I am doing a final predictions series for the November 8th midterm elections. If you've missed previous articles, they're listed right here: Alabama-Arkansas, California-Hawaii, Idaho-Louisiana, Maine-Montana
(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)
Nebraska
Governor: At some point Democrats who are looking to expand a map where some of their historically competitive swing states (Ohio, Florida, Iowa) have disappeared will need to look to places like Nebraska, with a growing metro area & a relatively sparely-populated rural area, with eager eyes. That won't be in a year that seems as friendly for Republicans as 2022, however, and University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen should win this open seat without much issue.
House: Earlier this year, Nebraska's 1st congressional district had a surprisingly close election in the wake of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision. However, I don't think that's going to be a problem for incumbent Rep. Mike Flood. Democrats are much more competitive in Nebraska's 2nd congressional district, and at some point this decade (unless they redraw the lines) this seat will become too blue for Republicans to hold-Rep. Don Bacon will either lose or retire. But I don't think that's an issue this year as State Sen. Tony Vargas doesn't have the kind of environment he can easily overcome.
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| Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) |
Governor: All right, here we go-the state that I am the most confused by of almost any state. Nevada is arguably the most important state on the map, and the one that consistently has a problem that virtually no other state has-it undercounts Democrats in major polling. This is a point-of-celebration for Democrats as they have shown incumbent-Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) slightly behind Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo (R), though within the margin-of-error. If it were a neutral environment, I'd probably bet on Sisolak making up the difference in the stretch (Nevada Democrats always keep it close, they rarely miss though, in some ways are the mirror of North Carolina for Republicans), but 2022 should favor Republicans and Sisolak seems to be in a slightly weaker position than Cortez Masto, so I'm going R+1.
Senate: Okay, so in my mind the Senate will come down to four contests: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, & Pennsylvania. Democrats need three of the four to win another two years leading the upper chamber. For most of this fall, I've assumed that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D), a former state Attorney General who is kind of the personification of a quiet backbencher in the Senate, is the most vulnerable of the four seats, and I think that's still accurate, and I'm going to therefore go with R+1 here; the last time the party in power didn't lose an incumbent senator in a midterm was 1934. That is too long of a streak to assume it ends randomly in 2022. However, I will say that that is a head decision-my gut says she's going to win for two reasons. One, early voting has been solid for Cortez Masto, though turnout has been rough (I reserve the right to change my mind here if Jon Ralston, the Silver State Oracle, says otherwise), and second, Cortez Masto has seen a noticeable gain in the polls in a state that is notorious for under-surveying Democrats. When I'm writing this (October 28th), she has just regained the lead from Adam Laxalt after being behind him for a month. If Cortez Masto wins, it'll be a huge testament to a fragile voting coalition delivering yet another hard-earned win...but my head won't let me predict such a win.
House: This leads us into the House, where Democrats gerrymandered the map enough so that they should be able to win three House seats. It's probable, in fact, that Cortez Masto will win 3/4 of the Nevada seats even if she loses the Senate battle. The question is if the Democrats can do that-Steven Horsford (4th) seems the most secure even if the 1st district was slightly bluer in 2020. That race features Rep. Dina Titus, who has run tough races but not in a decade, and polling indicates that she is in trouble. The most marginal seat belongs to Rep. Susie Lee (3rd), who is much more battle-tested than Titus, but has to run in a seat that went for Biden by just under 7-points. Given I'm predicting Sisolak & Cortez Masto lose, I'm going in for a penny, in for a pound, and predicting that while Titus barely survives, Lee gets swept out with the tide here against attorney April Becker. Similar to the Senate, though, I don't have confidence in that (CCM, Titus, & Lee could all win or all lose and I wouldn't be surprised at this point). R+1
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| Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) |
Governor: Gov. Chris Sununu was heavily courted by the NRSC to run for the US Senate seat in the Granite State, but refused. I personally think this might've been a bad move for Sununu's long-term career (I think he would've won the race), but it definitely shored up an easy win for the GOP in the governor's race, where he'll hold (albeit by a smaller margin than 2020).
