The Daily Show viewer's guide to elections

 Ok, so Jon Stewart gave a rather cringe inducing take on polls, which basically seemed to lampoon experts for not knowing anything because they can't be certain, and how we can't know what state it will come down to. So I figured I'd do a really dumbed down version of my senate forecast for these kinds of people. 

Why can't we know for sure what the results will be before hand?

 Pollsters operate on statistical probability, not dualistic certainty. I know most Americans are woefully ignorant of statistics (hence why I tend to have more conservative takes on, say, gambling than I otherwise would), and epistemology in general, so I'll dumb it down. Polls attempt to simulate the actual electorate that will vote. However, because it's impossible to get these simulations perfect, they're more approximations. Polls have a margin of error to them. Kinda like the weather forecast. If a forecast says 70% chance of rain and then it doesnt rain, you cant blame them because 1/3 times, it WONT rain. Good polls are typically 95% certain within 3-4 points. I assume 4 within my statistical model, where I take polling averages and convert these to probabilities. However, this 4 point margin applies to both candidates, meaning that the results can be off by as much as 8.

But if the polls can be off as much as 8, how can we know anything?

 That's the thing, we can't KNOW. Something the typical person needs to get over, if they really want to think on a high level, is the fact that almost nothing is CERTAIN. A lot of weak minded people seem to crave certainty. It's what drives religious thinking. "Science cant know everything 100% and it changes its mind so I'm gonna trust the Bible." Yeah, I've been there. I know that's what they say. So let's dispense with knowing anything with 100% certainty.

Still, we can know a lot. We can know that some states like Tennessee will have such high republican margins that they CANT flip to the democrats. Same with say, Massachusetts on the democratic side. But when races start getting within 8 points, the probabilities can change drastically. 

So sell it to me straight, what are the odds of a democratic senate win?

 76% as per my model.

What state will it all come down to?

If I had to choose, I'd probably say Ohio. However, that is an oversimplification. While I'm not gonna say the odds are high that it will all come down to Michigan or South Carolina or something, the most impactful races that ultimately will decide the control of the senate are Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Texas, Alaska, and Iowa.

For each side, the "path to the white house" is the following:

Republicans: 40 safe seats -> Arkansas (41) -> Florida (42) -> Mississippi (43) -> Nebraska (44) -> South Carolina (45) -> Louisana (46) -> Iowa (47) -> Alaska (48) -> Texas (49) -> Ohio (50) -> Maine (51)

Democrats: 45 safe seats -> New Hampshire (46) -> Michigan (47) -> Minnesota (48) -> Kansas (49) -> Maine (50) -> Ohio (51)

 Do the states have go in that order?

 No, but the odds are they probably will. Generally speaking, if one side deviates from the polls, we will likely see nationwide trends showing other states doing the same thing. This is why I assume a "wave" model of elections where I tend to assume that the republicans/democrats over/underperform on the national environment. However, it is very possible for these states to not all follow these trends exactly. You might, for example, see the democrats get Texas but republicans get Ohio.

With that said, all in all, to fine tune the most consequential races, I'll say it's typically the light blue ones above, most notably Texas, Ohio, and Maine. I'd also throw Kansas into that category too given 4.1 isnt that much different than 3.6 and I kind of draw the line between lean D and likely D arbitrarily. Those are the ones that will likely decide control of the senate. 

Why does it have to be this complicated?

 Because life is complicated. Once again, we can't assume perfect certainty for much of anything. But yeah, if you want the really dumbed down version to give you more certainty, democrats have a 76% chance of winning the senate, republicans an 18% chance. The remainder is a 6% probability of a 50-50 tie, in which JD Vance, the vice president, will decide the tie breaker vote. 

If you want to know what races to focus on most, I'd say Kansas, Maine, Ohio, and Texas are probably the most impactful. Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and Alaska also are probably worth watching, although if it comes down to the democrats losing Minnesota and Michigan they're probably having a bad night, and if it comes down to Iowa and Alaska, they're having a good night. The model statistically favors the democrats to have a good night.

