I initially wanted to do a giant four-part run of the "State of the Race" articles for the White House, Senate, House, and Governors mansions, giving you a final top ten list that would lead into our biannual election night guide I start publishing in late October. Transparently-I don't foresee a world where, even if I get better right away (sending a silent prayer into the universe), I will be able to prioritize four such articles because I am behind in so many aspects of my life as a result of basically just putting my life on hold, and I just can't justify that kind of time commitment before the end of the month. However, I do want a "state of the race" before we have to do the official "locked in" predictions, so I'm going to look at this a little bit differently. I am going to predict, if I had a gun to my head, what I think would happen as of today, and talk through both what this would mean and what races I think are the most swingy of the Tossups on the map. These are by no means final predictions-several of these races are true tossups, and in some cases, that's enough to change who wins the majority...but as of now here's where I'm at.
In December, I wrote a lengthy (and for me, disturbing) article about how Donald Trump had become the frontrunner. Despite the Democratic nominee literally changing, I have not officially altered that stance...until now. If the election were held today, I would assume that Kamala Harris would become the United States' first woman president...albeit in a race that was competitive enough that I would not say that sentence with much confidence.
As you can see, I have eight states & one congressional district (Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, & Nebraska-2) as "Leans" in this map, which is the lowest rating I'm allowing myself. Don't confuse that with all nine of these being tossups, however. If I allowed myself Tossups, I still would keep Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, & Nebraska-2 at their designations. Michigan has always been the bluest of the seven signature "swing" states, and to some degree it feels like Trump is giving up there. Wisconsin is much swingier, but the combination of a surprisingly strong push from Tim Walz (VP's don't matter until they do) and a really strong winning streak as long as you aren't named Mandela Barnes makes me feel confident that, in the end, Wisconsin Democrats make this happen. Hometown advantage also may help Tim Walz (who is governor of Minnesota but grew up in the Cornhusker State) in Nebraska, where the bigger question is whether or not the Democrats can finally get the House seat there. And Florida is usually going to Florida...but it's clear that Trump has pissed off older voters there (specifically older women) and getting Haitian-Americans (a decent-sized voting bloc in the Sunshine State) furious at you is a tough spot to be in.
The five remaining states (Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, & Arizona) are the true tossups. They vary in shapes and sizes, and if we're being truly transparent, even in terms of being a tossup (I think Arizona is the reddest of the five states based on polling, Nevada the bluest based off of polling & also its long history of breaking late for the Democrats), but they're all tossups. A few things are in both camps' favor as they try to win these states (it's probable that Harris will need at least two of these, Trump for sure three, possibly four). Despite near constant bad news cycles, Trump has not broken in polling here, and though Harris carries a lead in some of these states' averages (Nevada & Pennsylvania, specifically), enough that she'd win if she won in every state she leads in their average, all five states are within a point on 538. That Harris can't get past Trump in these states indicate the game is still in-play. Trump also sustains a robust amount of support from Latino voters. Recent ABC polling showed Harris with 60% of Latino voters compared to Trump with 37%; for comparison's sake, Clinton got 66% to Trump's 28% in 2016 and Biden got 65% to Trump's 32% with Latino voters in 2020. If Trump is cracking 35% with Latino voters, he is probably going to be the next president. If I was the Harris camp, this would be the number that would scare the crap out of me and I'd be working the hardest to change.
On the flip side, Harris has a few assets that Trump won't be able to duplicate in the coming weeks. She's far more active than he is, doing events every day (he does 1-2 a week). That doesn't always move the needle much, but it can, especially with creating momentum in states with early voting (that'll start over the next week in some states). She has a significant cash advantage, which she can use to shape the field (I would imagine we'll hear of ads going up in pink territory like Florida, Texas, & Alaska, mostly to make Trump sweat but also to see if she can win a lottery ticket somewhere). She's also the "change" candidate, a tricky feat for an incumbent VP, and people like change. She has a much more popular running-mate, and you can tell it on the campaign trail. Walz has been used profusely in their marketing, and is going after a very specific type of white, moderate voter that will be critical in winning a few of these states; it's also likely at this point that Walz, and not Harris, will get the final major moment of the campaign with the VP debate potentially the last debate of the season unless Trump changes his mind.
