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| State Sen. Emily Cain (D-ME) |
Maine
President: There
was a lot of chatter amongst the political talking heads about Maine finally giving political pundits
something to talk about with its strange vote-by-House-seat approach to
presidential elections, but the 2nd district has started to return
to form, and my gut says will deliver a narrow win for Hillary Clinton as per
usual. So all four of the Pine Tree
State’s electoral votes go to the Democrats.
House: Even
before Clinton started to rebound, State Sen. Emily Cain had been competitive
in the 2nd district, a rematch of her race against Rep. Bruce
Poliquin from two years ago (one that shocked a lot of people, myself included,
who figured that Cain would emerge victorious).
While history has taught me not to underestimate Poliquin (and
incumbency is on his side here, which it wasn’t two years ago), Cain has run
the better campaign and managed to turn swing voters to her side. Clinton surging is the final push to make me
say Democrats +1
Maryland
President: Maryland
hates Trump. One of the bluest states on the map will
eviscerate the New York billionaire with great relish.
Senate: With Sen.
Barbara Mikulski retiring, the real question here wasn’t the general but the
primary, where Rep. Chris van Hollen won soundly. He’ll now get a Senate seat for as long as he
wants it.
Massachusetts
President: The
land of Elizabeth Warren isn’t going to go anywhere near Donald Trump. Easy victory for the Democrats.
Michigan
President: The
dynamics here could have favored Donald Trump.
Republicans, if they’re going to watch states like North Carolina,
Colorado, and Virginia become more reliably blue, are going to have to start
converting a place like Michigan to their side.
But polling has consistently shown Clinton, a longtime proponent of
organized labor (still a big deal in this state) in the lead and I think she’ll
stay there, likely with a 6-7 point victory.
House: Three
races look competitive here, but while the Democrats have put forward solid
candidates in Michigan’s 7th and 8th districts (the 8th
is a particular coup considering she was a very last-minute candidate), the
Republican incumbents will hold those seats.
The bigger question remains in the 1st district, open with
the retirement of Rep. Dan Benishek (R).
Neither party put forward a particularly compelling candidate (Jack
Bergman on the right, Lon Johnson on the left), and this is a seat that went
Obama 08/Romney 12, so it’s a tossup with a slight GOP tilt. I honestly think this goes with whichever
person wins the district for the White House, but can find no polling either
way here, so I’m going with Bergman because tie goes to the incumbent
party. But Johnson could win, and by
even as much as five-points, and I wouldn’t bat an eye. For both parties, this feels like a missed
opportunity not to get a stronger standard-bearer.
 |
| State Sen. Terri Bonoff (D-MN) |
Minnesota
President: No
Republican has won the Gopher State since 1972, and that ain’t changing this
year-Clinton takes the ten electoral votes here.
House: Three
competitive House races are across the state, all of which have different
dynamics at play. The most likely to
turn is the 2nd, where retiring Rep. John Kline’s (R) seat is surely
going to go to the left, after they nominated status quo contender Angie Craig
against a Republican radio personality (Jason Lewis) who mirrors Trump’s
demeanor in a district Hillary Clinton’s going to win. The Republicans are luckier in the third
district, where incumbent Rep. Erik Paulsen is probably going to best State
Sen. Terri Bonoff (polls have shown her down), though if Clinton has coattails,
or more importantly, if Republicans don’t show up to the polls, I wouldn’t
totally discount this being the surprise of the night; HRC is surely going to
win here, and Trump would play particularly poorly in this affluent suburban
district, which hosts the most college-educated voters of any district in the
state. Finally, there’s the 8th
district, one where I cannot quite figure out where it’s headed. Donald Trump has done surprisingly well in
the Iron Range, the heart-and-soul of this expansive district, and if he’s
going to take down an incumbent member of the House (only once in the past
thirty years have the Democrats gotten every incumbent reelected in Congress),
it’s probably Nolan. Nolan’s campaign
has been poor, his challenger Stewart Mills much better than last time, and I’m
guessing this is the shock flip of the night.
As a result, one-for-one and no net change.
Mississippi
President: At
some point the large population of African-Americans in the Magnolia State will
swing this to the Democrats-Barack Obama did better than you remember here-but
it won’t be this year, where Trump will drastically over-perform with white
voters.
Missouri
President: This
used to be a bellwether, but no longer-Democrats can win down-ballot, and
frequently do, but not for the White House.
Expect a narrow Trump victory.