Senate: Without Sununu in the race for the Senate, Sen. Maggie Hassan (who was Sununu's predecessor as governor) will take a victory lap as the Republicans have chosen arguably their worst candidate of the cycle, General Don Bolduc, as her opponent. Hassan is well-liked, and was always going to be a challenge for anyone other than Sununu to beat, but Bolduc's vocal endorsement of election conspiracy theories in a state that Joe Biden won by 7-points won't fly. Hassan gets another term, and Republicans may learn to regret abandoning this race as she becomes a more solidified incumbent in a state that likes them (and they'll be hard-pressed to find a better opponent than Sununu in the future).
House: It wasn't just the Senate where the Republicans dropped the ball. Republicans also nominated Karoline Leavitt in the 1st congressional district, who is deeply conservative and a 2020 election denier who worked in the White House. This has allowed Rep. Chris Pappas (D) to open up a small but consistent lead in New Hampshire. If we get a proper red wave, Pappas will lose (polls close early here, so if you see Pappas losing consider it a canary-in-the-coal-mine situation), but I am guessing the Republicans overplayed their hand here and Pappas gets another term in office. This is in part due to Chris Sununu insisting that they have two "competitive" districts in New Hampshire rather than just shoring up one for Republicans...this bet will result in two Democrats now.
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| Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) |
House: New Jersey is a weird type of gerrymander, because it's a gerrymander that's intended to result in a loss. Coming out of 2020, the Democrats were over-extended...they had won 10 of the state's 12 House seats, but a host of them were in very competitive races that the party wouldn't be able to hold without a favorable Democratic environment. Given gerrymandering 10 safe seats for Democrats in the state would be impossible, they essentially cut one of their incumbents (scandal-plagued incumbent Rep. Tom Malinowski) into a marginal district (Biden won it by 4-points) and gave Andy Kim, Josh Gottheimer, & Mikie Sherrill districts Biden won by double-digits. It's worth noting that Malinowski probably gained more from the Dobbs decision electorally than any other incumbent-his district seems tailor-made given it's filled with college-educated professionals who might hold their nose and vote for him (it's one of the wealthiest districts in the country) just to codify Roe (he's made a huge deal of it on the campaign trail for a reason), and I wouldn't be stunned if he beat State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr. on the latter's third attempt at Congress. But I'm not going to bet on it. R+1
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| City Councilor Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) |
Governor: I really have five governors races (KS, OR, WI, NV, & AZ) that are true tossups, and I've struggled to figure out who exactly will win. Of the Lean Democratic races, the one I'm least confident, about, though, is New Mexico. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has one of the better opponents (former TV weatherman Mark Ronchetti, who ran a solid campaign two years ago for the Senate), but polls have shown him struggling to connect in the blue state. I'm going with Lujan Grisham, but given the economy and the increasingly marginal wins we're seeing from Democrats in states with large Latino populations (specifically in Texas & Florida, but it's a problem nationally), I would assume this takes a while to call on election night.
House: Similar to Nevada, the Democrats risked a dummymander but in the process could run-the-table in the Land of Enchantment. Every district went for Biden by more than 5-points, none by more than 15-points. I think the 1st & 3rd are safe, but the 2nd, where Republicans have an incumbent, is a harder sell. Rep. Yvette Herrell actually was one-point behind City Councilman Gabe Vasquez in a recent New York Times poll, indicating that maybe we're underestimating just how effective this gerrymander is, but I think most Republican incumbents who made it through 2020 will hang on, even in new districts, in 2022, including Herrell.
