The 2022 elections aren’t quite finalized yet, but I thought I’d go ahead and post a quick post-mortem – summarizing the winners & losers in addition to evaluating my own projections as reflected in my Final 2022 Election Analysis post.

U.S. House

My projection:  “While I don’t see as massive of a ‘red wave’ as others, the GOP will end up with a solid majority in this chamber.”

There certainly was not a red wave.  The GOP will likely end up about four seats north of the 218 necessary to own the chamber.  While that’s a pretty thin margin, 218 was all they needed to fully control the agenda and the committees.  Kevin McCarthy will have a tough time managing the various factions of his party – assuming he even gets the final nod as Speaker.  The coming dysfunction will be fascinating… in a train wreck sort of way.

I’m hopeful that the imminent flood of revenge-driven investigations and impeachment votes will go largely unreported in the media and that everyone will eventually at least try to provide reasonable oversight and address some real problems.

I’m also shadowing a leprechaun that I spotted yesterday and I’m hopeful that he’ll lead me to his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

U.S. Senate

My contrarian data-intensive projection:  “I still think Democrats have a very slight advantage here.”

My model was quite accurate here, with all of my Likely R/D and Lean R/D projections being correct.  Of my three Toss-Ups, there’s been one D win, one R win, and one that’s still a Toss-Up.  Here’s a color-coded version of my projection table:

Democrats will retain control of the Senate with either a 50 or 51 seat majority – hopefully the latter, with Warnock winning the Georgia Senate runoff.

State Legislatures

My admittedly data-free projection:  “my rough guess at the moment is that this cycle will see no major flips in the control of state legislatures for either party.”

I was a bit off here, but not by a lot.  The number of flips were minimal, but the overall Democratic performance was still impressive.

Over the past 120 years, an average of 12 state chambers have flipped party control after each election cycle.  This year, only four chambers flipped… and all flipped from red to blue.  Democrats lost no legislative chamber that they previously controlled – a feat that the president’s party hasn’t accomplished in a mid-term election since 1934.

Democrats made some significant gains:

• Michigan:  Democrats won control of both chambers. (Republicans previously controlled both chambers).
• Pennsylvania:  Democrats won control of the State House. (Republicans previously controlled both chambers).
• Minnesota:  Democrats won control of both chambers. (Republicans previously controlled the State House).
• Vermont:  Democrats won a super-majority in both chambers, allowing them to override the Republican Governor’s veto.  (Democrats previously held only a House super-majority.)

On the other hand, Republicans tightened their grip on a few state chambers that they already controlled:

• Florida:  Republicans won super-majorities in both chambers.
• Iowa: Republicans won a super-majority in the State Senate.
• South Carolina:  Republicans won a super-majority in the State House.
• North Carolina:  Republicans won a super-majority in the State Senate.  (However, Republicans failed to win a super-majority in the State House which would have allowed the GOP to override the Democratic Governor’s veto.)
• Wisconsin:  Republicans won a super-majority in the State Senate.  (However, Republicans failed to win a super-majority in the State House which would have allowed the GOP to override the Democratic Governor’s veto.)

There are also a couple of outstanding state legislative results:

• New Hampshire:  Republicans are likely to retain control of both state legislative chambers.  However, there are 28 (!) ongoing recounts after which the State House could conceivably flip to Democratic control.
• Alaska:  Control of the State House is still in question as votes are still being counted.  Republicans & Democrats currently share control of the chamber.

Governors

My contrarian data-intensive projection:  “definitely a mixed bag but not necessarily the absolute disaster we’re being led to believe.”

My model was fairly accurate here, with a slight over-performance by Democrats.  All of my Likely R/D & Lean D projections were correct, but one of my Lean R projections was won by the Democrat.  Of my five Toss-Ups, there were four D wins and one R win.  Here’s a color-coded version of my projection table:

As for the interesting state trifectas (Governor + State Senate + State House):  The Democratic wins in Maryland and Massachusetts gave both states Democratic trifectas. The Democratic wins in Michigan and Minnesota (plus the state legislative flips) gave both states a Democratic trifecta.  Democrats also kept their existing trifectas in Maine, New Mexico, and Colorado.

The Democratic win in Arizona broke the existing GOP trifecta.  The Republican win in Nevada broke the existing Democratic trifecta.

Secretaries of State

Given the lack of publicly available data in these races, I didn’t even attempt SoS projections and simply noted the important races that I was following.  Here’s a color-coded version of that table:

The very good news is that most of the 2020 election-denying idiots lost their SoS races.

Bottom Lines

Democrats did significantly better than most pundits predicted.  Democrats even slightly out-performed my own projections.