What about all those red states?

 If we account for the "wave" model of elections I mentioned above, if democrats start taking the pinker and redder states in my model, they're having a REALLY good night and it's a blowout for the democrats. It can happen. It actually is just as likely for the democrats to take south carolina as it is for the democrats' lock on the senate to actually be contested in a serious way. I'd ignore them. If they actually come into play, you can rest assured it's a democratic landslide. The hairy situation we gotta look out for is the republicans overperforming by a margin of, say, 2-3 points. As I discussed a few weeks ago, that's when election night turns into a chaotic mess where we don't know who wins. 

And if that happens, people will say the polls are "wrong" even though the statistics accounts for it. It has a 1 in 4 chance of happening. 

I still don't understand probability

I cant really help too much with that. I know a lot of Americans dont understand it very well, but imagine this. If I predicted 4 elections and had a 75% certainty level for each of them, I'd probably get 3 right and 1 wrong. Or think of it like gambling, horse racing, etc. A die has 6 sides. The odds of any one side coming up is 1 in 6, a 17% chance. The odds of picking any one card out of a deck is 1 in 52, around 2%. The odds of a roulette wheel hitting any individual number is 1 in 38, give the two 0s exist. It's best to think about it like that. The best I can do is tell you to learn statistics. Maybe take an online course on youtube talking about it. Heck, they probably got tutorials explaining polling better than this would.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a decent rebuttal to the daily show seemingly playing into peoples ignorance about how polls are wrong, how we cant trust them, and how we dont know what races to focus on. My own model attempts to map out the election in a relatively easy format showing the odds, the probabilities of individual states, and even mapping out each side's most likely path to victory (democrats from top down, republicans from bottom up). I'd just go by that. Focus on the bolded stuff if you really dont understand it. Maybe ignore the chart side and focus on the map. That should dumb it down further.

But yeah, to dumb it down as much as possible, democrats probably take the senate. Ohio is probably the deciding state although kansas, maine, and texas are also important to watch here. And yeah. That's the really dumbed down approach to it that ended up way longer than it should be.  

Election Update: 11/2-3/26 FINAL

 So....I think the dust has finally settled on the predictions, I'm not sure, if not, I'll keep amending this post, but at this point, i think the predictions are in where I feel semi safe in posting them. 

Senate

 The odds for the senate went really bonkers for democrats in the past 24-48 hours. It's mental how much things have shifted, but at this point, I have to conclude that YES, the energy is on the side of the democrats. Republicans seem completely demoralized, and democrats are extremely motivated to turn out. This is leading to a blue tsunami and a national environment I haven't seen since my 2006-2008 days as a former republican. They seem completely doomer pilled by this point, and for good reason. What's the reason for this? Well, if we go by the trend chart, I think the answer is clear, the fatal blunder of the republicans was Trump's war in iran and the gas prices. 

 Now, in all fairness, data was sparse before May, but i still had SOME polling data that was significantly more in favor of the republicans, like 4-5 points or so in swing states, but things started swinging for democrats HARD come late april/early may, and the environment remained D favored for the rest of the election cycle. 

As we enter the final day of the election season, with election day itself being tomorrow, the republicans' chances of holding the senate have plummetted to a mere 18%, with the democrats having a 76% chance of taking the chamber. Back in 2025, I outlined a map in which I showed the senate to be a long shot, but the republicans screwed up so hard that not only are the democrats favored to win the senate, but their path to victory is closing. They would need not just everything in their column, but they'd need to keep Alaska, which they very well might, but then they'd face an extremely steep uphill battle to keep Texas, Ohio, and Maine. The odds of them doing this is, again, 18%. It can happen, and I don't think we should be overconfident, but we're past the point where a R+1.5 overperformance, or even a R+2-2.5 one will do it. They'd need to overperform closer to 3 just to keep a tie, and they'd need to overperform closer to 4 to keep the senate outright. I don't think it's happening, even if the republicans overperform. Meanwhile if democrats overperform, they'll take Iowa, and then be digging into states that in a normal election year should NEVER be even close to going blue. We got Louisana, South Carolina, Nebraska, and Mississippi up for grabs, assuming a ceiling of a 4 point overperformance in the democrats' direction. It's nuts. 

