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Democrats Must Make Plays in Florida, Texas and Ohio to Save the Senate

I was heartened to read in The Hill today that the Biden campaign is going to be sending surrogates to Florida, Texas and Ohio, among other states, in the wake of his triumphant, “Trumanesque” State of the Union speech.

Last night, after the president’s speech, I posted on Twitter (I refuse to call it anything else) that I thought President Biden should campaign in Ohio. I felt that his pro-union message, his fighting demeanor, and his status as the only sitting president to walk a picket line offered the potential to shrink his margin of defeat in the Buckeye State from the 8% rout he suffered at the hands of Donald Trump there in 2020.

I don’t have very high hopes for Biden actually contending in Ohio, but I think shrinking Trump’s margin might give Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) a puncher’s chance to survive this fall.

As I have noted, both on this site and on Twitter, ticket-splitting in presidential years between presidential and Senate candidates is at an all-time low. Voters have become highly polarized, and they have also come to understand that it makes no sense to vote for one party’s candidate for president, and then simultaneously vote for a Senate (or House) candidate who is going to block virtually everything that president wants to do.

The statistics bear this out. In 2016, every state that had a Senate race voted for the same party’s candidates for president and Senate. In 2020, there was only one exception to this trend, with Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) prevailing despite Joe Biden winning her state. Even in that case, Collins had her closest race since she was first elected in 1996. That means 68 of the last 69 Senate races held during presidential election years have resulted in the same party winning both the presidential and Senate races in those states (a 1.4% split rate over the last two cycles). Statistically, the likelihood of Brown holding his seat while Biden loses Ohio is very low, and the larger Biden’s margin of defeat, the likelihood of Brown surviving gets even lower.

If Biden can shrink his margin of defeat in Ohio, Brown might be able to hold on to his Senate seat. But even then, Democrats are likely looking at losing the Senate by a seat, and that’s where Florida and Texas come into the picture.

I know that it is fashionable among Democrats these days to suggest that Democrats should forget Florida, but Florida, rich with electoral votes and House seats, remains one of the closest states in the country and one of its biggest electoral prizes. Conceding Florida is a mistake, especially with the Sunshine State having a Senate race on the ballot this year. Everyone understands that North Carolina is a better bet for the president than Florida is, but North Carolina has no Senate race on the ballot this year. It would be great for Biden to win North Carolina, but if he wins there, he almost certainly already has the election won irrespective of the results in that state. There’s really no benefit or added value to winning North Carolina in 2024. But winning Florida, or at least making it close, could help Democrats defeat Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) and get back to 50 seats in the Senate, if Sherrod Brown also wins.

Texas is also a state which I believe is not especially promising for Biden this fall, but again, if he can cut his margin in the Lone Star State, he could help Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred in his race against the unpopular Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Remember that Cruz only won his last race by about 2.5%, and while that was a midterm election in which Democrats overperformed nationally, Cruz clearly does have some electoral and political weaknesses.

None of these three states are especially good bets for Biden, but conceding them also means conceding the Senate. The likelihood of Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) overcoming a double-digit Biden loss in his state is very, very low. Don’t kid yourselves about that. Tester has never faced a race with these kinds of headwinds. Of his three previous races, two were in midterm elections, with no presidential race on the ballot to weigh him down, and the one time he won during a presidential election, in 2012, was when Barack Obama only lost Montana by about 10%. Biden lost Montana in 2020 by 16%. Tester has never won by a large margin, and if Biden loses Montana by double digits again–especially now, in a more polarized environment that 2012, with presidential/Senate ticket-splitting all but dead now–Tester is probably doomed. With the West Virginia Senate seat being vacated by Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), that seat is certain to flip Republican. Democrats have to hold Brown’s seat and, let’s be honest, find another seat to flip to guard against the likelihood that Tester will lose.

Besides Florida and Texas, there are no other Republican-held seats on the ballot this fall where Democrats have any chance to win. The other nine Republican Senate seats up in this year’s election are in Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming and Nebraska (where both seats are on the ballot due to a special election). Unless something extremely weird happens (like a Roy Moore situation), Democrats don’t have a prayer in a single one of those nine races.

In short, if Democrats want to hold the Senate, they have to win two out of four seats in Florida, Montana, Ohio, and Texas, and despite Tester’s incumbency and unusual strength for a Democrat in his state, his prospects are by far the worst.

That is why I wrote, over a year ago, that Biden needs to devote significant resources to these four states even if it appears unlikely that he can actually win them.