The primary Democratic loss was control of the U.S. House.  Democrats did better than expected.  But they still lost.  However, without partisan gerrymanders, Democrats could well have held the chamber.  While both parties are guilty of gerrymandering, Republicans are much better at it.  The GOP gained numerous seats in Florida, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio by aggressively redrawing district maps in their favor, which were then backed by sympathetic state courts.  Democrats gained a few seats in New Mexico, Oregon, and Maryland but, to their naive credit, had passed anti-gerrymandering reform measures in many large Democratic states such as California, New Jersey, Washington, Colorado, and Virginia.  Democrats did try to gerrymander New York, but that map was struck down by a state judge as too partisan and replaced with one that favored Republicans.  Well done, guys.

Pre-election, I was profoundly worried about state-level GOP officials or GOP-controlled legislatures having both the power and desire to curtail voting rights and/or overturn the results of the 2024 general election in their respective states.  While it’s tough at this point to declare which states might be in-play in 2024, here’s a list of possibilities along with a party control summary for the state-level election power centers.  I’m also including my own current level of concern, based on the players and their histories:

In short, while I remain cautious about election integrity in some states, there are no in-play states that currently rise to a “High” level of concern in my book.  And that’s great news for democracy.

In premature anticipation of Georgia once again being the deciding factor in party control of the Senate, I’d started writing down my thoughts on the 12/6 runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.

However, with the win in Nevada by Catherine Cortez Masto over Adam Laxalt, Democrats will retain control of the Senate even without Georgia!  I am absolutely thrilled that my NV fears proved to be unfounded.  While Democrats still need to fight hard to win in Georgia, the Georgia Senate race is no longer the doorway between Good and Evil.  (And that’s only a slight exaggeration.)

Thus, although I fully intended to seriously edit and mold this disjoint collection of Peach State musings into a shorter, more coherent, and moderately well-structured post, that’s just not happening now.  You’re getting my fairly raw, stream-of-consciousness notes.  Live with it.

Runoff Importance

Democrats will maintain their Senate majority with or without the Georgia Senate seat.  That does not, however, mean that the race is unimportant.

In addition to padding their majority so that no one Democratic Senator can dictate policy (ala Joe Manchin), there is a major structural advantage to having 51 seats as opposed to 50.  In the latter case, the VP can break a tie on the floor of the Senate – and was often called upon to do so.  However, seats on Senate committees are not distributed using the VP’s vote.  Currently, the seats on all Senate committees are evenly split between both parties.  This has resulted in the committees being largely hamstrung with tie votes.  In turn, many things that could have been resolved in committees required action on the Senate floor – an inevitable, but time-consuming process that Republicans have used to significantly delay progress.

That one extra vote could make things a whole lot easier for Senate Democrats over the next two years.

Georgia Politics

Despite the fact that both of Georgia’s current U.S. Senators are Democrats, let’s be clear:  Both of them barely won their runoff elections in 2020 primarily due to the Orange Guy’s obsession with overturning his own loss in Georgia.  While I won’t discount the phenomenal strides that Democrats have made in Georgia (more on that in a moment), the Georgia GOP owns a state trifecta – the Governor’s office and both legislative chambers – in addition to the offices of the Lt. Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General.

Democrats are the red-shirted extras on the set of the Georgia Enterprise who managed to land a couple of guest-starring roles while everyone was watching an executive producer try to bang the whole special effects department on the craft services table. (Go ahead. Parse THAT analogy.)

With a decent GOP Senate candidate in a mid-term election with an unpopular Democratic President, Warnock should have been easily beatable in Georgia.

However, the Orange Guy once again stepped in to declare that Walker should be the 2022 GOP Senate nominee with the sole “logic” being that the best choice to defeat a black pastor would be a black sports figure who pledged orange fealty.  Of course, the black citizens of Georgia aren’t stupid.  Only 8% of black voters in Georgia chose Walker.  Black women were even less impressed, giving Walker only 5% of their votes.

On the other hand, 70% of white Georgians voted for Walker.  Of particular interest is that 88% of self-identifying white evangelicals voted for the morally bankrupt Walker over the guy with a friggin’ doctorate in theology who is a pastor of one of Atlanta’s most revered Baptist churches.  While that incredible hypocrisy no longer surprises me, it still irritates my soul.

The Democratic Renaissance in Georgia

The 2020 elections saw Democrats make considerable gains in organization, enthusiasm, and voter registration.  That surge was largely led by Stacey Abrams and her Fair Fight PAC.  While she lost her own 2018 and 2022 bids for Governor, her efforts were uniquely instrumental in the 2020 Democratic wins in Georgia for President and for both Senate seats.  Her importance to the Georgia Democratic Party cannot be overstated.  However, while she is extremely smart, she can often be polarizing and is perceived as a bit too overtly ambitious – even for a professional politician.  She publicly sought Biden’s VP nod when such lobbying is generally frowned upon; she seriously overplayed her hand when pursuing some initially valid concerns about the fairness of her first Governor’s race; she allowed herself to be cast as a guest star in “Star Trek: Discovery” as the President of United Earth.