Still, I'm going to go with the forecast to the letter here, assuming a 54-46D outcome, with a 76% chance the democrats take the chamber. (Yes Im assuming Iowa goes D). 

House

So...here's the FULL house forecast chart:

See why I tend to abridge it? Here's the TLDR version:

And here's the map to go along with it (note: some coloring might be off, congressional house maps are a nightmare to fill out and I had to make the margins 2/5/10 for a contest when I'd normally make them 1/4/8). 

 

Basically, if you thought the senate was bad for republicans, the GOP is especially screwed on the house. I predict a 98% chance the democrats will take control of the chamber, with the most likely outcome being a 240-195D map. This is apocalyptic for republicans in the current environment. 

If people wonder about the fundamentals only forecast, that one is at 237-198D with a 99.5% chance democrats win. Once again, it's more certain but it has a slightly lower margin of victory. It will be interesting to see which model actually performs better, but the official one is the polling one. 

 Governors

 

Even the governors races have shifted hard left with Georgia and Kansas now in the D column. Overall, it's predicted we'll have 29 governors being democrats and 21 being republicans. And yes, I'm assuming Oregon goes blue here, despite it being a 50-50 tossup on my model. 

Conclusion

All in all, the model predicts a blue wave. However, as we know, these are statistical models that translate polling averages from RCP into actual odds, and as we know, the results are never exact. We could see these models be WAY too bullish for democrats where republicans overperform relative to them. This could lead to a relatively messy election night like 2016, 2020, and 2024. However, given its a midterm, and the republicans are REALLY in the dog house, if anything, I think democrats might overperform even this. I don't know. The only race I feel relatively safe calling contrary to my model is maybe Iowa. At a 49% chance of going democrat, yeah, that could easily flip. It is a tossup. Even then, I'm gonna let the model speak for itself. Same with races like Kansas and Georgia in the governors. They WERE lean R until the last minute. I kinda think RCP changed the averages to reflect what THEY think will happen, as they were around R+1.5 until today. Still, who knows? Again, it's possible everything is so bullish on democrats that it ends up being right. Idk. I'll just let the model do the talking and recognize that these models are fallible and can change. 

But yeah, that's my predictions for 2026. These predictions are FINAL unless RCP changes their averages yet again, but I think they already did all that. I kinda went away for a few hours this evening and let them cook and yeah, this is the result. So I'll go by what they say, but yeah. 

BLUE WAVE, BABY! WOO!!!! 

EDIT: Had to update some charts because RCP made last minute changes to some of their averages. 

Screw Haley Stevens too

 So,.Haley Stevens has officially not just broke from the Abdul El Sayed campaign, but has endorsed his opponent, Mike Rogers. Why? Because he wouldn't outright condemn some anti Israel ad a PAC put out. Critics of the ad called it anti semitic, but honestly? I like it. Here's the ad. Basically, it has an American family in a grocery store putting items back because they can't afford stuff, and talking about how much money we're sending to Israel to kill palestinians. Is the ad biased? Yeah. Is it fair? Also yeah. But again, in the modern era, we can't say ANYTHING about Israel without being criticized as being anti semitic. Even if we are flatly criticizing Israel, and not an entire ethnic group or even an entire religion. It's ridiculous. And it's even more ridiculous when in my view, El Sayed actually did soft condemn the ad. He said he didn't agree with it or endorse it, but that it didnt really matter because other issues are more important. Which was the best thing he could've done IMO. But that wasn't enough for Stevens, who was hounding him since, telling him to outright condemn the ad, and when her public conduct was seen as overly divisive on the eve of the election, he told her to stay away. Stevens took this so poorly, she flat out went and endorsed Rogers.