And lastly-Harris has women. The VP candidate has not made a big deal about the fact that she would be the first woman president, certainly not in the same way that women like Geraldine Ferraro & Hillary Clinton did in the past (hell, not even like Harris did in 2020). But the energy is there in the record small-dollar donations you're seeing from women. I do think if Latino voters are the under-discussed voting bloc of the Democratic campaign, for Republicans it's them hemorrhaging support for women through picking a ticket that can't appeal to them at all (Trump & Vance). If Harris wins, I wouldn't be stunned if she did so on the backs of a lot of women, including older white women, who wanted to send a very unique message against Trump, but also who thought their dream of a female president in their lifetimes died when Hillary Clinton lost and they were not going to let a second chance go to waste.
The Lowdown: Harris is favored, though not by enough for the Democrats to be comfortable.
All cycle, the Democrats have had one truly silver lining. Even in the depths of Joe Biden's campaign post the June debate, their blue/purple-state Senate candidates have been a beacon. Polling has shown a bizarre gap between the Senate candidates in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, & Nevada and the presidential ticket, and even with Harris running...that gap hasn't really closed. This is resulting in a bizarre situation right now-there are virtually no Tossup races for control of the US Senate.
In the map, I have eight states marked as "Lean" (Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, & Nevada). But if I were allowing myself the crutch of a "Tossup" status, the only state I would put in that position is Ohio. Sen. Sherrod Brown is trying to do something that only Susan Collins has done in the past eight years-win a Senate seat in a state we know his presidential ticket isn't going to be successful. Polling shows that Brown can do this, but right now I remain skeptical that he will, and it's possible that this is one of those races I will be sitting in the pessimistic minority until a network anchor tells me otherwise. But Brown has run a perfect race, and Republican Bernie Moreno has regularly made mistakes on the campaign trail...this is a winnable race, but I will admit the closer we get to actual voting, the more I worry that Brown is another Kay Hagan or Claire McCaskill where polling was rosier than reality.
The blue Lean seats all feel pretty safe to me. Republicans are spending a fortune against Bob Casey, but he should be fine even if its his smallest voting margin ever. Jacky Rosen & Ruben Gallego have both proven to be wizards in their states (and their Republican opponents are both jokes)...they should be fine even if Harris loses there. Tammy Baldwin is having an easier time than Casey (less GOP interest), and Elissa Slotkin, who is the closest of the five, has kept a consistent lead over Mike Rogers in Michigan. With the Trump campaign abandoning the Wolverine State, I don't see how Rogers finds a way to get a win here, even if Slotkin only wins by a couple of points.
On the flip side, you have Florida & Montana. If there's one incumbent Democrat who is clearly an underdog at this point, it's Jon Tester. Tester has been behind in a variety of polls, though high-quality polling in Montana is incredibly hard to come by. Tester has been behind in polling before and still won (in 2012 specifically), but he's in a tough spot, and unlike Brown, it's hard to call this a tossup, even if it's winnable for the Democrats. Florida is a race that seems to be closing into a tossup if Harris is also within reach of Florida. I assumed at the outset of this cycle that this was the election where Rick Scott actually won a race by more than a point, and he probably will, but Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has run a good enough campaign that I think if there's a Democratic Senate underdog that materializes on Election Night (like Heidi Heitkamp 2012 or Jon Ossoff 2021), it'd be her. The only other races remotely close are Texas and Maryland, but while the challengers are putting in a solid showing, the states are not flipping in a presidential cycle.
The Lowdown: The Republicans are heavy favorites to win the Senate, though their margin is still up for debate.