Still, Abrams’ involvement and full-throated support is absolutely essential to Warnock’s runoff campaign.  It’s likely that she could single-handedly deliver (or de-motivate) the Black Woman vote – which is perhaps the Georgia Democratic Party’s most loyal constituency.  Since Abrams is undoubted disheartened by her own election loss, Georgia and national Democrats should quickly give this woman something to keep her deeply involved.

Walker’s Georgia Bona Fides

This really needs to be made a bigger issue that it’s been.

Yes, Walker won the Heisman in 1982 while playing for the University of Georgia.  Got it.  His campaign repeats this one resume item like he cured cancer while walking on the moon.  Damn, folks.  He won a college sports award 40 years ago!  Give it a rest.

After leaving college (without graduating), Walker quickly bolted from Georgia.  He spent three seasons playing for the USFL’s New Jersey Generals until that league folded.  He then played for the Dallas Cowboys for two years before being traded to the Minnesota Vikings, then to the Philadelphia Eagles, then to the New York Giants, and finally back to the Dallas Cowboys as a backup.  His 12-year NFL career was unremarkable and, notably, the Atlanta Falcons were NOT one of his pitstops.  Walker has no Super Bowl ring and, in fact, only saw the field in five playoff games for a combined 28 carries resulting in a grand total of 132 yards and zero touchdowns.  Woo.

And, by the way, in second place for the 1982 Heisman?  John Elway and his TWO Super Bowl rings.  So much for the Heisman’s prediction of NFL success.

Walker retired to Westlake, Texas and didn’t move back to Georgia until 2021 – specifically to establish residency for his Senate run.  His response to being called a carpetbagger?  “I think the people made a mistake by saying I’m not a Georgian. I’ve always thought about Georgia. I’ve lived in Georgia.”

Hey, I used to live in Germany and I still think about it.  Scheisse!  Does that mean I’m German?

Walker is an Idiot

While this topic has at least been raised, it needs to be hammered home during the runoff campaign.  Here’s just a few quotes, provided without commentary:

• On climate change mitigation:
  • “A lot of the money is going into trees. We’ve got enough trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?”
• On pollution:
  • “Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air, so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we got we to clean that back up.”
• On women’s Issues:
  • “This economy is tough because they gotta buy groceries.”
• On Georgia being ranked in the bottom half of states in education, health care, crime, environment, etc.:
  • “If it’s the worst state, why are you here? Why don’t you leave? Go to another – there’s, what, 51 more other states that you can go to?”
• On his custom COVID solution:
  • “You know, right now I have something that can bring you into a building that would clean you from COVID as you walk through this dry mist.  As you walk through the door it will kill any COVID on your body. When you leave the building it will kill the virus.”
• On school shootings, less than two days after the Uvalde incident:
  • “Cain killed Abel and that’s a problem that we have. What we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation — what about getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that and we can stop that that way. But yet they want to just continue to talk about taking away your constitutional rights. And I think there’s more things we need to look into. This has been happening for years and the way we stop it is putting money into the mental health field, by putting money into other departments rather than departments that want to take away your rights.”

Walker is a Liar

Not only is Walker a compulsive liar, he’s a laughably bad liar.  Seriously.  If you’re inclined to lie at all, why on Earth would you choose to lie about things that are quite easy to verify?  Here’s just a few highlights:

• “If you have a child with a woman, even if you have to leave that woman — even if you have to leave that woman — you don’t leave that child.”
• “As a Christian, a father, and a husband, Herschel knows that strong families are the bedrock of our country.” [from his website]
  • While basing his campaign on a “family values” schtick, he assumed that the media wouldn’t find out that the fathered not one, but four children by different women and has been largely uninvolved in their lives.  He assumed that the media wouldn’t find out that he also paid for one or more abortions.  As the details trickled out, he just continued to lie.  He lied about it to his own campaign.  He lied about it after his own son called him out as a liar and a horrible father.  Well beyond the considerable moral issues here, the blatant lies in the face of hard evidence are impossible to defend.
• ‘I … was in the top 1% of my graduating class in college.”
  • He was not.  He never even graduated from college.
• “I worked for law enforcement, y’all didn’t know that either?”
  • Walker has variously and repeatedly claimed to be a sheriff, a peace officer, and an FBI agent – often brandishing fake badges as “proof”.  The Georgia Sheriff’s Association had to release a statement that the honorary badge Walker flashed in a debate has “no specific law enforcement authority.”  They went on to say that they’ve now stopped handing them out, fearing they could be used to impersonate a police officer – which is a felony in Georgia.
• “My mom just told me that my grandmother was full-blood Cherokee.  So I’m Native American!”
  • No, he’s not.  Walker has offered no proof and none of the Cherokee tribes recognize any family connection whatsoever.  Where are the Republicans who lambasted Elizabeth Warren for her similar claims?
• “I’m this country boy.  I’m not that smart.”
  • Well, okay.  I’ll give him that one.