This...REALLY incenses me. I'm NOT normally a blue no matter who type. But I've been toeing that line since 2024, recognizing the stakes are too high with Trump, and we gotta check and balance him NOW. I voted for Jill Stein in 2016, and Howie Hawkins in 2020. And even if I did endorse Kamala Harris in 2024, i HATED the fact that it came to that. I very clearly was not happy with Harris's campaign in 2024. it was too safe, too moderate, and it kind of was an affront to me on some of my biggest causes (like UBI/anti work stuff). And the way I see it, if I can endorse Harris then, then these centrists screaming about El Sayed can STFU for forever now. I NEVER wanna hear them say "vote blue no matter who" again. They're outright defecting when the race is between fascists and inoffensive social democrats.

And let's be honest, what does Mike Rogers actually offer people? If you wanna go into the racism angle, all he's really offered is Islamophobia. His entire race has been just blasting El Sayed for being a muslim, emphasizing his full muslim name, making weird comments about 9/11, etc. Where is Haley Stevens in condemning THAT crap? You know how much weird misinformation I gotta counter online with people saying that El Sayed supports terrorism and crap? All because they take comments like the one discussed above out of context. The condemnation wasnt quite as scathing as it should be. He didn't condemn hard enough, even though he clearly did condemn. And all this crap is taken out of context. I mean, it's pretty simple, on the one hand, you got the candidate who wants to get money out of politics, pass medicare for all, and put money in your pocket, and who is, occasionally critical of the state of israel, and on the other you got some maga psycho who reminds me of the boogeyman from Rammstein's angst. And Haley Stevens just went and endorsed the boogeyman. 

So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, screw Stevens. Just goes to show that this party loyalty crap the centrists push only goes one way and push comes to shove these guys are closer to being diet republicans than actual democrats with actual liberal or progressive values. This isn't Maine. We're not talking Troy Jackson being weak and inoffensive vs Susan Collins, the one republican running this year who actually can distance herself from Trump and come off like a rational moderate. This isn't just a moderate deciding to back another moderate from the other party, although that would be bad enough in this instance. She just flat out endorsed some racist MAGA psycho while acting like Abdul was the racist one. It's ridiculous. Screw Haley Stevens, may she have a future in the post Trump republican party, because I don't want her in the democrats at all any more. I mean you know it's bad when even Jasmine Crockett is condemning Stevens for this. 

Sam Altman can go screw himself (part 2)

 Oh, I missed the guy's whole quote in context. he also had another quote about how the "invisible hand is failing right now", as if it's a market failure that other people can afford RAM and not just him. Once again, no, YOU ARE THE MARKET FAILURE! You're some rich guy abusing the market to buy up the world's manufacturing capacity of a finite resource for your stupid pet project. And you also wonder, gee how can I make this profitable? Here's the reality outside of your bubble. We little people, we "normal people" to use a Yang term, we HATE AI. A lot of people hate it more than me. They hate the very idea of it. Me, I understand it's not the tech, it's the business model, but with that said, no, the invisible hand isn't failing because it isn't making YOU successful. It's up to YOU to sell something that people want and to make it profitable. Right now you're just buying up the world's supply of RAM to build data centers no one wants, to sell a product that most dont want either. And you know what? if the invisible hand actually works as intended, YOU WILL FAIL. And I actually HOPE you fail at this point. because I dont wanna live in your crappy future either. I want to be able to afford computers. It's the one thing I'm into outside of politics, gaming and technology. And I dont want to live in a world where my hobby is unaffordable because some billionaire wants RAM and is willing to pay exorbitant amounts for it. I HOPE Open AI fails. I want it to fail. Because I want this insanity to be punished BY THE MARKET. 

And yeah. I just wanna say, once again, F this guy. He's quite literally a sociopath. And you know what? The problem isn't the market, the problem is him. He just expects the world to revolve around him and his dream, and he doesnt care how much his crap is affecting everyone else. So I say, let him fail. I hope he fails. Success for him doesn't mean a better world for us, quite the opposite. 