Governor: I keep
waiting for the shoe to drop in the Show-Me State. After all, Republicans now dominate on a
presidential level, but for some reason statewide Democrats remain quite
competitive. Iraq War veteran Eric
Greitens (R) should be able to pick-up this seat from retiring Gov. Jay Nixon
(not the most popular man in the state after the Ferguson Riots), but Attorney
General Chris Koster has repeatedly been ahead of him in polls, to the point
where I just don’t see a way for Greitens to get in if Trump is winning but
underperforming up-ballot. It’s a hold,
but one that doesn’t make a lot of sense-the GOP dropped the ball here.
Senate: Now we’re
getting into races I really don’t want to call.
The Senate battle between Sen. Roy Blunt, a first-term Republican, and
Secretary of State Jason Kander, a young veteran of the War in Afghanistan, has
featured one of the strangest tossups of the year. In any normal cycle, Blunt would be the
favorite, by a pretty decisive margin, but this isn’t a normal year and Kander
is arguably the best challenger of 2016 from either party. In a lot of ways this reminds me of the North
Dakota Senate race, where Heidi Heitkamp overcame pretty much every obstacle
(outrunning the Dem nominee for the White House, running a flawless campaign,
and overcoming even the polls), and took the seat in a huge upset. The only difference here is that Heitkamp was
running in an open seat. The dynamics of
this race favor Blunt, but the momentum favors Kander, and I just can’t quite
go there for the Democrats. I hope I’m
wrong, but the slightest of leans to Blunt.
If Kander does pull off the upset, expect him to become a part of the
national conversation in the future.
Montana
President: I’m
surprised there haven’t been more polls here, considering President Obama
nearly won the Treasure State in 2008, but that lack of polls makes me think
that both sides assume Trump will win, which is probably right.
Governor: Gov.
Steve Bullock continues to luck out in terms of presidential races-four years
ago he won despite succeeding a Democrat and having to outrun Mitt Romney. Now he’s relatively popular, and the
Republicans don’t appear that interested in challenging him, instead waiting
four years to take a shot at the open seat.
As a result, he should win reelection by high single-digits.
House: House
Majority PAC raised a lot of eyebrows recently when they bought ads for the
final two weeks of the House race, but polling doesn’t indicate as to why. Rep. Ryan Zinke doesn’t appear vulnerable,
and while he has a solid challenger in State Superintendent Denise Juneau, the
race doesn’t feel competitive. I am
curious about results here (were they seeing something closer than expected or
wash this a psych-out?), but I don’t see how Zinke loses.
Nebraska
President: I’m
still wondering if Hillary Clinton could, in fact, pickup Nebraska’s 2nd
congressional district. The rest of the
state is Solid Trump, but this seat is a tossup and some are still calling it
for her. I’m going to go there, actually-Hillary
Clinton, thanks in large part to her emerging strength with college-educated
white voters (and with women in general) takes one electoral vote in a similar
fashion to Barack Obama eight years ago (this is another race that I’m going
against what I planned on doing, for the record, and would be the first of her
states I’d suspect to drop if she does poorer on Election Day than expected).
House: If Hillary
Clinton is likely to win NE-2 by a nose, it goes to reason that down-ballot
will be helped by that. I expect Rep.
Brad Ashford, despite not being a superb campaigner, to outperform her and as a
result hold the seat he picked up two years ago (meaning he’ll have this seat
two years longer than I anticipated).
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| Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) |
Nevada
President: If
early voting numbers are to be believed, this is where Clinton’s ground game
will pay off the biggest dividends.
While the polls show this race neck-and-neck, the early-voting numbers
are very favorable to the Clinton camp, and polls have historically
underrepresented Democrats here. As a
result, I’m saying this is going to Hillary Clinton, perhaps by more than the
1-2 points she’s expected to take it by already.
Senate: I have
said for months that, thanks to that underrepresentation of Democrats in
polling, if this race looks tied on Election Day, the tie goes to the
left. That’s about where we’re
at-polling aggregates may give a slight lean to Catherine Cortez Masto thanks
to her rebounding post the Access
Hollywood video (keep in mind it’s easier for die-hard Trump supporters who
are angry and want to vote against Joe Heck to do so in Nevada because there is
literally a “None of the Above” option on the ballot), but this is very
competitive. However, I think the
dynamics of the race and my hunches about it (early voting giving the Democrats
a bit of an advantage, Cortez Masto gaining ground at the last minute, polling
usually favoring GOP in the Silver State, and the Reid machine going at
full-force), means that Nevadans will probably end up electing the first Latina
senator in US history.
