Election Night Guide: Utah through Wyoming

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, Idaho-Louisiana, Maine-Montana, Nebraska-North Dakota, Ohio-Texas

(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)

Utah

President: Similar to Kansas, I do want to see what happens to the margins here.  Utah is the most college-educated state in the nation to go for Donald Trump in 2020, and you would assume that Harris will do better than Biden did as a result of her numbers with college-educated voters, even if she will still lose with them.

Governor: If Utah had midterm elections, I would be more interested in this race.  Gov. Spencer Cox (R) has made a lot of enemies (including Phil Lyman, who ran against him in the Republican primary and has endorsed his Democratic opponent Brian King), and in a less partisan environment, this would be a chance for the Beehive State to finally get a Democratic governor after a drought that goes back to 1980.  However, it's just not going to happen with Trump winning the state by double digits.

Senate: Expect a rightward shift in the Senate seat with Rep. John Curtis taking over for retiring Sen. Mitt Romney.  Romney has always been a bit of an over-hyped moderate (he's not Liz Cheney), but he definitely took some blue votes (like on Trump's impeachment and confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson) that Chuck Schumer won't rely upon with Curtis.

Vermont

President: An easy win for Harris in the bluest state in New England.

Governor: And like all New England states, it seems to fall in love with moderate Republican governors from time-to-time, with Gov. Phil Scott getting reelected to his fifth term as governor.

Senate: Man I wish that Sen. Bernie Sanders, who at 83 is WAY too old to be running for a fourth term, was retiring, but Sanders (like many politicians these days) does not seem to have the grace to give up the spotlight and will easily win another reelection. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)

Virginia

President: The Republicans seem to be in love with running a lot of misinformation about the Old Dominion (there is a persistent rumor right now online that Harris will be throwing cash at her campaign in the state and taking it away from North Carolina, which is categorically untrue).  She should handily take the state, and put those rumors to rest tomorrow.

Senate: She won't win by as much as Sen. Tim Kaine, though, who will hopefully be able to get at least one victory on the same night as the first female president since he couldn't do so 8 years ago.

House: There are two competitive races in Virginia for the US House, but I do think both favor the incumbent party.  For some reason pundits seem to think that VA-7, which is open due to the retirement of Rep. Abigail Spanberger (who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor), is a tossup.  Despite raising gargantuan sums of cash, Eugene Vindman (whose brother Alex was one of the primary reasons that Donald Trump was impeached, as it was based on his testimony) is neck-and-neck with attorney Derrick Anderson, who ran here in 2022.  Vindman has struggled to consolidate support after his primary, but the district went for Joe Biden by 7-points, and will go for Harris-I don't think Anderson is the kind of Republican who can overcome that.  On the flip side, VA-2 is much closer, but also shows a tight race.  If Harris wins by roughly the same margin as Biden did (about 2-points), I think Rep. Jen Kiggans (R) holds on with some crossover votes against a weaker opponent, Democrat Missi Cotter Smasal, but Harris does much more than that Smasal could gain steam.  I'll be honest-if you're looking for a canary-in-the-coal-mine among the earliest states to close the polls: if Trump is having a "sweep the Big 7" kind of night, Anderson probably is winning...if Harris is doing a "sweep the Big 7" night, look for an upset for Smasal.  As I'm predicting neither have a sweep, I'll stay status quo.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA)

Washington

President: Like Chicago is to Illinois, so is Seattle to Washington...both states basically ensure that they remain forever blue in the 21st Century.

Governor: Gov. Jay Inslee (D) is retiring, and while Republicans got their best candidate for this office in a while in former Rep. Dave Reichert, the losing streak that they have suffered for over 40 years will continue on Election Night as Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) wins.

Senate: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D), one of the lowest-profile members of the Senate, will win a fifth term in office.