So I’m heartened by the fact that the campaign is clearly targeting three of those states–the three where Democrats have the best chance to win. If Democrats don’t win two of those seats, the Senate is all but gone. That means even if a Supreme Court seat comes open, Biden likely won’t get to fill it, even if he himself is reelected.

It’s not just the right move–it’s the only move.

Keep Calm And Stop Paying Attention To Polls

The recent set of swing state polls by the New York Times—the world’s most overrated media company and one of the world’s most overrated institutions, period—have cued up a whole line of Democratic bedwetters to scream and cry and shout that the sky is falling. Despite the fact that the poll results are so laughably off-base (Trump +11 in Nevada and winning Las Vegas?) that anybody who takes them seriously clearly knows nothing about politics, that hasn’t stopped a cavalcade of panicky Democrats from seriously suggesting that Joe Biden ought to forego another run.

Folks, the first thing you need to do is grab a paper bag and breathe into it until you stop hyperventilating. Then you need to sit down with a stiff drink, or some weed if that’s your thing, and let Uncle Cliston tell you a bedtime story.

In a land called America a long time ago, there was a fellow named Michael Dukakis. I’m told some of his friends called him Mike. He came out of the Democratic convention less than four months before the 1988 election leading George Bush by 17 percentage points. But when November came, Mike lost 40 states to George, who then became America’s president.

George eventually took America into a war and saw his approval ratings reach 91%. The Democrats were terrified, and almost no leading Democrat chose to run against him in 1992 because he clearly could not be beaten. But a brave, if unknown, soul from Arkansas named Bill Clinton took a gamble, and a year and a half later, Bill won big and became the next president.

Things went sour for Bill quickly, and his party was crushed in the 1994 midterm elections. It was obvious that there would be no second term for Billy Boy, whose polling was in the toilet. Yet, in 1996, he won in a landslide that surpassed his 1992 election. Nobody has won by as large of a margin since!

Then, along came a man named Barack Obama, who fell behind John McCain in the polls in 2008 with less than two months to go before the election. Yet he somehow won a landslide that carried in crushing majorities for his party in Congress.

Much like Bill, Barack had a short honeymoon after becoming president. His party was creamed in the midterm elections, and his approval ratings almost never even sniffed 50%. Many polls said a man named Mitt Romney would defeat him in 2012. The leading pollster of them all had Mitt ahead all the way up to election day! And yet, Barack beat Mitt like a drum in almost every swing state and even won Florida, which it was believed was too Republican for him to win a second time.

Four years later, Bill’s wife Hillary ran for president, and her prospects were so certain that nobody believed she could lose to her opponent, an orange-haired clown named Bozo. She was so far ahead in the crucial state of Wisconsin that it clearly made no sense at all for her to waste precious time and money visiting that state. And yet, when the circus ended, Bozo had won, and the clowns were now running the circus.

Look, I get it, folks. You’re scared. Because Democrats are ALWAYS scared, and it’s annoying and completely not a good look, but it is what it is. But one of the reasons you’re scared is because you lack perspective—especially if you’re in your 20s and you haven’t seen 35 years of embarrassing polling mistakes or quick, crazy shifts in the electorate the way Uncle Cliston has.

Now, kiddos, I’m not going to promise you that Story Time with Uncle Cliston is going to have a happy ending. There’s no way in hell Joe Biden is losing all these states, and certainly not by the margins these ridiculous polls say he is, but it is absolutely possible that he could lose several of them and Bozo could become president again. We have to be honest with ourselves about that.

But freaking out and flailing around like unhinged lunatics every time a poll comes out doesn’t do any of us any good. The upcoming election is going to be close. It could go either way. What we need to do right now is to get ahold of ourselves, stay steady and courageous, and see this thing through.

And with any luck, we’ll all live happily ever after.

The End.

Democrats Need To Focus On 13 States In 2024

In thinking about the upcoming presidential election, Democrats have two considerations to keep in mind. First and foremost, they must ensure that President Joe Biden is reelected. Secondly, and closely related to the first consideration, they need to think about how to deal with the extremely daunting Senate map they face in 2024.

Of the 34 Senate seats that will be on the ballot, Democrats are defending 23 (a total which includes three independents who caucus with the Democrats). Of the 11 Republican seats which are up for election in 2024, nine are in deeply red states where Democrats simply cannot win a statewide race these days, and the other two (Texas and Florida) offer Democrats odds which are well under 50%.

