I know. I disappeared again. As election season progressed, I just didn’t have much to say that I hadn’t already said. I will be glued to my laptop and TV from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, hoping that some sanity will prevail. I have no idea if that will be the case.
I updated my prediction model, taking into account what can safely be gleaned from early voting data. While the math tells me that Democrats have continued to gain ground and appear to be well-positioned, my gut keeps questioning the accuracy of my model. Perhaps the post-2024 revisions to my model are still inadequate. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve been burned before and I don’t want to be disappointed yet again. Or perhaps it’s the fact that my model doesn’t account for potential/probable GOP efforts to suppress, discount, and/or simply ignore Democratic votes. Or perhaps I’ve been drinking way too much coffee.
Anyway, below are my final takes followed by my election night “cheat sheet”.
U.S. Senate Races
My slightly updated analysis, in decreasing order of a Democratic win probability.
Democrats need to win 8 of the 13 races below to reach the 51 seats necessary to barely gain control of the Senate.
U.S. House Races
While the competitive House races do seem to be shifting toward Democrats across the board, I see little data that supports over-confidence. Hence, my 9/3 House analysis remains unchanged — but with the suggestion that Democrats have slightly increased their odds to pick up seats in all three categories. I only hope that Democrats won’t be sorry that they stretched their resources to try to win additional seats.
Democrats need to win 20 of the 36 races below to reach the 218 seats necessary to barely gain control of the House.
Election Night Cheat Sheet
On election night, I’ll be popping between various livestreams and websites. FWIW, my two core sources will likely be the AP’s election results website and Steve Kornacki’s election night analysis streaming via NBC News. The AP provides a good, central hub to track votes as they are reported and races as they are called across the country. Kornacki is a true data geek who can help to identify trends as they appear, even before races are called by the various networks and services.
Personally, I’ll be tracking election returns in 25 states that contain the most competitive races in this election. While we won’t have a complete picture for a while, we’ll likely have a decent understanding of trends by the early hours of Wednesday.
Below is what I’ll use to keep track of election results. The states are ordered by when I expect various races to be called… with a few caveats:
- The “Likely Call By” times below are rough estimates. Results could come quicker; results in this election could easily take longer.
- All states follow their own rules for when/how they count/report votes; incomplete results are meaningless without context. (Kornacki is usually pretty good about giving said context.) As just one example, Harris County in Texas will likely report their votes dead last. However, it has one of the state’s largest populations AND it tends to vote heavily Democratic.
- Many states will take days to complete their vote counting and nothing is final until the votes are certified by the states later in November. I expect considerable litigation beforehand.
All times below are CST.
I’ll also be following the state races that I’ve previously discussed in Texas and other states.
It’s gonna be a long night with lots of coffee. When I switch to alcohol sometime on Wednesday, it’ll hopefully be to celebrate.