Category Archives: General Election Forecast

Georgia Runoff

The last election of 2022 will conclude on Tuesday with the runoff election for U.S. Senator in Georgia.    While there are still some races that will go to recounts, all of the statewide and congressional races seem to be outside the margin at which a recount could make a difference.  (There are three races with margins between 500 and 600 votes — Arizona Attorney General, California Thirteenth District, and Colorado Third District.  In the Minnestoa Senate recount in 2008, the net swing from the original results to the recount results was 450 votes with an additional 87 votes gained in the election contest.  The closest of the three races going to recount is 511.   While other recounts have resulted in bigger swings, they were in races with bigger margins and Minnesota remains the largest swing that changed the results of a race.

The significance of the Senate race is not quite as big as it was in 2021 due to the Republicans apparently taking the House (but the Republican’s inability to reach a consensus on the next Speaker will be the subject of a future post) and the fact that the Democrats already have 50 seats.  But the result still matters for five key reasons.

First, the additional seat will alter the composition of committees.  With a 50-50 Senate, the committees are evenly divided.  While the rules currently allow a bill or nomination to proceed to the Senate floor on a tie vote, a 51-49 Senate would result in the Democrats having a majority on the committees. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections, Senate | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Georgia Runoff

The Midterms-Preview (Part 5)

Finally, we reach the end of the evening.  Five hours after the first polls closed in Kentucky and Indiana, we reach 10 p.m. Central ST.  At this time the last polls close in North Dakota and Idaho (covered in part 4).  Likewise, the remainder of the polls (representing the vast majority of the state) close in Oregon.  And, even though both states have a significant number of mail-in votes (as is true for several of the western states discussed in earlier posts), the polls will close in California and Washington.

I’ll start with Washington.  Washington has a top two primary (as does California).  Unlike Califronia, all of the races feature a Democrat against a Republican.  While there are some polls showing a potentially competitive race for Senate, I’m just not seeing it.  Washington is too blue in recent years.  Even in a red wave, Senator Patty Murray should win.  Most of the polls making this state seem close come from polls sponsored by Republican-affiliated groups.  While they may end up being right, even they are merely showing a close race.  The current split in the House is seven Democrats and three Republicans.  There are three seats that could flip.   The Third District is currently held by the Republicans, but, in the primay, the incumbent representative barely finished in third after having the integrity to vote to impeach President Trump.  Whether moderate Republicans will vote for the Democrat in the general and flip this seat — for the next two years to the Democrats — is the big question.  In a red wave, the Republicans have a chance at taking the Eighth District and the Tenth District.  The Tenth District (basically a swatch southwest of Seattle from Tacoma to Olympia) is more likely to stay Democratic.  The Eighth District (an exurban/rural district to the east of Seattle) looks more like a swing district, but Democrats are still favored.  Because of mail-in ballots, it typically takes several days to figure out who wins close races.

Moving south to Oregon, the big race is for Governor.  And it’s a classic argument for ranked-choice voting.  Business interests have pushed a moderate Democrat to run as an independent, and this candidate may take just enough votes to allow the Republicans to win by a narrow plurality.  The race is a pure toss-up.   Senator Ron Wyden is solidly favored to be reelected which might just have enough coattails to allow the Democrat to win the open race for governor.  In the House, the current split is four Democrats to one Republican with one new seat.  In the Fifth District, the Democratic incumbent lost in the primary to a progressive challenger.  There is a risk that the progressive nominee is too progressive for the district which runs from the suburbs of Portland into a rural part of the state to the south and east of Portland.  The Sixth District is the “new” district and is a little bit geographically smaller than the Fifth, but like the Fifth it runs from the immediate suburbs of Portland into the rural areas to the south and west of Portland.    The Republicans also have outside chances in the Fourth District, an open seat, which runs along the Pacific Coast in the area to the south and west of the Fifth and Sixth.  If the Democrats get all three of the seats, they could potentially keep the House.  In a red wave, the Republicans could gain all three seats. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections, House of Representatives, Senate | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Midterms-Preview (Part 5)

The Midterms-Preview (Part 4)