On the flip side, Democrats will be defending as many as 11 seats where Republicans have a legitimate chance to win, although certainly some of those states offer Democrats odds above 50%. With Democrats holding a 51-49 advantage in the Senate, they can only afford to lose one seat, but three of the seats they must defend are in states that Donald Trump won by landslide margins (8% or greater) in the last two elections (Ohio, Montana and West Virginia). Unless Democrats can somehow figure out how to hold on to two of those three seats, and all the others they currently hold–or win in either Texas or Florida–they will lose the Senate in 2024.

The reason that presidential and Senate consideration are closely related in 2024 is because ticket-splitting in presidential and Senate races is at an all-time low. Over the last two presidential elections, states have voted for the presidential candidate and Senate candidate of the same party 68 times out of 69 (a 98.6% correlation rate). The lone exception was the 2020 reelection of Republican Susan Collins in Maine, which Biden carried–and even Collins had her closest Senate race ever.

As such, President Biden has to think about campaigning not just in the states that he needs to hold on to in order to prevail in the Electoral College, but also in some states where he might not have a great chance to win. If he loses Ohio by 8% again, or Montana by 16%, Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jon Tester (D-Montana) are likely to lose. At the very least, Biden will have to significantly shrink his margin of defeat in those two states–or compete seriously in Texas and/or Florida–if Democrats are to retain control of the Senate after 2024.

FIRST-TIER STATES

As we look at the electoral map, it is very clear that there are two absolute must-win states for Biden: Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) and Michigan (15 electoral votes) are irreplaceable keystones of a Democratic Electoral College win. As it happens, both states have Senate races in 2024 as well, and Michigan’s Senate race will have no incumbent, because Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow is retiring after four terms.

BOTTOM LINE: The Democrats must do whatever is necessary and spend whatever funds are required to hold onto Pennsylvania and Michigan. They cannot afford to lose either state.

SECOND-TIER STATES

The second tier for Democrats includes the three states that Biden won by less than 1% each in 2020: Georgia (16 electoral votes), Arizona (11 electoral votes) and Wisconsin (10 electoral votes), and one state he won by 2%, Nevada (6 electoral votes). If he holds Pennsylvania and Michigan, Biden only needs to retain one of Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin to be reelected. Of these three states, only Georgia has no Senate race in 2024. Democrats will have tough holds in Senate races in Arizona and Wisconsin. As such, Arizona and Wisconsin should be considered slightly higher priorities than Georgia, though Georgia cannot be ignored, because the Peach State’s demographic trends make it a far more promising state for Democrats going forward than either Arizona or Wisconsin. Biden must also ensure he hangs on to Nevada to ensure that Democrats retain that Senate seat.

BOTTOM LINE: The smart strategy here is to go all-out in Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada–sparing no expense–but to take a slightly less aggressive approach in Georgia, which Biden can afford to lose if he wins either Arizona or Wisconsin, and where Democrats are not defending a Senate seat.

“REACH” STATES

The third group of states where Biden and the Democrats must consider playing includes four states that voted twice for Donald Trump. But here, the strategy depends on whether it is considered smarter to defend incumbent Democratic senators in two states where Republicans now have a considerable advantage (Ohio, Montana), or to try to take out incumbent Republican senators in states that are not quite as red as the other two (Texas, Florida). Another factor to keep in mind is that Texas and Florida are extremely expensive states to campaign in due to their large populations and multiple big media markets. Ohio is not a cheap, low-population state, either, but Democrats can get more bang for their buck in Ohio, and certainly in sparsely populated Montana, than they can in Texas or Florida.

For Biden, it is obvious that he has a better chance to carry Florida–even with its recent rightward trend–than he has to win Ohio. He has perhaps a better chance to win Texas than he has to win Ohio, although Ohio and the Midwest tend to be a little more elastic than Texas and the South. Biden has no realistic chance whatsoever to win Montana.

There is also the fact that Texas (40 electoral votes) and Florida (30 electoral votes) pack much more of a punch in the Electoral College than Ohio (17 electoral votes) or Montana (4 electoral votes), and the two bigger states in recent elections have been more promising for Democrats than either of the two smaller states. An upset win in either Texas or Florida guarantees Biden’s reelection. For that matter, a (less-likely) win in Ohio does the same. Montana makes no difference and isn’t really winnable for Biden anyway. The only reason for Biden to campaign in Montana is to avoid hanging a 16-point anchor around Tester’s neck. So if you’re Biden, you’re probably more interested in the Texas-Florida route than the Ohio-Montana route.