Runoff Analysis & Gameplan

I briefly considered building a new predictive model for the GA runoff election before quickly realizing that there’s only data point that matters:  The very recent state-sponsored “poll” that was conducted using all of Georgia’s actual voters in the general election.  Warnock won a plurality with some 35K more votes than Walker.  That’s a good number, but it’s not a safe number.

The runoff is all about executing a solid turnout ground game and I see four primary goals:

1. Get Warnock Voters to Vote Again
   • By far the biggest chore is to convince Democratic voters in GA to turn out One More Time.  The Warnock campaign has access to the profiles of everyone that voted and can quite accurately identify those individuals who likely voted for Warnock.  These people need to be individually contacted and asked to please vote again.  Yes, that’s close to 2M voters.  I didn’t say it would be easy.
2. Turn out Warnock Profiled Voters Who Didn’t Vote
   • By the same token, Democrats have access to the profiles of every registered voter that DIDN’T vote and can quite accurately identify those individuals who would have likely voted for Warnock using the demographics of the voters who DID vote. Sets of these individuals need to be contacted and convinced that their vote matters.
   • For example, while the public data isn’t quite complete yet, it appears that only 14% of GA registered voters under the age of 30 voted in the general election, well below the national average of 27%.  Since that demographic nationally tended to heavily favor Democrats, young people might be a good target audience for GA Democrats to collect some new votes.
3. Win Over the Libertarian Voters
   • Around 81K voters chose the Libertarian candidate.  Historically, Libertarians have been more likely to lean Republican due to the GOP’s traditional small-government stance.  However, that’s the GOP of the past.  With these voters, Democrats need to hammer Walker primarily over women’s rights and the GOP’s desire to dictate their healthcare choices.
   • For the practical Libertarians, I’d also pose this question:  Would  you rather have a Senator in a slim majority who can possibly tilt legislation to favor Georgia or would you rather have a Senator in the minority with no leverage whatsoever?
4. De-Motivate Walker Voters from Voting Again
   • At this point, while no minds will be changed, it is possible that some Walker voters simply won’t participate in the runoff – and every Walker voter that doesn’t repeat is a vote for Warnock.  This isn’t a one-on-one problem, but the seeds needs to be planted, both online and in the media, that voting for Walker again isn’t worth any Republican’s time.
   • I contend that many Georgia Republicans knew that Walker was an insincere imbecile.  They just didn’t care as long as he was willing to toe the party line.  This quote from Dana Loesch, a former NRA spokesperson, says it all:  “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”  Sorry, Dana.  While your honesty is appreciated, that just ain’t gonna happen now.  So why waste any more effort on this idiot?

There’s a debate scheduled for Monday, 11/21 and the Warnock campaign needs to remember the above.  People have already made up their minds on the issues and the focus now needs to be on turnout.

Runoff Wishes

I’ll shortly be sending the Warnock runoff campaign some money.  However, I’d like to make just a few requests if they expect me to donate any further…

• I understand that emails are a free way for you to solicit donations.  But please!  Stop sending the same damn formulaic emails and stop sending them multiple times a day.  Also try to display a modicum of pride and stop groveling for money.  For the Love of God:  Hire a good, clever writer that can make folks actually want to read your campaign emails.  If they are brilliant pieces of literature, you can send one a day.  If they’re merely readable, make it no more than twice a week.  Otherwise, you’re just pissing me off.
• Please don’t send texts to people outside of Georgia.  That’s just annoying.  Your profile of me tells you that I’m not a GA voter so don’t make me a target of your “Get Out The Vote” effort.
• Spend some money to create a few great ads that can quickly go viral.  Humor works wonders.  As a bonus, you can get away with being a whole lot meaner if you’re also funny.  There’s a ton of excellent comedy talent that would love to help.  Reach out with a check.  People are SO. VERY. TIRED. of this election. They’re particularly tired of being bombarded by variations of the same crappy political ads set to different royalty-free, talent-free music.  Give people a reason to smile and they’re much more likely to give you their money and/or their vote.

Donate!!

Any money is good, but early money is best.  I’d already donated to Warnock’s general election campaign but I’ll be sending another contribution today to support the runoff campaign via ActBlue.  Contribute if you can!

I got tired of waiting for the Senate race results out of Arizona & Nevada.  (I care about the Governor and Secretary of State races in those swing states as well… but, for now, I’m mostly interested in control of the Senate.)  So, I took a deep dive into at the election results thus far.  Of course, by the time you’re reading this, more actual results may be reported making this post useless… and perhaps even wrong.  However, I did the work so I thought I’d share.

Arizona

In Arizona, with an estimated 80% of the vote counted, Mark Kelly (D) leads Blake Masters (R):  1,059,387 votes (51.7%) to 944,350 votes (46.1%).  (There’s a third-party candidate currently pulling about 2.1% of the vote.  Unlike in Georgia, Arizona has no run-off and the candidate with the most votes wins.  We can thus safely concentrate only on Kelly and Masters.)