By 9 p.m. Central ST, we will be getting some results from the early states which will give us some idea of how the night is going with a strong emphasis on the some.  As noted in Part 1 of this series, every state treats the counting of mail-in votes.  In some states, like Missouri and Texas, mail-in votes are likely to be the first results reported.  In other states, like Michigan, those votes are likely to reported after the election day results.  And for election day results, precinct sizes (more importantly the number of voters per election judge) and other factors have historically resulted in longer lines at closing time in urban area.  When combined with the number of precincts in urban areas, in early states, rural areas are likely to report a greater share of their results in the first couple of hours.  Both of these factors distort the conclusiveness of early vote counts (which is why the best analysts start looking at what vote is still outstanding — both where that vote is and the total number of votes — in forecasting whether it is possible to call the race).    But by this time of the evening, there is some hint at the level of turnout in the areas that tend to vote Democratic and the areas that vote Republican and which way swing areas are swinging.

In turn, this information gives us some idea of the accuracy of pre-election polls.   In viewing pre-election polls, there are three things to remember.  First, in viewing them, you should focus on two things — margins and the size of the “undecided” voters.  In every poll, there will be some undecided voters (and, because voters tend not to want to waste votes, the supporters of third-party candidates should be treated as undecided as a significant share of them will move to one of the two major candidates by election day).  Because undecided voters will not split 50-50, a large pool of undecided voters makes the margin less reliable.  An eight percent lead with ten percent undecided is more likely to hold than a twelve percent lead with twenty percent undecided.  On the other hand, it is likely that both candidates will pick up some undecideds.  So both candidates are likely to end up with something higher than their last poll number.  Second, in looking at the margin, every poll has a margin of error (typically between three percent and four percent).  That margin of error applies to each candidate.   Which means, in theory, that even a well-constructed poll can be off on the margin by six or seven percent..  Part of the error is that every pollster has their model on who is likely to vote and how to weight responders to overcome response bias.  Some years the actual pool of voters is bluer than the model shows and in other years the actual pool of voters is redder than the model shows.  Finally, a poll is a snapshot in time.  Events occurring after the poll is taken will move a small percentage of voters (both undecided voters and voters who were tentatively supporting a candidate).  In short, it is highly probable that the polls will be off by some margin.  And while the direction and size of the error will not be uniform nationally, the early returns can give an idea of the direction and size of the error.

As things stand four days out, the polls seem to be indicating a red ripple which will switch a narrow Democratic majority in the House to a narrow Republican majority in the House.  The Senate could go either way and the hold of state offices could swing either way as well. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections, House of Representatives, Senate | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Midterms-Preview (Part 4)

The Midterms — Preview (Part 3)

By the time that polls close in Arkansas at 7:30 p.m. Central ST, we should be starting to get votes from the early states, but most of the key races will still be classified as “too early to call.”  Arkansas has become so red over the past two decades that none of the races are likely to be close.  The big races will be the ballot issue.  From the right is a proposition to require supermajorities for propositions in future elections and a provision enshrining a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the Arkansas Constitution.  As we have seen at the federal level, this Free Exercise Clause on steroids will cause significant problems in Arkansas as everything will become somebody’s religious belief.  Arkansas will also vote on legalizing marijuana.

At 8:00 p.m. CST, polls will close in the remaining parts of Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas (with those races covered in Part 2 of the preview).    Polls will close for the entire state in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Arizona will feature several key races.  At the state office level, Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State are all open seats.  The Republicans have nominated Trumpist candidates for these positions who refuse to commit to recognizing the election results in 2024.   Particularly for governor, they have nominated a media celebrity who is not qualified.  But these races are currently too close to call.  For Senate, the Republicans have also nominated an extremist.  It looks like Senator Mark Kelly will hold onto the seat, but the seat is probably the third most likely pickup for the Republicans after Nevada and Georgia.   If the Republicans have a good night, that seat could flip. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections, House of Representatives, Senate | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Midterms — Preview (Part 3)

The Midterms — Preview (Part 2)

The first states with polls to close are mostly in the Eastern Time Zone.  In the early states, we have two governor’s races (Georgia and Florida), four Senate races (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio), and seven House seats (1 in North Carolina, 3 in Ohio, and 3 in Virginia) that could be close.  There are also several seats that are likely to flip solely because of the new maps (4 flipping red in Florida, 1 flipping red in Georgia, and 2 flipping blue in North Carolina).