But Democrats do not want to lose Tester or Brown, and as Democratic incumbents, they in some ways have a slightly easier task than the Democrats who will challenge Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Florida). Incumbents start with a thumb on the scale.

Not included in this group of “reach” states is West Virginia, where Democratic Senator Joe Manchin will face the most difficult race of his career. It would be futile for Biden to campaign in West Virginia, a state where he is guaranteed to lose by at least 30 percentage points. If Manchin can overcome a 30- to 40-point anchor at the top of the ticket, tip your hat to him. But Democrats can afford to lose Manchin’s seat as long as they win two of the four Senate seats in the “reach” states, and all four of those states are far better bets for Democrats. The Democrats should leave Manchin to fend for himself, which might actually help him in the nation’s second-reddest state.

BOTTOM LINE: Democrats don’t need any of these four “reach” states to keep the presidency, but they do need to win two of these four Senate seats to keep the Senate. They have no chance to win any of them if Biden doesn’t do decently in those states. The best bet is to campaign in all four and hope Democrats can win two of those Senate seats.

“DEFENSE” STATES

Finally, Biden and the Democrats should spend some money and resources in three states where Biden is likely to win, but all of which remain close enough that they could go haywire under the right circumstances. These three states are Virginia (11 electoral votes), Minnesota (10 electoral votes), and Maine (4 electoral votes).

BOTTOM LINE: Democrats are likely to win both the presidential races and Senate races in all three of these states, but they can’t take any chances and must make sure to nail them all down.

SUMMARY

For Joe Biden to win reelection and give his party the best chance at retaining its slim advantage in the Senate in 2024, he must campaign in, and dedicate significant resources to, exactly 13 states, and only those 13 states. There is no utility whatsoever in campaigning in any of the other 37 states, or the District of Columbia, which–with the exception of North Carolina–are all safe for one party or the other.

With North Carolina unnecessary to an Electoral College majority for Biden, and the Tar Heel State having no Senate races on the ballot in 2024, there is no strategic reason to vigorously contest it when the party has more pressing priorities. (Although a similar case can be made about Georgia, which also has no Senate races on the ballot in 2024, the fact remains that Georgia flipped blue in 2020 and North Carolina did not. As such, Georgia could be a backup for Biden in the event that he loses both Arizona and Wisconsin. Strategically, Democrats would do well to leave North Carolina alone in 2024 and revisit it in 2026 and 2028, when it has Senate races on the ballot.)

There will be some talk of trying to challenge Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) or flip an open Republican seat in Indiana, but such talk should be ignored. Democrats will have their hands full in the 13 states where they really need to compete, and spending money and resources in deeply red states like Missouri and Indiana, where Democrats are simply not going to win or even come close, would be foolish, wasteful, and bad strategy. Any money spent in any of these 37 states is money that can’t be spent where control of the White House and the Senate will be decided. Democrats need to keep their eyes on the prize and not go off on wild goose chases in impossible states.

Georgia Senate Runoff: Warnock Likely To Win

Now that Democrats are certain to retain control of the U.S. Senate for the next two year, the Georgia runoff on December 6 between incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is not going to be the titanic struggle for control of the chamber that it might have been had Nevada flipped red.

I now rate the Georgia runoff Likely Democratic for several reasons.

  1. I have no doubt that a significant number of Republican voters understand that Walker shouldn’t be let within a country mile of the United States Senate, but held their noses and voted for him anyway in order to get their party control of the chamber. That motivation is no longer there, because Democrats have clinched control of the Senate. I expect some portion of these voters to stay home, with a handful perhaps even voting for Warnock.
  2. A Libertarian candidate dropped out and endorsed Warnock, but not in time to get his name off the ballot. He ended up pulling about 2% of the vote. Probably many or most of these voters won’t even vote, but of those who do, I expect many will heed their candidate’s endorsement and vote for Warnock.
  3. Democrats, unlike Republicans, still have good reasons to show up. So much of what Democratic rank-and-file voters wanted done the last two years was flummoxed by Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) having outsized power in a 50-50 Senate. If Democrats get to 51 seats, they only have to hold one of those two fickle votes, and Manchin has been much more willing to play ball with his Democratic counterparts, and cut deals, than Sinema has.

While Georgia is still a closely divided state, under the circumstances, I expect Warnock not just to win, but possibly to win by perhaps four or five points.

Republicans On Track To Win House By Very Narrow Margin

As of Sunday morning, the New York Times elections site—which is possibly the best one available—shows 21 U.S. House seats still uncalled, although one of them is a Democrat-vs.-Democrat race in California, so that seat is automatically a Democratic hold. Among the 20 other races, Democrats would need to win 14 to hold the majority, while Republicans only need seven. Here I’m going to analyze how those 20 seats break down, from east to west.