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| Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) |
Governor: Polling has indicated that Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) who took over in the wake of Andrew Cuomo's resignation, is not safe but clearly the heavy favorite to beat Rep. Lee Zeldin (R). I'll be honest here-the Hochul stuff feels like it's manufactured to sell issues of the New York Post, and while he might hold Hochul to a marginal victory, she's going to win at the end of the day. It's worth noting that if Zeldin wins, he'd have the ability to pardon members of the Trump family if they're indicted in the ongoing court cases conducted by Attorney General Tish James.
Senate: Never, ever, ever bet against Chuck Schumer in New York. The man knows the state better than anyone, and in his first election since becoming Senate Leader, they won't be able to best him even if his margins will probably be just a little bit slimmer than they were before.
House: At one point, the Democrats looked like they'd clean up in New York, but the state Supreme Court overrode their gerrymander, putting the entire contest into chaos and making the Empire State potentially the downfall of Nancy Pelosi's shot at a fifth term as Speaker. I'm going to assume incumbents in the 2nd, 4th, & 11th districts are too entrenched to lose this year, and while NY-1 might've been competitive in a presidential race, Nicolas LaLota (R) will hold it with Zeldin at the top of the ticket. The 3rd is probably too blue to go red though it's worth watching, and the same should be said for recent special election winner Rep. Pat Ryan (D) in the 18th district. The final three seats are a different kettle-of-fish, though. Weeks after Marc Molinaro (R) lost the special election to Ryan, he's got a decent shot of winning the 19th district against Josh Riley (D), and I'm going to bet he redeems himself though this is a Biden district. The 22nd is also a Biden district, but it's one where the Republicans have done well down-ballot (it's currently held by Republican John Katko), and polling has been dreadful for Iraq War Veteran Francis Conole (D), who will lose to Navy veteran Brandon Williams (R). Perhaps the most embarrassing moment for the Democrats is in the 17th, where Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (and DCCC Chair) carpet-bagged to get an easier district for himself (he likely should've run in the 18th or 19th districts), and polling shows him in a tough position. I'm going to guess that Maloney barely wins (this seat went to Biden by 10-points), but this was needlessly humiliating for him, and probably stops him from ever holding major Dem House leadership again. This all adds up to D-1 (a lost seat due to redistricting) for a state that at one point it looked like Democrats would net 3-4 seats.
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| Bo Hines (R-NC) |
Senate: What happens when no one cares about one of the most important Senate races in the country? That's what's happening in North Carolina, where neither Rep. Ted Budd (R) or State Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley (D) have made a lot of connection with the electorate, with polls regularly showing 10-15% of the electorate undecided less-than-two-weeks before the election. Tie goes to the runner in these situations, and so I'm going with Budd because it's 2022 & this is a Trump state, but if this is a low turnout affair, Beasley shouldn't be discounted.
House: It's probable that Republican gains in the State Supreme Court will mean that this map only lasts for one year, but as it is, the Democrats got a fair map that will ensure Kathy Manning, Don Davis, & Jeff Jackson are all members of the next Congress, the latter two serving their first terms. The only truly competitive race is North Carolina's 13th congressional district, where former congressional intern Bo Hines (R) is running against State Sen. Wiley Nickel (D). Hines has received criticism for his inexperience (he's only 27), particularly after the disaster that has been Rep. Madison Cawthorn's time in Congress, but his seat only went to Biden by just under two points-I don't think Nickel can overcome a margin like that. Still, with the un-gerrymandered map, that still means D+1 thanks to Jackson & Davis getting victories.
North Dakota
Senate: Sen. John Hoeven is apparently up for reelection this year, and will win another term. That's all I have to say about one of the Senate's most low-key incumbents.
House: Rep. Kelly Armstrong has had an interesting race against former Miss America Cara Mund (I), a former Republican who has said she would caucus with the party (so no chance of a pickup for Democrats), but is pro-choice, and wants to provide North Dakotans a choice here. Armstrong will win, but I am genuinely curious how Mund does as there are no Democrats in this race & this is kind of the strategy the party is also trying in Utah (i.e. not necessarily winning the race, but winning an ally on a key issue).
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