*Yes, 10/2. I meant to post this yesterday.
Although midterms are typically interpreted as a referendum on the incumbent president, several events cast this interpretation into doubt for 2022. The Dobbs decision has made abortion and reproductive rights a huge issue for the midterms, and one that strongly favors Democrats. Trump has inserted himself ever more visibly into the campaign, endorsing one awful candidate after another while his legal woes worsen steadily, which potentially reshapes the election as Democrats vs. Trump/MAGA rather than a Biden referendum. And Biden’s own approval ratings have improved substantially since the summer.
My general thoughts on polls, pundits, and predictions can be found in the first diary of this series, here. In general, my rule of thumb is that for a variety of reasons, polls today tend to overestimate Democratic support by several percentage points. As for the pundits, they may have as hard a time as any of us in understanding how major historical events — such as the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade — can impact an election, making it far from routine (make no mistake, what the Supreme Court did in Dobbs will be in the history books). To give you as broad a picture as possible, and help you reach your own conclusions about the state of the midterms, I pull from a wide variety of sources. These include sites that provide polling averages; sites that use current polling and other data to predict vote outcomes; and political pundit sites. Those sites are:
FiveThirtyEight: Senate ratings and House forecast. Provides estimates of election-day vote based on both a polling average and a “deluxe” model that includes historical trends and expert ratings. (538)
Electoral-vote: Provides a simple last-week polling average for Senate races. (E-V)
RealClearPolitics: Another polling average, but broader than Electoral-Vote’s. (RCP)
270towin: Yet another polling average and algorithm. (270)
Cook Political Report: Expert ratings of each race (solid, likely, lean, or tossup). (Cook)
Sabato's Crystal Ball: Also expert ratings (safe, likely, lean, or tossup). (Sabato)
Inside Elections: Yet more expert ratings (solid, likely, lean, tilt, or tossup). (Inside)
“But Psychbob” you say. “Why give us 3 or 4 polling averages, and multiple pundit ratings too? Why not just one of each?”
A good question! And the answer is: not all polling averages are the same — nor all expert ratings. The polling aggregators differ in the time frame they cover (from 1 week to a month or more, also depending on availability of polling for each race) and also differ in the pollsters they include (for example, some include partisan pollsters while others do not). Similarly, every pundit has their own “secret sauce” of factors that go into their forecast and how they weigh them. You can find details at most of the specific sites I include.
Now let’s look at some actual data points. Numbers were current as of Saturday 10/1. My abbreviations for the different sites should be pretty clear. For the sites providing polling averages, I transformed everything into the same format: a single number that shows the size of the Democratic (or Republican) candidates’ lead. For 538, which provides both polling and polling+ vote forecasts, I’ve kept the site’s original format of vote percentage for each candidate. Hopefully this makes it a bit easier to compare across sites.
Senate Races
|
E-V |
RCP |
270 (polls) |
538 (polls) |
538 (deluxe) |
Sabato |
Cook |
Inside |
Az |
D +6 |
D +5.4 |
D +6.2 |
D 52.5-45.4
|
D 51.9-45.9 |
lean D |
lean D |
tilt D |
FL |
R +3 |
R +2.8 |
R +3.7 |
R 50.9-47.0 |
R 52.2-45.7 |
likely R |
lean R |
likely R |
GA |
D +4 |
D +0.7 |
D +2.0 |
D 50.6-47.9 |
D 49.8-48.6 |
tossup |
tossup |
tossup |
NV |
R +3 |
R +1.7 |
R +2.2 |
D 48.8-48.1 |
D 48.8-48.0 |
tossup |
tossup |
tossup |
NH |
D +9 |
D +9.3 |
D +10.3 |
D 53.6-44.4 |
D 52.8-45.2 |
lean D |
lean D |
tilt D |
NC |
R +1 |
R +1.6 |
R +1.0 |
D 49.1-48.7 |
R 50.3-47.5 |
lean R |
lean R |
lean R |
OH |
D +2 |
R +1.2 |
R +0.4 |
D 50.2-49.8 |
R 51.8-48.2 |
lean R |
lean R |
likely R |
PA |
D +4 |
D +4.1 |
D +3.8 |
D 51.9-45.9 |
D 51.2-46.6 |
lean D |
lean D |
tossup |
WI |
R +3 |
R +2.3 |
R +2.6 |
R 50.6-49.4 |
R 51.3-48.7 |
lean R |
tossup |
tilt R |
Senate overview: In general, polling has recently tightened in favor of the GOP. This has happened over the past few weeks in such races as PA, NV, and WI. However, pretty much everyone is projecting a Senate about as divided as we have now. PA remains the most likely D pickup, but that may be balanced out by a GOP pickup in NV, where Cortez-Masto appears to be the most endangered Democratic incumbent. The pundits are consistent in favoring Democrats to defend AZ and NH and Republicans to defend FL, NC, and OH; PA and WI are split decisions with at least one site calling it a tossup, while nobody is willing to call GA or NV yet.