Maine 2—Democrat Jared Golden leads Republican Bruce Poliquin by 3% before ranked-choice voting kicks in. Golden’s in good shape. LIKELY D.

New York 22—Republican Brandon Williams leads by about 2% in a Republican-leaning district. LIKELY R.

Colorado 3—Republican Lauren Boebert holds a narrow lead, but most signs indicate that she will squeak this one out. LEANS R.

Colorado 8—It is a bit surprising that this race has not been called for Democrat Yadira Caraveo, whose Republican opponent, Barbara Kirkmeyer, conceded days ago. The margin is only 0.7% right now, but one tends to think that the person who conceded had a good reason to do it. LIKELY D.

Arizona 1—Democrat Jevin Hodge leads incumbent Republican David Schweikert by 0.8%, but there are a lot of votes (14%) still to be counted. It is a close district, so it is hard to say who will prevail here. My guess is that Schweikert ekes it out. LEANS R.

Arizona 6—Republican Juan Ciscomani leads Democrat Kirsten Engel by 0.4% with 13% of the vote still out. I expect Ciscomani hangs on. LEANS R.

Oregon 5—With Republican Lori Chavez-De Remer leading Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner by 2. It’s clear that a bitter Democratic primary, in which McLeod-Skinner ousted incumbent Kurt Schrader, left a mark. My guess is that the Republican holds on. Democrats should take a lesson from what happens when you primary a centrist Democrat in a centrist district. LEANS R.

Oregon 6—Democrat Andrea Salinas leads Republican Mike Erickson by 2%. It’s a slightly blue-leaning district, so I expect Salinas wins. LIKELY D.

California 3—Republican incumbent Kevin Kiley leads Democratic challenger Kermit Jones by about 6%. Late counts in California typically favor Democrats, but Jones probably has too far to go to get there. LEANS R.

California 6—I don’t know why this one hasn’t been called yet. Incumbent Democrat Ami Bera has a 12% lead over Republican Tamika Hamilton, in a Democratic-leaning district. LIKELY D.

California 9—Another race that probably should have been called by now. Democratic incumbent Josh Harder leads by 12% over Republican Tom Patti. LIKELY D.

California 13—Republican John Duarte has a 0.2% lead over Democrat Adam Gray in this open seat. The late count, I expect, will likely favor Gray. LEANS D.

California 21—Incumbent Democrat Jim Costa leads Republican Michael Maher by 10%. LIKELY D.

California 22—Republican incumbent David Valadao has a 6% lead over Democrat Rudy Salas. This is a heavily Democratic district, but Valadao’s personal brand has helped him overcome his district’s partisan lean many times. The margin will tighten, but I expect Valadao will hold on. LEANS R.

California 27—Republican incumbent Mike Garcia holds a 10% lead over Democrat Christy Smith in this Democratic-leaning district. The margin will tighten, but it’s hard to imagine Garcia losing a 10-point lead. It’s beginning to look like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was right to pull the plug on this race. LEANS R.

California 41—Longtime Republican incumbent Ken Calvert leads Democrat Will Rollins by about a point and a half. This one could be pretty tight up to the end. It’s one of California’s more Republican districts, but that’s not saying much. With the late count usually favoring Democrats, I think Rollins pulls it out. LEANS D.

California 45—Incumbent Republican Michelle Steel leads Democrat Jay Chen by 8%. She probably holds on. LEANS R.

California 47—Incumbent Democrat Katie Porter’s district got a lot more Republican this cycle, but she leads her GOP opponent, Scott Baugh, by 2%, and I expect she holds on. LEANS D.

California 49—Incumbent Democrat Mike Levin leads Republican Bryan Maryott by 4% and should win. LIKELY D.

Alaska At-Large—Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola is in great shape, with 47% of the vote before ranked choice takes effect, and some number of Republicans certain to have named her as their second choice. LIKELY D.

In all, of the 20 uncalled races, I expect Democrats to win 11 and Republicans to win nine. That would give Republicans a scant 220-215 majority with a net gain of seven seats. As compared to the average loss for a president’s party in a midterm election (34-35 seats), this is clearly a major underperformance by the Republican Party, and it puts Democrats in a strong position to retake the House in 2024 if President Biden does well in his reelection campaign.