On the surface, with 20% of the vote count outstanding, it seems reasonable to assume that anything can happen.  And, yes, anything CAN happen and Masters could still win. But is it likely?

The county-by-county results, published on the Arizona elections website, tells us how each each of the 16 counties has voted thus far and how many ballots are estimated to still be outstanding.

Unsurprisingly, the most populous counties have the most outstanding ballots.  Maricopa County (including Phoenix) and Pima County (including Tucson) together account for 76% of Arizona’s voters and 84% of the outstanding ballots.  Both counties tend to vote Democratic and, in this election, are currently favoring Kelly by 53% and 62%, respectively.

Assuming that the remaining ballots in each county follow the same relative split as the ballots already counted, Kelly will end up with 52.3% of the total vote to Masters’ 45.6%.  While it is certainly possible that Masters outperforms with the ballots yet to be counted, he would have to do 31% better than he has thus far… with most of that massive over-performance occurring in Democratic strongholds.

Yeah.  That ain’t happening.  Kelly will keep his Senate seat.

Nevada

In Nevada, with an estimated 88% of the vote counted, Adam Laxalt (R) leads Catherine Cortez Masto (D):  450,534 votes (49%) to 441,546 votes (48%).  (There are third-party candidates currently pulling about 2.6% of the vote.  As in Nevada, the candidate with the most votes wins so we can safely concentrate only Cortez Masto and Laxalt.)

On the surface, a 1% margin looks pretty close.  Again looking county-by-county, we see that the most populous counties have the most outstanding ballots.  Clark County (including Las Vegas) and Washoe County (including Reno) together account for 86% of Nevada’s voters and 84% of the outstanding ballots.  Both counties tend to vote Democratic and, in this election, both are currently favoring Cortez Masto.

And here’s where the similarities to Arizona end.

Cortez Masto’s margins in Clark and Washoe Counties are paper thin and Laxalt’s margins everywhere else are huge.

Assuming that the remaining ballots in each county follow the same relative split as the ballots already counted, Laxalt will end up with 49% of the total vote to Cortez Masto’s 48% – exactly where the percentages are now.  While it is certainly possible that Cortez Masto outperforms with the ballots yet to be counted, she would have to do 10% better than she has thus far to pull out a win.

That’s not impossible, but it’s improbable.  Cortez Masto will likely lose her Senate seat.

Georgia

So, once again, we’ll be focused on Georgia to see which party controls the Senate.  With Warnock pulling 35K more votes than Walker, the initial edge goes to the Democrat.  However, I need to do some work here before I post anything.

I’ll weigh in further on the election results when things are a little more finalized.  For now, I’ll simply note a general state of amusement.

I’m amused by all of the election “experts” busily spinning their predictions in light of actual results.  Many are now actually claiming that they were right all along… within their margin-of-error.  Wow.  If their acceptable margins-of-error are in double digits, I’d love to invite them to my next poker game.  The fact is that almost everyone was wrong.  Republican predictions were wrong.  Democratic predictions were wrong.  Independent predictions were wrong.

I’m amused by the congratulatory responses that I’ve received pointing out the overall accuracy of my own predictions.  While I’ll graciously accept that my models turned out to be pretty good, I really can’t take credit for the science of predictive data analytics.  While I’ve never been shy about sharing my opinions on this blog, my election analyses weren’t based on opinions.  They were based on data.  I could well have made errors selecting or modeling that data (and, in a few cases, I did), but the data was the data.

I’m amused by the talking heads who want everyone to believe that political prognostication is a black art.  It’s not.  It’s a math-heavy science.  My own very basic models used data that was easily available to anyone.  A ton of other great data was out there but was, unfortunately, well beyond what my simple models could consume.  You’d think that professional political analysts, with massive resources behind them, could do a much better job using complex models fed by the troves of available data.  But no.  Many of them just chose to blindly trust the consensus of other purported experts and/or chose to blindly ignore data that didn’t match their opinions and/or chose to blindly accept data that was obviously flawed.  A very common error was the uncanny overuse of “polls” that were transparently funded by Republican campaigns and were conducted using truly laughable techniques… assuming they weren’t just created out of thin air.  The truly independent polls, conducted using sane methodologies, were actually pretty accurate this cycle.  The data folks behind these non-partisan polls learned from past mistakes and corrected for them.  These good polls simply got buried by an avalanche of recycled crap.

I’m finally amused by my readers who think that I’m out celebrating the 2022 election results.  Really?