House: Up until a
few weeks ago, again, this looked like the Republicans could be in for a
sigh-of-relief. Rep. Crescent Hardy and
open-seat challenger Danny Tarkanian (running for Heck’s seat) were doing
decently in the polls for the 4th and 3rd, respectively,
but early voting numbers plus enthusiasm on the ground for Democrats has made
me have a change of heart and I now think we’re looking at a two-seat pickup
for the Democrats, with State Sen. Ruben Kihuen and Jacky Rosen emerging victorious. This will be, for those keeping track at
home, the fifth consecutive loss for Tarkanian, and for the sake of the Nevada
GOP, hopefully his final race. Democrats
+2
New Hampshire
President: Though
it was certainly a race that felt competitive, and it’s the state most likely
to turn if a wave builds, Hillary Clinton has built a solid if not spectacular
lead in this race, and should be able to paint all of New England blue with the
Granite State going her way.
Governor: The
strange case of New Hampshire, one of only two states in the country to elect
their governors to two year terms, is that it is susceptible to waves
up-and-down the ballot. We saw that in
2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and (to some degree) 2014. That should mean good news for Colin van
Ostern, running as a Democrat for the open seat here. The Republicans put up arguably their best
possible option in Chris Sununu, son of a former governor and brother of a
former senator, but van Ostern has rebounded sharply in the polls and should be
able to hang onto the seat left open by Maggie Hassan.
Senate: If I was
allowed to keep one seat a tossup, literally of every one on this list, I’d do
so in New Hampshire’s Senate race. The
seat could not be closer. Aggregate
polling has had it within two-points since April (according to the Huffington
Post), and as a result it genuinely could go either direction. Kudos have to go
to both Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) and Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) who managed to get to
November with people genuinely still liking both of them, almost unheard of in
a close race of this level. Part of me
wants to say Ayotte-she can still top a poll even though everything practical
in this race insinuates that she should be drowning, but the dynamics of the
race, plus Hassan having emerged with a slight lead in aggregate polling, makes
me think she’ll probably take it (plus I think Clinton winning up-ballot has to
be worth at least a couple of votes). I
reserve the right to change my answer here as the election gets closer, but for
now Democrats +1
House: I’m
feeling better about the House seats.
Rep. Ann Kuster probably should have a rougher go than she is this
cycle, but the Republicans can’t really afford to contest this race with every
race on the ballot looking more likely to flip (look at her margin though as an
indicator of where this could go in 2018).
That includes the NH-1 seat, where (for the fourth consecutive cycle) we
see incumbent Rep. Frank Guinta (R) facing off against former Rep. Carol
Shea-Porter (D). Unlike the Senate race,
neither of these two seem particularly well-loved, but one of them is going to
win, and it’s probably going to be Shea-Porter.
After all, Guinta barely made it through the primary (winning by less
than a thousand votes), and has been embattled by ethics violations for most of
the past two years. Had Rick Ashooh won
the primary, Shea-Porter probably would be in trouble (she’s not a very
inspiring candidate), and she’ll surely be a top target in two years, but the
focus here is on 2016 solely. And she’s going
to win a fourth non-consecutive term on Tuesday. Democrats +1
New Jersey
President: I
don’t know if Chris Christie has any pride left after the debacle of this
presidential run, but if he does it could well disappear when Hillary Clinton
clobbers his friend Donald Trump in the Garden State.
House: After three
presidential cycles where LGBT issues played a large role, this year there’s
been nary a word. In fact, gay voters
may be one of the only minority groups that Donald Trump hasn’t made a go-to
punching bag in his stump speech. But
that doesn’t mean LGBT rights won’t have an effect on races, as New Jersey’s 5th
district could well see the fall of longtime Rep. Scott Garrett because of his
staunch disapproval of gay rights.
Garrett got a lot of heat for refusing to donate to the NRCC since they
were supporting gay Republican candidates, and former Clinton speechwriter Josh
Gottheimer has effectively run against Garrett for most of the cycle targeting
him for this assertion. My gut tells me
that Garrett was only safe in this marginal district because he was
innocuous. In a low turnout election
(particularly in a year where the entire state of New Jersey seems to hate
Chris Christie), which I’m guessing this will be, Gottheimer will probably just
best Garrett. Democrats +1
New Mexico
President: I wake
up in a cold sweat occasionally thinking about how New Mexico might end up
being closer than I expect. It is, after
all, not really the “solid Democratic” state you’d anticipate looking at its
congressional delegation (it went for Bush in 2004, after all), but the
thriving Latino population in the state should help Clinton, and the polls show
this as a mid-range single digit victory.