House: Two years ago, the biggest surprise on Election Night 2022 was the surprise win by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) over businessman Joe Kent.  That was driven by Kent knocking the incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (who is running for Commissioner of Public Lands and will surely lose) out of office.  Perez was always going to be a challenge to hold this seat, but she has run an impressive campaign.  One big late-breaking wild card in the race is the attacks (presumably by MAGA extremists given it was in the bluest district in the state) on ballot boxes in the district, which might spur some Democrats off of the sidelines to support Perez in solidarity.  But this is a district Trump won by 4-points in 2020, and polling shows he's on pace to do that again.  It will be close, but I think Kent takes the rematch and we go R+1.

West Virginia

President: Once such a reliably blue state that it actually went for Mike Dukakis, West Virginia is the heart of Trump country, and will probably be his biggest statewide margin tomorrow night.

Governor: Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), who lost the US Senate race in 2018, will get redemption as he holds the governor's mansion tomorrow night in the Mountain State.

Senate: And tomorrow we will say goodbye to Sen. Joe Manchin (D/I), a man who was a perpetual thorn in the side of Democrats everywhere, but still paved the way for the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, & Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.  It's entirely possible when he is replaced tomorrow by Gov. Jim Justice, it will be the last time in most of our lifetimes that West Virginia has a Democratic senator. R+1

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Wisconsin

President: And it all comes down to Wisconsin.  The Badger State was the tipping point state in 2020 for Joe Biden, and it looks like our likeliest candidate for tipping point state in 2024.  Both sides are pushing hard here, and both sides have clear strengths and weaknesses.  The biggest issue for the Harris campaign is turning into Milwaukee, an area she will win easily, but where turnout is never as consistent or high as Madison (the other blue bastion in the state).  I am writing this article on October 29th, but I'm going on record as being stunned if Harris does not hit Milwaukee at least one more time before the end of the campaign to get stronger Black turnout.  The biggest issue for Trump, on the other hand, is the Milwaukee suburbs.  Again, this is an area that he will win, but the question is by how much.  The infamous WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, & Washington) have been the bedrock of Republican politics in the state for decades (Trump won them by 23-points in 2020).  But there's a lot of signs that Harris will over-perform in the midwestern suburbs, and there are clear signs of vote cracks in the WOW counties.  Waukesha, the largest of the three, gave Judge Janet Protasiewicz over 40% of the vote in 2023...if Harris got that, she'd have Wisconsin locked up.  I think that Harris's ground game will exceed Trump's clear problems convincing suburban voters to give him a third shot, and she will ultimately win, but not by much.

Senate: I think Sen. Tammy Baldwin will have an easier time, though Wisconsin has reverted to form and while she was once boasting gargantuan leads against businessman Eric Hovde, those have disappeared into a 2-3 point race.  That's probably where this ends, but Baldwin is able to hold the seat.

House: Democrats dropped entirely former Rep. Peter Barca in his comeback bid in WI-1, so don't expect any partisan changes there.  The bigger question is around WI-3, where controversial Rep. Derrick van Orden is in a tight contest with businesswoman Rebecca Cooke.  I think van Orden will under-perform Trump by a point or two given his many dust-ups in DC (and because the DCCC has stayed on the air here for Cooke), so the question becomes how much Harris can gain over Biden.  Both Protasiewicz & Gov. Tony Evers won here, but Ron Johnson did as well so it's a swing seat.  If Harris wins here, so does Cooke...but as I don't think Harris will, I'm going to bet on van Orden...but man do I want to call an upset here though as it feels like one is brewing. 

Wyoming

President: Our final state will be another, final red state landslide for Donald Trump.

Senate: In Wyoming, it's not clear yet whether or not they're just reelecting John Barrasso or if they're reelecting the next Republican leader...but they're certainly giving him a win.

The Lowdown

Governors: With the only flip that I called this year being in New Hampshire, the Democrats will go from 23 to 24 governorships, but will have to wait until 2025 to have a shot at a (tied) majority in Virginia.  No other race is at risk-New Hampshire is really the only question mark.