• Although House Democrats managed to not lose as many seats as was generally expected, it looks like they’ll still lose control of the chamber.  With a very thin majority, Republicans will have a tough time actually governing.  However, the GOP will control the House agenda and the committees.  The prospect of two years with constant votes to impeach Biden for breathing and constant Congressional hearings over partisan minutiae is not exactly a cause for celebration.
• New York Democrats managed to screw up their redistricting efforts so badly that Republicans won many more House seats than they should have.  That quite possibly cost Democrats the chamber.  The continued incompetence of the Democratic Party is not exactly a cause for celebration.
• At best, Senate Democrats will gain one seat.  At worst, Senate Republicans will gain two seats.  More likely, Senate control will once again come down to a nail-biter in Georgia.  All of this and one of the best scenarios that Democrats can hope for is to end up back where we started?  That’s not exactly a cause for celebration.
• Although many of the 2020-election-denying idiots on the 2022 ballot lost their elections, some 200 of them actually managed to win.  The fact that any American citizen voted for any of them is not exactly a cause for celebration.
• Many voters across the country did choose sanity over chaos.  However, the fact that American Democracy managed to clear such a low bar is not exactly a cause for celebration.
• Florida and Ohio have shifted even further to the right than they were before.  It wasn’t that long ago that both were swing states.  The loss of those big chunks of Electoral Votes is not exactly a cause for celebration.
• I live in Texas and our political landscape is unchanged.  That’s not exactly a cause for celebration.

Okay, I’m done.  I’m taking my amusement to a bar.

Well, today is the day.  While it may sound over-wrought, I truly believe that Democracy itself is on the ballot.  There are so many 2020 election-deniers on the GOP ticket that this election’s primary issue is simple respect for the American experiment.

I’ll make one last comment on the status of the races…

While I stand by my data-driven predictive models, the data I didn’t have was any actual 2022 voter information.  While we obviously can’t count votes quite yet, what we CAN now do is model the early voting data.  Now, sure, no one knows how any given early voter voted.  However, other voter data is public information.  That data not only tells us how many people voted early, it can tell us exactly who voted and where they voted.  That data can then be modeled against previous individual voting histories and patterns (using public, state-specific information).  As an end-result, the enhanced early voting data can give us a remarkably accurate picture, in the aggregate, of how the parties are doing in comparison to each other and in comparison to past early voting results.  While such an analysis is WELL beyond the scope of this blog, there’s a site called TargetEarly that does a really excellent job of collecting and presenting this data.

I played with this data for quite a while.  Of course I did.  However, for those of you not so inclined, here’s just a few of my take-aways:

• Things don’t look nearly as bleak for Democrats as most people think.
• Nationally, Democrats are beating Republicans in early voting.
• Nationally, Democrats are beating Republicans in early voting with larger margins than the last mid-term elections in 2018.
• Democrats are beating Republicans in early voting in the Senate battleground states.
• Younger voters are turning out for Democrats in considerably larger numbers than expected.

Since election day voting will likely favor Republicans, I have no clue whatsoever if the above early trends will hold.

Am I predicting a Democratic wave?  Nope.  I’m not even predicting a Democratic win.  There are way too many variables to make any definitive predictions.  I’m only saying that the narrative being pushed in the media that the GOP has this election in the bag is totally bogus.  Kudos to Republican strategists for pulling that off, though.

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I’ve also been asked how I’ll be following the election results and my standard answer has been “Holding a bottle of good bourbon.”  I’m sticking with that but will expand on it just a bit…

• Each state’s poll closing times and vote counting methodologies are unique.  Here’s a decent state-by-state guide that I’ll use (although I’ll use my own election models, thank you very much).
• There will be tons of disinformation being constantly pushed out across the board today.  My own personal strategy will be to look at the raw state-by-state results in the races that I’m watching.  I’ll likely listen to a few of the data-geek reporters out there and will try to ignore all of the other talking heads.  In other words, I may pay attention to what some of the better play-by-play analysts are saying while completely tuning out the color commentators.  If I could find the election day equivalent of the ManningCast, now THAT I would watch.
• Exit polls suck.  I’ll be ignoring them.  The media will be pumping these out by the half-hour well before the polls close in attempts to fill dead-air time.  These exit polls will show that people care about the economy and pundit after pundit will be immediately screaming how bad that is for Democrats.  What crap.  Of course people care about the economy.  Is that the only thing that matters to them?  No.  Is there any real data that shows voters believe either party is better at managing the economy?  No.  The data shows that voters think neither party can control the economy.  The data’s not wrong.
• As in 2020, the reporting of election results will vary greatly from state to state.  Some states will report early votes first; many states will report election day votes first.  I’m going to try not to over-react either way.  If I decide to start predicting a state’s final results before all the votes are in, I’ll only consider those counties that have reported 100% of their votes… and then only compare those county’s results with how that county voted in 2018 and 2020.
• There is nothing that is certain about today.  Well, okay there’s one thing.  There are states where local laws strangely don’t allow early ballots to even begin to be counted until after the polls close (e.g. PA).  If the GOP candidates lead before any early votes are considered, I absolutely guarantee that Republicans will prematurely declare victory.  They will immediately claim fraud if the early votes continue to be counted.  That’s the playbook.  They’ll declare victories all over the place separate from any reality.
• Not a whole lot will be decided today.  There will be recounts.  There will be recounts of recounts.  There will be run-off elections. There will be court filings.  There will be at least some election-related violence… ‘cause that’s the world we live in now.