So that sounds about right.
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| Zephyr Teachout (D-NY) |
New York
President: It’s
not often commented upon, but we are in the middle of a subway election, a
rarity in politics where both candidates are from the same state. Perhaps that’s because Clinton will likely be
clobbering Trump, potentially by 30-points.
Senate: Chuck
Schumer may not know whether he’ll be majority or minority leader in the next
Congress, but he’ll know that it will be one of them since he’s certain to win
a fourth term in the Senate.
House: I
mentioned that Florida and California were the states that the Democrats needed
to run-the-board on in order to win the House, but the third leg of that stool
is New York. New York poses a lot of
potential victories for the Democrats, but it’s worth noting that, despite
Clinton doing well statewide, Trump’s presumably solid numbers upstate has kept
New York from getting too many headlines for the House. For example, Rep. Elise Stefanik in the 21st
seems assured reelection despite some worries, and while Tom Suozzi should hold
the 3rd for the Democrats (that was a question mark for a while
there), there’s not a lot of other good news.
Reps. Lee Zeldin (1st) and John Katko (24th) both
had to upend incumbents two years ago to win their seats, but appear relatively
safe if polling is to be believed, and that really only leaves the 19th
and 22nd, both open seats, as possible pickups for the Democrats. The
22nd probably gives the Democrat their best shot, here holding the
seat of retiring Rep. Richard Hanna (R, though he is arguably the most moderate
Republican in the House and has endorsed Hillary Clinton…still a pickup if they
get it though), as the Republicans are in a pickle with conservative
third-party candidate Martin Babinec stealing votes from Republican Claudia
Tenney, likely leading to Democrat Kim Myers benefiting. The 19th is a harder to call
race-Zephyr Teachout is probably too liberal to hold this seat in a midterm,
but controversy about a recent attack ad against her may help, and polling in
the district has shown a tie for months, as well as a tie for the White
House. My gut says that Clinton or Trump
will drag along their candidate, and as I think Trump barely takes this, so
does John Faso the Republican. But it
could be close. So just the 22nd
for now as a seat that changes hands. Democrats
+1
North Carolina
President: Democrats
as a whole are a superstitious bunch, and so saying that Hillary Clinton is
going to win a state I know will essentially clinch her the White House is
something that makes me very uncomfortable.
And yet, both early voting (though not by a huge amount) and polling has indicated that Clinton has a slim but
consistent lead in the Tar Heel State.
If it weren’t for fear that Donald Trump could be the next president,
I’d say this is a win based entirely on the polls, but I am a bit apprehensive
about choosing Clinton as a pretty heavy favorite in a state Barack Obama lost
(and especially after I gave Trump a W in Florida). Those caveats aside, Clinton seems likely to
take this state, which would be a gargantuan win for her campaign.
Governor: It has
been the story of the cycle that the three North Carolina races have randomly shifted
leaders week-after-week-after-week, but perhaps the most consistent of the six
candidates has been Attorney General Roy Cooper, challenging unpopular
incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory, who, along with Scott Garret in New Jersey, may be
the only Republican who could go down as a result of opposition to LGBT
rights. His transgender bathroom bill
got widely panned nationally, and though he’s gained some in the wake of
Hurricane Matthew, polls show it’s probably not enough-if Clinton wins, it’s
hard to imagine Cooper not also winning, so Democrats +1
Senate: A lot of
Republicans I’ve profiled here will look at their races and blame Donald
Trump. Sen. Richard Burr may want to,
but really he only has himself to blame.
Despite being a decades-long fixture in GOP politics in the state, he’s
not well-known statewide and waited far too late to start going after State
Rep. Deborah Ross, who took advantage of the vacuum left by Burr’s absence and
ended up turning this race into a true tossup.
I could buy this race going either direction, quite frankly, but I’m
going to make this one of the few times I let hope perhaps get in the way of
good judgment; it’s hard to see a lot of people splitting their tickets from
Pres/Gov to senator, and Ross has closed well here. I think she takes it in an upset no one saw
coming six months ago. Democrats +1
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