(Note: I'll be doing commentary on every race for Governor & Senate regardless of level-of-competitiveness. I'll only do mentions for the House if I assume it'll be competitive in some way-if the House race isn't listed, I'm assuming an easy hold for the incumbent party)
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| Evan McMullin (I-UT) |
Senate: I've frequently said online that the next frontier for Democrats, if it comes through education levels for voters, will likely include some sort of play for Utah. Utah is an unusual state in its politics. It is not racially diverse (at all), but it is highly-educated, so you're looking at an audience of moderate, college-educated white voters that are very religious (but also very tolerant of other religions). It's why politicians like Mitt Romney do well here and why Republicans like Donald Trump under-perform. While the race doesn't include Democratic candidate, Sen. Mike Lee (R) is facing off against former presidential candidate Evan McMullin (I) and it is an interesting test of just how conservative the electorate is. I expect Lee to win the race, to be clear, but I am watching the margins here. McMullin has said that he won't caucus with either party, but it's obvious he's filling in as a surrogate Democrat here & it's probable that if he won he'd cut some sort of deal to support Chuck Schumer. If McMullin gets close here, expect Democrats to try this playbook again in 2024 if/when Romney doesn't run for another term (or is challenged from the right in the primary).
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| State Sen. Becca Balint (D-VT) |
Governor: Gov. Phil Scott (R) continues a proud tradition of moderate Republicans winning elections as New England governors. Scott, who would be a Democrat in virtually any other state (he voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election), will cruise to another term as he's one of the country's most popular chief executives.
Senate: Sen. Patrick Leahy will retire this year from the Senate, after 48 years in the body. Leahy was the penultimate member of Congress left to have served during the Vietnam War (along with Chuck Grassley) and one of only three members of Congress who served during the Ford administration (the others being Grassley & Ed Markey). Leahy is also the only Democrat to ever serve in the US Senate from the state of Vermont, which will change tomorrow when Rep. Peter Welch will be elected to the US Senate. At the age of 75, he will be the oldest first-time elected freshman senator in the history of the country.
House: State Senate President Becca Balint (D) won the nomination to succeed Welch, staking a claim in the primary against Lt. Gov. Molly Gray as the more progressive candidate (Balint will be a potential contender to join the "Squad" in the next Congress). Balint's assured win I wouldn't normally list here since it's a hold, but it's worth noting because she will become the first woman to represent Vermont in Congress; Vermont is the only state in the Union to never be represented by a woman in Congress, so a lot of history happening in the Green Mountain State tomorrow.
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| Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) |
House: Kyle Kondik of Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball put out a strong hypothesis if you're trying to read tea leaves early in the night. If the Democrats lose the 10th district (incumbent Jennifer Wexton is their candidate, Biden won it by 18), we're looking at a Republican tsunami. If Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanbarger loses the 7th, we're looking at a strong night for the R's in a Biden +6.3 district. If the Republicans can't even take Virginia's 2nd district (where their candidate is Rep. Elaine Luria and Biden won by 3-points), Democrats are having a better night than they (or I) expected. I personally think that Wexton is such a reach (even Terry McAuliffe won the 10th in his awful performance last year) that it's not worth entertaining, and while I do think I'm maybe underestimating the House R's (more in a second), I'm not at the point where I'll guess Spanbarger loses. I do think, however, that the R's will have a decent night, and so as a result I'm going to predict State Sen. Jen Kiggans (who was a very good recruit) bests Luria in the second congressional district. R+1
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| Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) |
Senate: Every election cycle is filled with little nuances and random asides that you inevitably forget years later. So I want to note for posterity that one of the oddest aspects of the 2022 election has been Florida Sen. Rick Scott's (R) bizarre obsession with Sen. Patty Murray (D), whom he has publicly called mean & said repeatedly he doesn't like. This has led to way more investment in this race than polling would suggest (Scott chairs the NRSC), and while the Republicans did get a decent candidate in Tiffany Smiley (I'm sure Mitch McConnell wishes that she'd run in Arizona or Pennsylvania), Murray will cruise to another term and likely in the next six years become the longest-serving woman in the history of the Senate.
House: Two races to note-Rep. Kim Schrier (D) represents a Biden +7 district, which I don't think swings based on how well Schrier did in the jungle primary earlier this year, but it's worth noting that if the Republicans are doing well throughout the night, Schrier should be on your radar on the West Coast. And Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler's (R) primary defeat in the third district to election denier Joe Kent might have opened up a chance for the Democrats in a more favorable year...but Trump won this district by 5-points, I'm not buying that the Democrats have this in their wheelhouse for 2022.
West Virginia
House: West Virginia lost a seat in redistricting, which means that while both of their seats are blood red, they still have a loss for the Republicans at large and so this is an R-1 state for the GOP.
