022 AZ-SEN ELECTION:
✓ Blake Masters (R): 50%
Mark Kelly (D-inc): 47%

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

- Republicans do better than expected in the House, mostly because democratic gerrymanders ended up making more D seats vulnerable in a red wave (although basically all of them will flip back in 2024)
- Populist candidates will win quite a bit of primaries (e.g. Arizona) but will lose a couple high-profile primaries
- Republicans sweep all the competitive Secretary of State races
- Numerous moderate Republican incumbents (or R incumbents who are viewed as insufficiently loyal to Trump) who WEREN'T endorsed against by Trump will still lose their primary to further right challengers.
- Republicans will win by over 8% on the GCB
- Republicans win OR-GOV with a plurality

[MT Treasurer]

-NH-SEN and CO-SEN are closer than NV-SEN.
-VT-SEN is closer than IA-SEN.
-Republicans flip four D-held House seats in New England (NH-1 & some combination of CT-5, ME-2, RI-2, CT-2, NH-2).
-Republicans flip two or three of IL-6/TX-28/GA-2/CA-25/CA-47.
-Tony Evers does only negligibly (~1%) worse than Gretchen Whitmer.
-Tim Walz fails to break 50%.
-Republicans win one of OR-GOV/RI-GOV/CT-GOV.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

SC-GOV is closer this year than 2018 by a small margin.

[KaiserDave]

-NH-SEN and CO-SEN are closer than NV-SEN.
-VT-SEN is closer than IA-SEN.
-Republicans flip four D-held House seats in New England (NH-1 & some combination of CT-5, ME-2, RI-2, CT-2, NH-2).
-Republicans flip two or three of IL-6/TX-28/GA-2/CA-25/CA-47.
-Tony Evers does only negligibly (~1%) worse than Gretchen Whitmer.
-Tim Walz fails to break 50%.
-Republicans win one of OR-GOV/RI-GOV/CT-GOV.

This doesn't make any sense at all unless you think Grassley is going to replicate his 2016 performance.

[patzer]

Both Christina Nolan and Evan McMullin are elected to the Senate.

[KaiserDave]

Both Christina Nolan and Evan McMullin are elected to the Senate.

That’s insane

[patzer]

Both Christina Nolan and Evan McMullin are elected to the Senate.

That’s insane

This is the thread for bold predictions. It's theoretically possible if the Dem nominee drops out in Utah and McMullin coalesces moderate Republicans around him, and Nolan campaigns on a fully RINO angle with Phil Scott actively campaigning for her.

I don't expect it to happen but it's less out there than some predictions like Washington flipping.

[KaiserDave]

Both Christina Nolan and Evan McMullin are elected to the Senate.

That’s insane

This is the thread for bold predictions. It's theoretically possible if the Dem nominee drops out in Utah and McMullin coalesces moderate Republicans around him, and Nolan campaigns on a fully RINO angle with Phil Scott actively campaigning for her.

I don't expect it to happen but it's less out there than some predictions like Washington flipping.

Washington flipping is considerably more likely than Nolan winning. And if Nolan went full RINO and Phil Scott actively campaigned for her, Welch would still win in a landslide.

[Calthrina950]

-NH-SEN and CO-SEN are closer than NV-SEN.
-VT-SEN is closer than IA-SEN.
-Republicans flip four D-held House seats in New England (NH-1 & some combination of CT-5, ME-2, RI-2, CT-2, NH-2).
-Republicans flip two or three of IL-6/TX-28/GA-2/CA-25/CA-47.
-Tony Evers does only negligibly (~1%) worse than Gretchen Whitmer.
-Tim Walz fails to break 50%.
-Republicans win one of OR-GOV/RI-GOV/CT-GOV.

This doesn't make any sense at all unless you think Grassley is going to replicate his 2016 performance.

I'm not sure about it either. Welch will almost certainly break 60%, whereas I think it's likely that Grassley falls into the upper 50s this time. But anything can happen.

[MT Treasurer]

-NH-SEN and CO-SEN are closer than NV-SEN.
-VT-SEN is closer than IA-SEN.
-Republicans flip four D-held House seats in New England (NH-1 & some combination of CT-5, ME-2, RI-2, CT-2, NH-2).
-Republicans flip two or three of IL-6/TX-28/GA-2/CA-25/CA-47.
-Tony Evers does only negligibly (~1%) worse than Gretchen Whitmer.
-Tim Walz fails to break 50%.
-Republicans win one of OR-GOV/RI-GOV/CT-GOV.

This doesn't make any sense at all unless you think Grassley is going to replicate his 2016 performance.

I'm not sure about it either. Welch will almost certainly break 60%, whereas I think it's likely that Grassley falls into the upper 50s this time. But anything can happen.

I don’t see why it’s "almost certain" that Welch breaks 60% (esp. when Republicans are competitive in places like CT-5, RI-2, NH-SEN, etc., as they are in my prediction). I have Grassley winning 60-38 and Welch winning 58-39, so I don’t think it’s a done deal or anything. It’s also possible that I’m underestimating Welch's 'popularity,' but I don’t see him coming even close to replicating his 2020 win. Leahy won with a 61-33 result in 2016, so 58-39 isn’t that far-fetched assuming the state trends R (this is a place where Democrats are unusually reliant on rural/small-town voters, and not all of them are *ardently secular* or culturally liberal) and 2022 is a strong R year.

Besides, it’s a bold prediction thread, so quoting every post and screaming "This isn’t happening" / "This makes no sense" is kind of pointless.