But the big closing time is 7 p.m. Central ST.  The remaining polls will close in Florida, and most of the polls will close in Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas.  And all of the polls will close in Alabama (except for a very small portion that closed an hour earlier), Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.  In short, when added to the states that close before 7 p.m., the polls will be closed in roughly half of the country by 7:01 p.m. (Of course, polls closed merely means that individuals need to be in line to vote at 7 p.m.  Because there are typically people in line to vote, voting might actually continue in some urban precincts for a very long time after 7 p.m. which will delay counting in those areas.)

Starting with Alabama, there are no races that are likely to be close at the state or federal level.  If the Supreme Court follows the Voting Rights Act, Democrats will probably pick up an additional seat in 2024, but the current maps which a district court correctly held violated the Voting Rights Act is in place for the 2022 election, and the 6-1 Republican advantage will remain in place for the next Congress.  There are a lot of propositions on the ballot in Alabama, the most significant of which requires changes to election law to be adopted at least six months prior to a general election. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections, House of Representatives, Senate | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Midterms — Preview (Part 2)

The Fall Campaign

Traditionally, Labor Day Weekend was seen as the start of the Fall campaign (at least by the media).  If that was ever true, it no longer is.  With cable and websites like Facebook and Youtube, there are a lot of relatively inexpensive way to get advertisements out during July and August.  If a campaign waits unti September to begin its ad campaign, the other side has already defined the race.

But, by this point in the cycle, we are down to the last handful of primaries, and the national committees and big PACS are already looking to decide where they are going to be spending the big bucks in late September and early October.  (As the change in the mechanism for advertising has obliterated Labor Day as the start of the fall campaign, the change in voting habits (with a significant percentage casting early votes or mail-in ballots) has also altered when the big final push begins.  While, in a close race, last minute news and ads can make a difference, it is just as important to get as many votes locked in as early as possible so that the last-minute spending can be focused on a tiny number of votes.

But that is the inside baseball stuff of campaigns.  The purpose of this post is to set the stage for the next eight weeks.  For the past two years, Democrats have had the frustration of a very narrow margin in the House of Representatives and a dead-even Senate.  Because Nancy Pelosi may be one of the all-time great Speakers, Democrats have been mostly able to pass things in the House.  The Senate, however, has been very, very difficult.  The filibuster rules has limited the Democrats to passing anything significant via the reconciliation process.  Even the reconciliation process requires keeping the entire Democratic caucus together which has proven difficult as a single member can insist on changes to any proposal.  And the  lack of a majority has also prevented any changes to the filibuster rule (again due to the ability a single Democrat to veto any proposed change). Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Fall Campaign

Missouri Senate Primary 2022

We are about five weeks out from the August 2 primary in Missouri.  With Roy Blunt deciding that it is time to move on, there are multiple candidates in both party’s primary.  While Missouri has been gradually moving to the right, there is a chance that Democrats could pull out a win, but a lot depends on what happens on August 2.

To some degree, the Republican primary in Missouri is an echo of what we have seen in Ohio and Pennsylvania.  With a large number of candidates and no clear favorite, we are looking at the potential for a very close race which in turn means that Donald Trump could very easily impact the result by putting his thumb on the scale (as opposed to the recent primary in Alabama where Trump had little noticeable impact on the race when he first endorsed Mo Brooks, less impact when he rescinded that endorsement, and no impact when he decided to endorse Kate Britt at the last second to get a cheap win for his endorsement scorecard).

There are twenty-one people running for the Republican nomination.  For the purposes of the Trump endorsement race, there are three groups of candidates:  the field, the chase pack, and the lead pack.  The field consists of fifteen candidates with no state-wide name recognition and no significant resources.  Each of these candidates would be lucky to get 2-3% of the vote.  But each vote for the field is a vote that is not going to the top six candidates. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Senate | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Missouri Senate Primary 2022

The 2022 Elections: Revenge of the Trumpists

We are on the eve of the start of the first big segment of the primary season for the 2022 election.  Texas had its primary back in March, but primary season really starts this Tuesday with primaries in Ohio and and Indiana.