That said, if just three of those expected Republican seats end up going Democratic (and at least two of them are pretty dicey calls at this point), then Democrats would hold the House—a remarkable result if it happens.

Final Ratings Change: Nevada Senate To Leans D

I learned in 2010 never to bet against Nevada political guru Jon Ralston when it came to picking winners in Nevada. Ralston’s calculations show that embattled Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is likely to hold off a challenge by Republican Adam Laxalt. As such, I am changing my rating in that race from Leans R (flip) to Leans D.

The ratings change, if my projections are correct, would indicate Democrats will hold the Senate by taking a 50-49 advantage into any runoff that might happen in Georgia. A 50-50 tie would keep Democrats in charge due to the tie breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

I still project a 23-seat pickup in the House by the GOP, for a 236-199 advantage.

Final Midterm Projections: GOP +23 in House, Senate Outcome Awaits Georgia Runoff

Heading into the final two days before the 2022 midterm elections, it is clear to me that the Republican Party has the momentum and this will essentially be a normal midterm, with one caveat: It appears that Democratic turnout will be higher than could normally be expected in a midterm with a Democratic president, which will blunt Republican gains somewhat and possibly enable them to preserve their tenuous 50-50 hold on the U.S. Senate.

But even though Republicans appear unlikely to get the 34 or 35 seats the “out” party could expect to pick up in an average midterm election, I still expect almost every U.S. House seat Joe Biden won by less than 8% in 2020 to flip to the GOP. As such, I expect Republicans to pick up 23 U.S. House seats and take the majority by a 236-199 margin.

I didn’t just pick this number out of a hat, and when I made my first projections in the spring, it was higher. At that time, I expected Republicans to flip virtually every district Biden won by less than 12%, which I based on Democratic underperformance, relative to 2017, in the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey last year.

After the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, I noted that Democratic over performance in special elections from that point was significant enough that I changed my projection to Democrats losing virtually every Biden +3 seat. But with momentum clearly turning back to the Republicans in the last month or two, I expect to end up somewhere in the middle between those two extremes. With a couple of exceptions, I am projecting Republicans to win any Biden House seat of +8 or less. I expect with close to 100% certainty that Republicans will control a majority of the House in January 2023.

The Senate, I feel less confident about. On one hand, Republicans have hurt themselves badly by picking a number of really bad candidates. On the other hand, the only five Senate races that appear to be in doubt at this point are four seats currently held by Democrats and only one seat currently held by a Republican. Democrats would need to win four of those five seats just to stay at 50-50. In a year in which I expect Republicans to gain, it is hard to imagine that Republicans would win only one of these five super-competitive seats. Had the GOP chosen better candidates in Pennsylvania, Georgia and New Hampshire, I’d be projecting the GOP to pick up at least two seats and most likely three. And those dynamics might still hold, possibly propelling two or three of those really awful Republican candidates into the Senate. Right now, I’m calling it 50-49 GOP with Georgia going to a runoff, but it’s far likelier that it might be 51 or 52 seats for the Republicans than it is that Democrats will do any better than 50-50. In short, the dynamics tell me to expect the Republicans to get 51 Senate seats, but it’s just hard for me to see where they get that 51st seat.

On average, my projections since 2006 have been within seven seats in the House and 1.375 seats in the Senate. Based on my historical error rate, one could expect a Republican House majority of anywhere from 229-206 to 243-192, and a Senate that contains anything from a 52-48 Democratic edge to a 52-48 Republican edge.

I also make projections at the state level, and those are all available in the attached chart.

One Month Out: Midterm Forecast

I deactivated my website briefly starting in July and am now starting back up again with the 2022 midterms looming a month out. The landscape has changed tremendously since my June projections of Republican gains of 32 House seats and four Senate seats. The Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court appears to have resulted in registration gains for Democrats, particularly among women, and in special House elections since then, Democrats have overperformed across the board. Using the special elections since the Dobbs decision as a baseline, I am adjusting my forecast to indicate that Republicans will net six House seats and that neither party will make a net gain in the Senate. If correct, my projections would indicate Republicans flipping the House by a razor-thin 219-216 margin, and the Senate holding at 50-50.

At this time, I expect Democrats to flip the Senate seat in Pennsylvania, and I characterize Democrat John Fetterman’s race against Republican Mehmet Oz as “Leans Democratic.”

On the flip side, I think Nevada is going to be problematic for Democrats this cycle, and I expect Republican Adam Laxalt to upend incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto. I am characterizing Nevada as “Leans Republican.” I have long been noting signs of Democratic weakness in Nevada this year and have always considered this the likeliest Democratic loss this cycle. I see nothing to contradict my analysis at this point.