It's a presidential cycle, so honestly there's only a handful of races to begin with, an though some contests I'm curious about the end margins (looking at you Utah & Indiana), there's only two remotely close races, and really...there's only one.
If I had given myself the "Tossup" margin for one of my two "Leans" races, I'd have given it to New Hampshire. The race between former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) and Mayor Joyce Craig (D) is late-breaking, and Ayotte seems to have a nominal lead. There are two reasons I assume that she'll ultimately lose, though. First is that the state will go to Kamala Harris. Polling shows that Harris is up in the Granite State, by a margin that will mean Trump won't compete there, and coattails in these situations can be real. In 2016, Chris Sununu (R) won the open governor's race by 2-points while Hillary Clinton was winning the state (i.e. ticket-splitting is possible), but in this case Clinton was winning the state by less than half a percentage point. Harris looks poised to win the state by 7-9 points...that's a much different margin, and honestly feels too hard for Ayotte to make up, especially given the former senator comes with a legislative track record Craig can attack. There's also that Sununu has been governor for 8 years. In a blue state, are they really going to follow a Republican with a Republican in such a circumstance...generally that would be a recipe to revert to form and go blue.
North Carolina should be competitive, had the Republicans nominated a decent candidate. But Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has been nothing short of a trainwreck (it's hard to tell whether or not Robinson or Kari Lake has been worse, but it's one of them who gets the title of worst candidate of the cycle), and polling shows him getting clobbered by Attorney General Josh Stein. Similar to New Hampshire, this should be a situation where after 8 years of the Democrats in charge the Republicans get a chance to run this generally red state, but Stein is a heavy favorite, and honestly seems to be helping the rest of the ticket (Rep. Jeff Jackson has opened up a 7-point lead in the AG race). It's possible Stein wins by 10-points and Harris wins by 1-point in the Tarheel State...both equally impressive victories.
The Lowdown: Democrats win another seat, but are shy of a majority headed into 2025, where Virginia will decide if they can get to 25+ governor's mansions for the first time since 2009.
So far we have 7 Tossups in the above three battles, which is an insanely small number (and maybe I'm not being generous enough with the term). Introducing the House elections we're going to grow that, but I feel weird in saying by how much. House polling this cycle has been insanely limited, and if you throw out partisan House polling, basically nonexistent. I am therefore basing this on intuition and top-of-the-line polling more than anything else.
As you can see from the photo to the left, I am currently predicting a modest Democratic House majority, driven largely by Democrats gaining back red territory they lost or couldn't gain back despite Biden taking the district in 2020. This is in states like New York, California, Oregon, and Arizona. In order for this to be true, you need a strong Democratic Party, not just a strong year for Harris. In 2020, Biden left a significant number of seats on the table that he could win, but the Democrats down-ballot could not, and it nearly cost Nancy Pelosi her Speaker's gavel. I think Democrats are stronger down-ballot partially because of Dobbs and partially because it's clear that Trump is a bigger threat in 2024 (and they're less likely to split tickets).
Because of limited polling, calling out a "true" Tossup here is silly. You could make a sincere argument that 30+ races are competitive, but in terms of true "tossup" if I allowed myself that here...I'm going to go with 11 races that feel totally up-in-the-air. Those are AZ-1, AZ-6, CA-27, CA-41, ME-2, MI-7, NJ-7, NY-17, NY-19, PA-8, & PA-10. There are lots of other seats that could flip, but I think who I am predicting makes enough sense that I don't think they're tossups, but instead have at least the slimmest of favorites. These 11, though, I could see going any direction, and if I were looking for candidates to donate to, I'd make it these eleven as they're the races that will probably decide the majority this fall.
The Lowdown: If Harris is winning the White House, she's probably carrying a Democratic House majority with her...though down-ballot House Republicans aren't as polarizing as Trump, so the job is harder.
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