Political Blue Gene

U.S. SENATE CAMPAIGNS

November 8, 2022 – Fearless Forecasts

                I have been very reluctant to make any sort of predictions this year because I do not know which polling firms are reliable and which are not.  As cell phones have become ubiquitous, the longtime methodology of conducting polls exclusively via telephone has disappeared.  Cell phones allow the potential participant to screen calls and not answer calls coming from numbers with which they are not familiar.  Many people do this , including myself.

                To attempt to overcome this call screening, the accuracy of all polls rely very heavily on how the pollster decides to weight the data.  That is, what proportions of the electorate to assign to each voting group.  For example, should women under 35 make up 3%, 5%, 10% of the electorate?  The pollster’s analysis and biases may affect these kinds of judgements and therefore, the results of the poll.  And sometimes, a poll may have put a weighting factor on a group or groups of voters based on very few actual voter surveys.

                Pollsters use texting and emails to reach people who are unreachable by phone.  Many of these people are as reluctant to answer a text or email as they are to answer their phones.  Plus, when you add in the fact that many people do not trust or do not want to assist the pollsters, it makes it very difficult to assess the reliability of any individual poll or polling firm.

                As an example, we can look at the historically very reliable Des Moines Register poll (perhaps the most reliable in the country for a state).  A few weeks ago, their poll had a very surprising lead for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of just 3%.  Suddenly, Democrats had flights of fancy that they had a chance to flip this seat.  A few days ago, the latest Des Moines Register poll came out with an unsurprising lead for Grassley of 12%.  I will be shocked if the 12% is not closer to the actual results.

                All of these factors have made me reluctant to make predictions about this year’s Senate races.  Nonetheless, I will do so anyway, and probably be wrong in a lot of races:

                This year, there are 35 seats up for election.

                14 are currently held by Democrats
                21 are currently held by Republicans

                Democrats need to win 14 seats to maintain a majority, including the Vice President as a tie-breaker in a 50-50 split.  Republicans need to win 22 seats to have a majority.

                Here is how the 35 seats shape up:

Safe/Very Likely Democratic (10)      

California
Colorado
Connecticut
Hawaii
Illinois
Maryland
New York
Oregon
Vermont
Washington

Safe/Very Likely Republican (16)

Alabama
Alaska
Arkansas
Florida
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Missouri
North Dakota
Oklahoma (2 seats)
South Carolina
South Dakota

Contested Seats: Predictions

As noted above, these predictions are made with very little confidence:

Arizona:  Kelly holds seat for Dems

Georgia:  Warnock holds seat for Dems (or maybe not?)

Nevada:  Laxalt wins seat for Republicans (change of party holding seat)

New Hampshire:  Hassan holds seat for Democrats

Ohio:  Vance holds seat for Republicans

Pennsylvania:  Fetterman wins seat for Democrats (change of party holding seat)

Utah:  Lee holds seat for Republicans

Wisconsin:  Johnson holds seat for Republicans

FINAL PREDICTED TOTALS

Democrats win 14 seats
Republicans win 21 seats

                If these predictions are correct, we will continue to have the same 50-50 split as we have had since the last election, with the Vice President holding the tiebreaking vote.  However, if the Democrats lose one of the 3 seats they are predicted to win, or if Fetterman does not defeat Oz, the country will be even worse off than if only the House of Representatives becomes Republican.  And that’s pretty awful.