Buckle up.

 

While it’s way too late now, I’ve been wanting to publish a list of the best mid-term Democratic campaign ads.  Here’s the thing, though:  It’s a very, very short list.  And, frankly, the GOP’s ads are even worse.  The ad agencies hired by both parties have mostly cranked out unremarkable pablum that I stopped watching well before the ads ended.  There have been very few ads that were memorable or informative or on-point … and even fewer that were all three.

I’m thus reduced to listing the four arenas where I would have focused my attention if had been running the Democratic campaigns – while providing some representative ads that I think hit the mark.  Some are (or easily could have been) generic ads that could have been run for multiple campaigns in different markets.

Respect for Democracy

I don’t know how to make people understand just how important it is that all candidates across the political spectrum respect election results.  I’m fine with recounts.  I’m fine with legal action in the courts, if appropriate.  However, there’s a point where candidates have to accept a loss.  The fact that the vast majority of Republican candidates this cycle are still 2020 election-deniers should scare the shit out of everyone.  While I realize that civics lessons don’t often make for great campaign ads, certainly some brilliant Mad Man or Woman can crack that code.  In the meantime, the best I have is this ad from the Republican Accountability Project:

• Listen to Liz

Character

While positive ads about a given Democratic candidate are nice, Democrats should have stopped being nice long ago.  I’ve yet to see truly hard-hitting ads questioning the insanely flawed characters of many of their opponents.  For example, where were the ads targeting Hershel Walker’s blatant hypocrisy with respect to women’s rights, his lack of any relevant experience, or his outright stupidity?  Where were the ads targeting Mehmet Oz’s carpetbagger status, his dog-killing experiments, and the snake-oil salesman career that made him rich?

Sure, I saw some ads that attempted to address some of these topics.  They just weren’t very good.  By necessity, these type of ads need to specific to a campaign and their tone can be quite tough to get right.  Democrats can’t come off as assholes, but they do need to get their points across.  For these types of ads, a little humor goes a long way and often helps to give the ad a free online audience bump.

Here’s a decent ad for Catherine Cortez Masto (and against Adam Laxalt) which was also a pretty good use of a celebrity endorsement:

• Jimmy Kimmel Endorsement

The Economy

Democrats shouldn’t have just run away from this topic and needed to talk more about their wins.  Unemployment is at record lows.  Democrats passed a massive infrastructure bill.  They implemented a tax credit that took child poverty to historic lows.  They made good on their promise to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

Republicans have been quite vague about their economic plans but the plans they have touted are massively unpopular.  They voted against capping the price of insulin and they’ve floated numerous plans to cut and/or privatize Medicare and Social Security.

Of course, Democrats need to acknowledge rising costs.  However, they also need to remind voters that pure corporate greed and out-of-control profiteering is a major factor with respect to inflation.  Does anyone truly believe that Republicans are going to reign in big business?  Please.  Here’s an example of a decent economic ad:

• GOP = Gouging Our Prices

Women’s Rights

This issue needed to be correctly framed and the Democratic MAGA (Mothers Against Greg Abbott) did a pretty good job in Texas of producing ads that stressed massive government overreach with respect to women’s rights.  Here are two examples:

• Whose Choice
• Always and Forever

 

A serious note to my Republican subscribers:  I sincerely appreciate the fact that you’re willing to consider the opinions of someone who is often in an opposite political camp.  However, I have a request:  PLEASE do your 2022 research and make sure you can defend the candidates you choose to support.

To be blunt, the vast majority of your 2022 nominees across the board have explicitly stated that the 2020 election was stolen despite a total lack of any evidence.  They have made it abundantly clear that they will use whatever power they can grab now to declare Republican victories in future elections, regardless of the will of the voters.

I don’t understand how anyone of any political persuasion can support any candidate who cannot accept valid election results.  That is the cornerstone of American democracy.  And please don’t mention Hillary Clinton to me.  I don’t understand the reference.  She conceded the 2016 election the very next day.  It’s one thing to be unhappy about election results.  I’ve certainly had my fair share of unhappiness.  But with VERY few exceptions, Democratic candidates accept their election loses.  Republican candidates used to do so as well.  But they don’t any more.

In Arizona, Kari Lake (the GOP nominee for Governor), Mark Finchem (the GOP nominee for Secretary of State), and Blake Masters (the GOP nominee for Senate) are all 2020 election-deniers and have all explicitly said that they will only support the results of their 2022 elections if they agree with them.  That triple threat to democracy is sadly being repeated in several states.

In Michigan, Tudor Dixon (the GOP nominee for Governor) is a 2020 election-denier and has expressed unqualified support for the participants in the Capitol riot.  Kristina Karamo (the GOP nominee for Secretary of State) has stated that the 2020 election in MI was the result of “corrupt authoritarians” despite 250 different, independent audits that verified the results.