Including the Texas run-off, there are primaries or run=offs set for every week between now and June 28 other than the week of Memorial Day.  During that period, a grand total of thirty states will have primaries or run-offs (with some having both).  There is normally a longer breaker between the Spring primaries and the late Summer/early fall round of primaries.  But due to postponed election dates, Maryland will have its primary in mid-July and North Carolina will have its run-off on July 5 or July 26, depending on the offices which require a run-off.  Phase two of the primary season begins on August 2 and runs through September 13.

Mid-term elections are tough for the party in power.   The public always want the big problems solved instantly.  And big problems are typically years in the making and will require years to solve.  Making things worse, the party that wins an election always tries to pass what their primary voters want (which is not the same as what general election voters want) but ends up with in-fighting between the various factions of the party.  It has been a long time since any party has won by a big enough margin to be able to pass legislation despite those differences. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections, House of Representatives, Senate | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The 2022 Elections: Revenge of the Trumpists

Election Night Preview — Part 6 (Aftermath)

This election may go down in history for being very, very bizarre.  Or it may lead to some necessary changes in state election law.  If Tuesday is a good night for the Democrats and Joe Biden, there will not be much to fight about starting Wednesday.  Likewise, a lot depends on what is still outstanding and remaining to be counted.  As we have noted previously, some states allow absentee ballots to be received after election day and some will not start counting the absentee ballots that have been received until election day.  The folks at 538 have done a summary of what states are likely to have almost all of the ballots counted by the end of election night and what states will still have many ballots to count.

Current polling suggests that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail and Republicans to vote in person.  As such, there are likely to be dramatic shifts in the vote as different types of ballots are counted.  This shift will matter in some of the states that will count almost all of their votes on election night, but it will matter more in the states that will be counting a significant number of votes after election night.

What happens after election night depends on where things stand at the end of the evening.  If Trump can hold some of his marginal states (Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and North Carolina), the race will come down to some late counting states.  On the other hand, if Trump is trailing in these states (and Arizona and Ohio) at the end of election day, the race is over. Continue Reading...

Also posted in 2020 General Election | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Election Night Preview — Part 6 (Aftermath)

Election Night Preview — Part 5 (11 PM EST to Sunrise)

Recent elections have been so close that between the inability to call states and the large number of electoral votes on the West Coast, the news media has been unable to call the presidential election before 11 PM EST.

Before going into the states that will be closing at 11 p.m. or later, some words about the process of projecting a winner.  Each network has a team that makes the decision on when to project.   For all intents and purposes, this team is in a sealed room with no knowledge about what the talking heads or saying or whether other networks have made a projection.   There are lots of data that these teams look at: 1) election day exit polls; 2) early vote exit polls; 3) polls of those who voted by mail; 4) the reported early vote; 4) how many mail-in ballots remain to be counted; 5) “key” precincts (key in the sense that the team knows the typical vote in those precincts and can judge the swing in those precincts); 6) which precincts (and counties) have not yet reported.  Basically, while the margin of error in exit polls makes it difficult to call a close (52-48) race based on exit polls, you can call a landslide (60-40) based on exit polls.  For those in which exit polls show a close race, you need enough votes to make a call.  And if the early results are consistent with a close race, you can’t make a call into the outstanding vote is too small to realistically swing the race (i.e. the remaining precincts are in areas that favor candidate X who is ahead or candidate Y would need 95% of the remaining vote and has been getting 80% of the vote in similar precincts).  One fact that could hinder making projections and lead to a state being uncalled on election night is a large number of uncounted absentee ballots (due to a state not being able to count before election day) or a large number of absentee ballots not yet returned in states that have a post-election day deadline for receipt of absentee ballots if postmarked by election day.

At 11 p.m., we will have partial closings in the remaining parts of Idaho, North Dakota, and Oregon.  Of these three states, most of the voters Idaho and North Dakota are in the part that closed at 10 p.m. EST.  However, in Oregon, most of the voters live in the Pacific time zone which will close at 11 p.m.  The entirety of the state also closes for California and Washington,  At midnight, the polls close in part of Alaska and in all of Hawaii.  Finally at 1:00 a.m., polls close in the remainder of Alaska. Continue Reading...

Also posted in 2020 General Election | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Election Night Preview — Part 5 (11 PM EST to Sunrise)