I am doing a final predictions series for the November 5th general elections. If you've missed previous articles, they're listed right here: Alabama-Arkansas, California-Hawaii
(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)
Idaho
President: There are several red states that could become slightly more competitive in the years to come, but Idaho ain't one of them (even though I do look for it to gain more electoral college power in 2030).
Illinois
President: Harris gains another large bright blue prize in the Land of Lincoln.
House: Proving how effective its gerrymander is at this point, Illinois doesn't look to be hosting any competitive House contests. At some point the dam might break on Eric Sorensen in the only mildly blue 17th, but it won't be in a presidential year.
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| State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick (D-IN) |
President: For every Democrat who briefly said "what if Harris is our next Obama...could we have 2008 again?" and then got back to reality, even they didn't mean that we'd repeat his Indiana upset. Another easy call for Trump.
Governor: Idaho to Louisiana is going to be our simplest run for this cycle, as there's virtually no competitive races in this bunch outside of Iowa, and so this is also our shortest article. But it is worth noting that in Indiana, we have an interesting race for governor even if not a truly competitive one. The DGA has gone in with late spending for State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick, who is running for the open governor's race against Sen. Mike Braun. We talked extensively about this race here, but the biggest update since then is that McCormick has clearly gained ground. Limited polling here shows Braun with only a single digit lead, though still very much a lead, and he has been hounded by McCormick on a number of issues, the biggest of which is abortion, which Braun's running-mate Micah Beckwith making it impossible to really run-to-the-middle even if he'd want to on the issue given Beckwith's arch-conservative views. Braun will win, but this will not be called as quickly as Trump's victory, and is a race that in the closing days the Democrats' are at least trying to score an upset.
Senate: Rep. Jim Banks (R) did the impossible this year. He ran a competent, no frills primary and has run a low-to-the-ground general election without attracting any negative attention, something in the MAGA era is a true miracle. He'll be rewarded with an easy promotion to the Senate.
House: At some point the demographics shifts in Frank Mrvan's 1st district are going to catch up with him. There's a certainty that Kamala Harris loses ground in this 8-point Biden seat given how much of it is working-class white voters (one of the few blue districts you can still say that about), maybe even losing it outright, but I don't think Mrvan is in true danger in 2024. Watch this space in 2026, though.
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| Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) |
President: I am still going to get nervous about the Selzer poll to see what the margin is (Ann Selzer is our electoral Nostradamus), but I won't be sweating here like in some past elections-Trump has this locked in.
House: Where I will be interested is what happens in the House elections. The 1st and 3rd districts host the only two true tossup elections in this group of states. Both districts are seats that barely went for Donald Trump in 2020, and while they aren't targeting them in the presidential campaign, either or both of them could flip to Harris in 2024. The 1st district comprises the metropolitan area of the Quad Cities, as well as Iowa City (home of the University of Iowa), while the 3rd district covers much of the Des Moines metro area as well as the area surrounding Council Bluffs, so both areas with blue amid a lot of red farmland. The 3rd should be the easier lift, given it's bluer, and indeed Lanon Baccam has taken the lead in Democratic partisan polling against incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn, but arguably State Rep. Christina Bohannan (who ran in 2022) is running the better campaign against Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Bohannan has also taken the lead in polling). Miller-Meeks is basically an accidental congresswoman (she lost three races before finally winning in an upset in 2020) whom gerrymandering helped lock up. I will be honest-I think the Democrats get one of these seats, but am not entirely sure which, and am not ballsy enough to guess them for both (even though that's totally on the table, as is a Republican lock out, especially if Trump wins both seats). This is the spot that I'll be watching the closest for late-polling, specifically from Selzer (which would be enough to change my mind if she shows, say, Baccam leading but not Bohannan), but similar to Arizona I'm going to split the difference and bet Miller-Meeks loses while Nunn survives, giving us a D+1.
Kansas
President: I am genuinely curious on the margin here. After Utah, Kansas is the most college-educated state that has gone for Donald Trump in both elections, and the burgeoning Kansas City metro area, where much of the state's population growth is, is going to be a problem long-term for the GOP here. But it'll be blue in 2024, and by double digits.
Kentucky
President: Kentucky may have a Democratic governor, but that's not enough to help here (and wouldn't have been if Harris had picked Andy Beshear, so Andy-lovers calm down). Another 8 electoral college votes for Donald Trump.
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| State Sen. Cleo Fields (D-LA) |
President: And we'll finish off a list of Trump states (only Illinois gives Harris any love in our third article in the series) with Louisiana getting an easy victory for the GOP.
House: I said above that the only really competitive seats on this list were the two races in Iowa, but that doesn't mean they're the only flips on this list. Mid-decade redistricting, caused by the Supreme Court agreeing with the Voting Rights Act (still shocked by that) meant that Louisiana drew a second blue district. Rep. Garret Graves drew the short straw (a political enemy of Governor Jeff Landry, Landry seemed a bit over-eager to get rid of Graves even if it meant a Democrat joined the race), and so the 6th district will elect an old name to the House. Cleo Fields, a Louisiana political fixture for decades who was in the House for two terms in the 1990's will return to Congress. Slight editorializing (I can't help it), but Fields return to the national stage is not being celebrated by me, given that he basically cost the Democrats the governor's mansion in 1995, and he has repeatedly been involved in financial scandals through the years (not a good look for a House Democratic caucus that has had a zero tolerance policy to controversy), but it's inevitable at this point, and at least it's a D+1.
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