I don’t expect any other races to flip. I expect Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) to defeat Republican Herschel Walker, and I rate that race as Leans Democratic. And despite running by far the best campaign in the country, it is hard for me to see Democrat Tim Ryan overcoming Ohio’s red lean to beat Republican J.D. Vance. I rate Ohio as Leans Republican.

Democrat Cheri Beasley is doing about as well as can be expected against Republican Ted Budd in North Carolina, and while I don’t rule out an upset, the Tar Heel State is clearly “Leans R.”

Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes is running a lousy campaign in Wisconsin and I recently moved that race to “Likely R,” with Republican Senator Ron Johnson poised to win a third term.

And in Florida, I don’t expect Republican Senator Marco Rubio to have much trouble defeating Democrat Val Demings. Florida is “Likely R.”

Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan appears to be well ahead of Republican Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, which I rate as “Likely D.”

In the only other state where Democrats worried about a threat, Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) looks to be in control, and Colorado is also “Likely D.”

All remaining Senate races this cycle are characterized as safe seats for the party currently holding them. The end result, if all projections hold, would be a 50-50 Senate for the second straight cycle, with Vice President Kamala Harris giving the tiebreaking vote to Democrats.

Millennials Aren’t the First Generation Hit By the Unexpected

Today I saw a tweet from a self-identified Millennial who lamented that her generation had spent their adolescence doing all the things they were supposed to do to prepare for a world that was not waiting for them when they graduated.

I had to restrain myself from responding unsympathetically. In fact, I didn’t respond at all. But I thought about responding, and what immediately came to mind was that the kids who turned 18 years old in 1861, 1929, 1941 and 1965 got thrown some unexpected curveballs too.

I grew up in Northwest Indiana, an industrialized collection of suburban communities near Chicago. “The Region,” as the locals call it, relied heavily for several generations upon the steel mills established in the early 20th century along the south shore of Lake Michigan. Up until the 1980s, it was commonplace for “Region” kids to get their high school diploma one day and get a job at one of the mills the next day. The mill jobs were plentiful and paid well, and the hard-won benefits secured by the United Steelworkers union made it possible to retire with a good pension by age 50. But by the 1980s, the domestic steel industry had gone into decline, and the kids who came up with me had to make other plans. Many of them have not done as well as their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, but they’ve adapted and done what they had to do. This is nothing new.

I guess that’s the thing that irritates me the most about today’s younger generations. They seem to think nobody else has ever faced the need to adapt to an unexpected situation. In the preceding paragraphs, I named five groups of people who also faced unexpected challenges when they came of age. I’ve left out many more. Millions upon millions of people throughout human history have made careful plans, played by the rules, did all they were supposed to do, and then saw all of their efforts go up in smoke. It’s not a new or unprecedented phenomenon.

What previous generations seemed to understand that the current younger generations seem not to get is that there are no guarantees in life, and when things don’t go the way you expected, you have to adapt. You can’t just complain and ask older people to bail you out (as we are seeing with the incessant push for forgiveness of all student loan debt).

“But Boomers left us this mess!” Yes, and the adults of the 1920s left their kids a Great Depression, and adults in the 1930s left their kids a world at war for the second time in 25 years. Millions of them did everything they were supposed to do, too, and they got smacked in the face by a world that wasn’t the one they had prepared for.

What seems to separate today’s young people from the ones back then is that their parents didn’t prepare them for the eventuality that things might not go according to plan. They weren’t raised to adapt, or to roll with the punches that life brings, in one form or another, to every generation and every person.

So it’s hard for me to be sympathetic to the complaints of younger people today. I oppose blanket student loan forgiveness, for example. I think it’s a bad idea, and a political loser as well, since most Americans don’t have student debt and will see forgiveness as a giveaway to a privileged minority. I do think we should revisit the law prohibiting bankruptcy relief for student loans, and also make provision for people who truly can’t pay. I would even support a reduction in interest rates on federally backed loans.

But I don’t like the idea that if you can’t buy all the things you want, or take all the vacations you’d like to take, you should just get to walk away from your obligations. I also don’t like the idea that people who don’t make the wisest choices (majoring in a field with poor job prospects, for example) should be absolved or saved from the consequences. And if you want loan relief, a number of forgiveness programs already exist. You might have to do something you don’t especially want to do–say, spend a few years teaching school in an impoverished area, for example–but people have always had to do things they don’t especially want to do in order to get the things they want in life. This, also, is nothing new.