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| Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) |
Governor: I don't wanna-don't make me rate this race! As a Minnesotan, my dislike of Wisconsin magnifies every time they vote, because while they frequently do the right thing, just as often they don't, and as one of the nation's true bellwethers, it's always at a high cost when they don't. That's what is at stake here, where hard-right army veteran Tim Michels (R) appears to have the slightest of leads over incumbent Gov. Tony Evers (D), though it's so close as to have Marquette (the gold standard in Wisconsin) having the two men in a dead-even tie. I will be honest-there is no single governor's race on the map, perhaps no race period that I can think of that I want the Democrats to win more than this one. Michels, who has literally said "elect me and I'll make sure no Democrat can ever win again" has displayed deeply authoritarian rhetoric on the campaign trail, and Wisconsin's state legislature is gerrymandered to the point where it basically is apartheid (the only way Democrats can have a say is through winning the governor's mansion and four Supreme Court seats at the same time, which is hard to do in a swing state). I genuinely don't think there's a favorite here-nothing would surprise me as long as it's close, but I'm forcing myself to predict, and I think it's a red year. R+1 (I am BEGGING to be wrong here).
Senate: After spending much of the summer with Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes ahead, Sen. Ron Johnson has run a nasty campaign (i.e. it's been pretty damn racist), and has regained the lead. It's worth noting that Barnes has been the weakest Senate recruit in a major race this cycle-his fundraising hasn't kept up, and it's probable the Democrats should've gone with someone else like Rep. Ron Kind, who retired this year. It's Wisconsin, so counting out either side would be foolish, and there is some evidence that young voters are turning out at higher-than-usual rates in Wisconsin, but Barnes winning would be an upset this year, and I'm not predicting Democrats for upsets in 2022-Johnson gets another six years.
House: Redistricting dramatically hurt the Democrats in the third district, and Kind's retirement sealed the deal (I honestly think he would've had a better shot of staying in Congress running for the Senate than for reelection), so R+1.
Wyoming
House: Not a loss technically for the Democrats, but it has to be said that Rep. Liz Cheney's (R) primary loss will feel like a loss for the party at this point given her heroic work on the January 6th committee.
The Final Count
Governors: I am predicting a final count of 29R-21D for this election cycle, with the Democrats gaining Massachusetts & Maryland, but losing Wisconsin, Kansas, & Nevada in the process. The races I'm least confident about are Arizona, Kansas, & Wisconsin all of which I called as red (even though it was a last minute call, I feel like Kotek taking Oregon is probably more-likely than not as the race forms a two-party lane-Drazan peaked too early). I don't think Nevada is an actual tossup (I think Democratic turnout is too low there, and if they're going to take a race it'll be the Senate not the governorship), but there's enough uniquenesses in Kansas, Wisconsin, & Arizona that Democrats could conceivably net a seat this cycle, though thanks to their loss in Virginia last year, there's no chance they get a majority or even a tie for the most governorships.
Senate: I have predicted that the Democrats will get 49 seats and the Republicans will get 50 seats on Election Day, with the majority going to a runoff in Georgia that I won't begin to predict without the context of who will vote on Election Day. I think if someone wins the majority on election night it will be the Republicans, for the record; I fully intended to predict they win the Senate outright tomorrow until I finally gave in to my gut & changed my mind in Pennsylvania. I do not have confidence in my prediction that John Fetterman wins at all, and it's clear that the Republicans have gained back some momentum in Georgia & Arizona which could result in a surprise. Conversely, the only seat that I think I might be underestimating the left in is Nevada (Wisconsin, Ohio, & North Carolina read like pipe dreams in such a circumstance). At the time I'm writing this Jon Ralston is favoring Laxalt, which is why I am, because of abysmal turnout in Nevada, but this is also an election cycle where Democrats can wait until the last minute to vote in the Silver State...and they might (we don't have a lot of precedence for what's happening there). (Editor’s Note: Ralston ended up picking Cortez Masto, but I’m sticking with Laxalt-I see why, and it’s clear Dems are closing well, but I don’t trust the Independents here-if Dems win, we likely won’t know until this weekend). Anywhere from Democrats getting 47-51 Senate seats feels feasible, but my official prediction is that the Senate majority goes to a runoff, even if I'm preparing for the worst.
House: I am predicting that the Democrats lose the House of Representatives, likely with that causing the retirement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. There are a lot of What If's in the battle for the House, but I think the past month has had too much momentum to the Republicans due to the economy to be able to stave off a miracle the way they may well have in September. My final count (I did the math, so I believe I'm right here is) 229R-206D. This feels a bit too generous to the Democrats in my mind, and there are definitely races on the map (OH-9, MN-2, NV-1, IL-17, OR-6, PA-8, MI-7, & CA-22 specifically) I'm thinking that I may have been too generous to the left, but the legitimate amount of unease is going to leave me where I'm at. I do think the Republicans win the national House Popular Vote (meaning 2022 will not sit alongside 1996 & 2012 as a year where the majority of voters voted for Democrats but still didn't win the House), but it's something I'll be looking at given that number has not been consistent in polling.
And with that, I bid you good luck tomorrow, and make sure to vote, particularly if you're a Democrat who wants to prove me wrong!
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