Tim Michels, the Wisconsin GOP nominee for Governor, just recently said that “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor.”  While he actually said the quiet part out loud, his is by no means an isolated stance.

Ken Paxton (up for re-election as Texas’ Attorney General) even stepped out of his own state to file lawsuits on behalf of Texas against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin challenging their 2020 election results.

All of these are blatantly undemocratic positions.  And I could, unfortunately, easily go on.  And on.  And on.

We can have policy differences.  I seriously welcome these discussions, I desperately want to find a common middle ground, and I’m reluctantly willing to agree to disagree where our political perspectives diverge too far for compromise.  I have very strong opinions but I claim no divine knowledge of what is “right”.  I can accept the will of the majority in our American experiment while I work to change that majority opinion.  I expect the same from others.

If you can support attacks on democracy itself, you’re going to have to defend that position to me.

Yeah, yeah.  I’ve been absent here.  While my daily intentions have been to post something, reality has intervened on a regular basis.  C’est la vie.

Anyway, with early voting for the mid-terms already in-progress, I felt the need to revisit the critical 2022 races.  Unfortunately, I had to dig a tad deeper than I’d expected.

The news has certainly been rife with apocalyptic declarations for Democrats everywhere. Polls are showing a steep decline in Democratic support. Pundits across the political spectrum are predicting a bloody red wave.  Democratic campaigns are sending out hourly emails that range from pride-free groveling to pre-emptive obituaries.  (I’m on WAY too many campaign email lists.)

While I more-than-half expected my fresh analysis to line up with these overwhelming sentiments, it turns out that the skeptical little voice in my head was onto something.

The news appears to be nothing more than a giant echo chamber, largely devoid of independent analysis.  Polls that have shown a massive Republican surge in recent weeks are largely Republican-funded.  Pundits are incented to push a tight race narrative to increase their viewership / subscriber counts.  Democratic campaigns seem to insanely believe that they’ll actually increase donations by repeatedly telling voters that they’re going to lose – which can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

WTF.

To be sure, even my data-driven methodology shows that Democrats have lost ground and, predictably, many races have tightened up as we approach Election Day.  While Democrats are in nothing resembling a commanding position, they’re only guaranteed to lose across the board if they continue to close out their campaigns like they’ve already lost their elections.  At this point, voters have made their choices.  There are no more swing voters.  Voters who haven’t yet picked a side simply aren’t likely to vote at all.  Elections will now be won or lost based solely on turnout and voters will have little motivation to cast ballots in races where the candidate appears to have given up.

Here are the high-level take-aways from my own analyses:

U.S. House

Nothing has really changed here since I first weighed in on 2022.  Republicans will take control of the House.  While I don’t see as massive of a “red wave” as others, the GOP will end up with a solid majority in this chamber.

U.S. Senate

Even the election analysts that I respect (e.g. 538, Cook, Sabato) seem to overweight “expert” opinions and non-independent polls (to varying degrees) in their evaluations of Senate races.  I’ll readily admit that my model was flawed if proven otherwise, but I still think Democrats have a very slight advantage here.  To retain control of the Senate, Democrats need to win the races where my analysis says they currently have a slight edge PLUS win one of three true toss-up races or one of two races where Republicans have a slight edge.

State Legislatures

While I still don’t have the time, data, or desire to do a deep dive into control of state legislatures, it nevertheless remains an important consideration.  Republican legislators in numerous swings states have been very public in their desires to appoint their own slate of Presidential Electors in 2024 regardless of who wins the popular vote in their respective states.  (And, before someone accuses me of being too partisan, there has been no similar talk from Democrats.  None.)  The Supreme Court even seems poised to bless this blatantly undemocratic power play.  In any case, my rough guess at the moment is that this cycle will see no major flips in the control of state legislatures for either party.

Governors

This is definitely a mixed bag but not necessarily the absolute disaster we’re being led to believe.  Still, there are way too many toss-up Governor races in 2024 swing states for comfort (AZ, WI, NV).  And there are another two races in 2024 swing states where Democrats have only a slight edge (MN, MI).  As with the state legislatures, I’m very nervous about Republican Governors trying to declare a GOP presidential victory in their states even if Democrats win the popular vote.  With very few exceptions, the GOP candidates for Governor are 2020 election deniers.

Secretaries of State

Despite many attempts to educate the public as to how these historically obscure offices can be used to single-handedly throw an election to a preferred party, these races are still met with significant voter apathy.  The vast majority of the GOP candidates for these positions are 2020 election deniers – which doesn’t bode at all well for democracy.  Unfortunately, since there isn’t a lot of good data readily available to handicap these races, I’ll simply list a few of the races that I’m following.

PLEASE PEOPLE:  If you haven’t already voted early, do so now.  While I understand the civic high that one can get by voting on Election Day, shit happens.  Vote early and give yourself a backup plan to make sure your voice is heard.