Overall, forecasts suggest a Senate balance of power almost exactly what it is now. E-V shows a 51-49 split for the Democrats; 538 shows 50 or 51 Democratic seats; others show Democrats even or a seat ahead. If you’re wondering where you can send some money, defending the Democratics eats in GA and NV looks the most critical right now; PA remains the best place to go on offense.
House overview: The GOP remains favored to win control of the House, but the odds have slowly shifted towards the Democrats over the past couple of months. For example, 538 predicts a 68% chance of GOP control, down from 80% two months ago. The other interesting finding is that, with 218 seats required for control, House forecasts have the GOP barely in control or just falling short. Most sites rate House seats as they do Senate ones, with safe/solid, likely, lean, and sometimes ‘tilt’ ratings. If we merge all categories other than tossups, we get the following for the most recent projections:
270: R 219, D 206, Tossup 10
RCP: R 218, D 184, T 33 (note that RCP is a conservative-leaning site with a clear GOP bias)
Sabato: R 215, D 196, T 24
538: R 214, D 208, T 13
Cook: R 212, D 193, T 30
Inside Elections: R 210, D 205, T 17 (yes, this is 3 seats short; no, I don’t know why)
These sites have all shown very gradual drops in the number of seats going to the GOP, and very gradual increases in the number going to the Democrats, over the past 6-8 weeks. Will the trend continue, and will it be large enough to swing the House to the Democrats? With only 6 weeks until the election, it’s too soon to tell.
Governor's Races
|
rcp |
270 |
538 (polls) |
538 (deluxe) |
sabato |
cook |
inside |
az |
R +2.2 |
R +0.4 |
D 50.4-49.6 |
D 50.1-49.9 |
tossup |
tossup |
tossup |
fl |
R +4.8 |
likely R |
R 52.1-45.8 |
R 53.5-44.4 |
likely R |
likely R |
likely R |
ga |
R +6.6 |
R +6.8 |
R 52.0-46.5 |
R 52.4-46.1 |
lean R |
lean R |
tilt R |
ks |
D +2.0 |
tossup |
D 50.9-45.7 |
D 49.7-47.0 |
tossup |
tossup |
tossup |
nv |
R +1.5 |
R +1.5 |
D 49.1-47.8 |
D 49.6-47.3 |
tossup |
tossup |
tossup |
pa |
D +10.2 |
D +12.4 |
D 54.2-43.8 |
D 53.9-44.1 |
likely D |
likely D |
tilt D |
wi |
R +0.5 |
R +0.6 |
D 49.8-48.5 |
D 50.0-48.3 |
tossup |
tossup |
tossup |
Gubernatorial Overview: The governor’s races are definitely shakier than the Senate races. Right now, D-held governorships in KS, NV, and WI need to be defended. AZ is rather surprising, as GOP candidate Kari Lake is a full-bore MAGA election denier lunatic, and it really shouldn’t be this close in a purple state (which AZ is rapidly becoming). Still, this may be the best state on the list for a D pickup. Note that Massachusetts and Maryland are near-certain D pickups this cycle. However, both of these are states with D-controlled legislatures, where the incumbent GOP governor is the rapidly vanishing breed known as “GOP moderates.” Neither state is going to restrict abortion or voting rights or try to overturn the next Presidential election, no matter what, so a change in party control of the statehouse is not as urgent. In AZ, however, all these things are at stake. If you’re looking for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate to support, Katie Hobbs in AZ may be the most urgent choice. Regrettably, Stacey Abrams continues to run behind in GA, and Crist does not appear to be gaining much traction against DeSantis in FL.