I’m a Gen-Xer. We and previous generations were all taught something that succeeding generations seem not to have been told: Life isn’t fair. Sorry, but it just isn’t. If you’re a young person and you were sheltered from that reality by your parents, I’m sorry, but now, it’s time for you to learn that eternal truth and adapt. And maybe you’ll be able to tell your kids what your parents never told you.

The Politics of Wishful Thinking

Twelve years ago, when all the leading pundits were telling us how the Democrats were going to lose badly in the 2010 midterms, I was initially skeptical. In fact, I posted on a blog I was writing at the time that I thought a leading DC prognosticator was off-base and that Democrats were actually going to make gains that year.

I was much younger then and not as well-versed in the ebb and flow of U.S. politics as I should have been, and fortunately, I realized that my statement was foolish even before the elections took place. (I still underestimated the GOP House pickups by 10 seats that year, having predicted they would net 53 House seats; they netted 63. Until 2020, that was the only election in which I missed the final House margin by double digits.)

At the time, I was saying many of the things that naive Democrats on Twitter are saying on a daily basis today–that these midterms were different, that the pundits were all wrong, that voters would see through the Republican rhetoric, etc. It was wishful thinking then, and it’s wishful thinking now.

In fact, predicting that the sitting president’s party will lose seats in a midterm election is the safest bet in U.S. politics. There have been 39 midterm elections since the Civil War ended, and in 36 of those midterms, the sitting president’s party has suffered a net loss of seats in Congress. In short, in 92.3% of midterm elections held since 1865, the president’s party has lost seats.

The three exceptions are notable because they didn’t just happen randomly. Since 1865, the president’s party has only gained seats in midterm elections when the president has been extraordinarily popular. In 1934, Franklin Roosevelt was flying high after unemployment fell from 25% at the start of his term to 14% by the midterms. In 1998, Bill Clinton was polling around 65% approval ratings as Republicans prepared to impeach him for what most of the public considered an unimpeachable offense. And in 2002, George W. Bush was over 65% approval in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

That’s it. Those are the only three midterms in the last 157 years in which the president’s party gained seats. And those only happened when the president was extremely popular.

Now let’s fast forward to today. Joe Biden is hovering around 40% approval ratings despite a level of job creation in his first 14 months that has put several generations of prior presidents to shame. High inflation and gas prices have turned the public sour on the new president and his party.

Even if Biden were over 50% approval right now, his party would still be expected to lose seats. But with a president hovering around 40%, the likelihood of very big losses is high. Since World War II, when midterms took place with the president’s approval ratings slumping, the president’s party has averaged U.S. House losses of nearly 44 seats. In the Senate, when the president has been underwater, his party has lost an average of just under 6 seats.

Democrats currently have a margin of five seats in the House and are dead even with Republicans in the Senate. If Democrats this year only lose their post-Civil War average of seats, Republicans could be expected to gain 34-35 House seats and 3-4 Senate seats. (Senate losses are only calculated since 1914, because U.S. Senators were appointed by state legislatures prior to that year.) This would mean Republicans would easily take control of both houses of Congress in 2023–even if they don’t win at the levels that could be expected with a president well under 50% approval.

But wait, says the Twitterverse–this year is going to be different!

How, exactly? As we have seen, the only circumstances under which the president’s party has netted seats in Congress since the Civil War have been when the president’s popularity is stratospheric. Those conditions do not exist this year.

And none of those three presidents became stratospherically popular in a vacuum–there were special circumstances in all three cases that led to their high popularity: the start of a recovery from the worst economic depression in the country’s history; the overreach of Republicans against a popular president because of his personal peccadilloes; and the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. None of those conditions exist this year, either.

Now, there are those who say that the Republican Party’s complicity in the January 6, 2021 insurrection created special circumstances, but at this point, who is even talking about the insurrection except Democrats? Right now, the public is obsessed with inflation and gas prices, not an episode that most people decried and then promptly forgot.

Another point that is getting too much credence is the fact that Democrats appear to have done better in redistricting than expected. But redistricting successes do not protect an incumbent president’s party against the normal midterm losses they suffer 12 times out of every 13 midterms, on average.

In short, there is no reason to expect that Democrats will gain seats in the November midterms, or even suffer small losses. All signs point to very large Republican gains in November, and anybody who says otherwise should not be taken seriously. They’re substituting wishful thinking for a pattern that has prevailed for more than a century and a half and is all but certain to hold true this November as well.