House: I have tallied it up, and I am going with 220 Democrats in the House to 215 Republicans, which would give Hakeem Jeffries a narrow (but winning) path to the Speaker's gavel.  The Republicans have room here.  A handful of races that I called for Team Blue (AK-AL, AZ-6, CA-27, IA-1, MI-7, MI-8, NY-19, & PA-8 specifically) feel like they are in true tossup territory, and the Republicans would only need to flip a couple of them to get to 218.  On the other hand, even a mild over-performance by Harris (maybe 1-2 points better than the polling averages) would result in 8-10 Republican-predicted seats (the most obvious being AZ-1, CA-45, IA-3, PA-10, WA-3, & WI-3) being in the blue.  I will say of the three big federal branches, the Democrats have the best shot at winning the House in my estimation.

Senate: The final count in the Senate would be 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats, with all of the Senate races matching my guess for the presidential victor.  If the Republicans do better than expected, you could conceivably see them picking off 1-3 of the Blue Wall states (Tammy Baldwin, Elissa Slotkin, & Bob Casey's races)...I don't think winning Nevada or Arizona is in the cards for them.  If the Democrats were to win the Senate, it would involve them matching polling in Ohio (the only true tossup of the bunch), and then it would really come down to them getting a mild upset in either Nebraska, Texas, Montana, or Florida (rated from most to least likely to be the flip).  If one of them flipped, it would be surprising but not insane surprising (i.e. it ain't like Trump winning Oregon levels of crazy), so a trifecta is still possible, but you shouldn't bet on it.  I think therefore it's likely that the next president will become the first POTUS to enter the White House without a trifecta since George HW Bush.

Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)

White House: If you've been following along closely, you know what I did here, but I am, based solely on my predictions, guessing that Vice President Kamala Harris will get exactly 270 electoral votes, the bare minimum she needs to win the White House.  A lot of the last few weeks have felt like the series finale of Donald Trump for President, a series that started with an escalator ride in 2015 that we have been forced to watch for nine years.  Whether or not he ultimately ends up the triumphant dictator at the end or the disgraced two-time loser/convicted felon we'll find out tomorrow (and more likely, into the rest of the week), but there would be a poetic justice in Trump losing the way that most thought he'd lose in 2016-with the Blue Wall holding together and providing just enough cushion to elect the first female president.

This gives me very little room if I'm wrong here.  I do think Harris has staked a lead and has the ground game to get victories in Michigan & Pennsylvania (if she loses either, she wasn't really close to winning in the first place), but Wisconsin feels like it could be where the break in the shields is for the Democrats.  On the flip side, in a world where Michigan/Pennsylvania go blue, she can win without Wisconsin as long as she takes North Carolina, Arizona, or Georgia (Nevada is also a true tossup, but doesn't really matter to the math if she wins PA/MI).  I think there's a real possibility that pollsters are not getting crossover votes in Arizona or end game Black turnout correct in Georgia, and either could end up going blue even if Wisconsin falls (Arizona, especially, feels like pollsters are about to repeat the infamous Katie Hobbs upset they couldn't call in 2022).  My gut for most of October was (similar to Nate Silver's) guessing a Trump victory...the past week (remember, I wrote this on October 29th), has changed my mind, and my gut & head are both guessing Harris.  I don't have confidence in that, I certainly wouldn't bet money on it, but officially it will be my final prediction that she will become the first woman to sit behind the Resolute Desk.

And with that, I will not only end this election night guide, but also this blog.  If you want to keep track of my movie takes, please feel free to follow me at Letterboxd where I promise to keep bringing in a variety of Oscar Viewing Project screenings (and sharing those via lists), as well as continue to watch & track movies old and new.  Otherwise, know that I have loved this blog for 12 years. It has been a place I have shared my passions, my joys, my hopes...and sometimes my fears, my regrets, and my loneliness.  Whether you have been here for one article or most of the 4200, I cannot express enough how much you letting my writing be a part of your life has meant to me.  While I leave it behind, this place has been truly a home when I really, really needed one, and though it is the right time for me to say goodbye, I do so with a longing heart.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.