But really, the gall on this guy. And everyone has the same reaction. F you Sam Altman. Seriously. 

Sam Altman can go screw himself

 So....billionaire entitlement complex strikes again as Sam Altman said, and I quote: 

"From a global allocation perspective, actually, it's quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used 5% of the time. You want maximum utilization in the cloud if you're trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment. And somehow many people's intuition is the opposite of that."

To which I say, SHUT THE #### UP #####, YOU ARE THE SUPPLY PROBLEM! And I mean that literally. The whole reason RAM is so scarce and so expensive is because rich people like Altman decided to buy up the entire manufacturing capacity years in advance for their own little pet project, driving up the price of memory 4x+ over over the past year, and for what? To build data centers nobody wants, for an AI product that no one actually wants, all to satisfy a handful of rich people who see themselves as visionaries.

And now this guy comes out and basically says we normal consumers are the problem because we want RAM in our computers? Yeah, no, F this guy.  This is the weird entitlement complex these billionaires have. Not only do they do evil things, but they think it's weird that we peasants have anything at all. And it's not just RAM either. These billionaires do this with water too. like Nestle. Oh, it's so horrible for those peasants to have water, WE need the water to make chocolate, those guys can die of thirst. Oh electricity. Which...makes sense with the data center thing. A huge reason no one wants these data centers is because they use up scarce water resources, they use up electricity, the costs are passed on to everyone else, they make noise, they pollute peoples' neighborhoods. And again, it's all because self entitled billionaires think not only are they more entitled to scarce resources than everyone else, but it's a shame that people are selfish and daring to use a reasonably allotted level of it for their own consumption. They should just own all of it. And you shall own nothing and be happy.

I'll tell you what the real problem is. These guys have too much money. I think it's quite terrible to have a handful of rich people have a bunch of the world's limited supply of money sitting in their own bank accounts and stock portfolios being used 5% of the time. You want maximum utilization in the hands of workers and consumers who actually use the money to BUY THINGS and not just hoard like they're ####ing Smaug. 

And you know what? Maybe we should tax the everloving #### out of them. Maybe we should tax them and redistribute their money to everyone else, so everyone else is richer and they can afford food, water, electricity, and Sam Altman forbid, computer memory. Maybe we should have a UBI to allow that to happen. Or, heck, and I'm just toying with this one, don't quote me on this later, maybe we SHOULD tax these frickers at literal confiscatory rates of like 100% above a billion dollars. Maybe billionaires SHOULDN'T exist. Because these rich fricks develop these weird god complexes where they start thinking like this. Maybe one guy shouldn't be able to disrupt entire markets for their own little pet projects. Maybe they shouldn't be able to swing elections through donating to political campaigns. Maybe it's bad for society as a whole for rich people like this to exist.

And some might say, but outofplatoscave2012, these guys are the ones bringing the future you want. Dont you always talk about a world in which we do away all the jobs and just sit around doing nothing? yeah, i do, but here's the caveat. I know we can't do it all at once. I actually think slow progress is better. And quite frankly, I dont trust THESE GUYS to bring a utopia for us all. Even if they nominally support UBI, they'll NEVER actually support the structural changes or policy to make it happen. Because it will make them poorer. They're for it until they see the costs, then much like Elon Musk they start pushing for cutting everyone's social safety nets instead. I also dont trust these guys to care about humanity AT ALL in practice. They WANT a world of techno feudalism. You got people like Peter Thiel going on about how democracy is incompatible with AI (because the masses would vote to redistribute their wealth), and how we need to destroy democracy so THEY can have the world they want. They want a world where they live in absolute luxury on a mountain of cash and all of the world's resources, while everyone else basically starves to death. That's the the world they want. They want to do things on a large scale super fast that makes it impossible for the masses to properly react, and for us to debate the changes, and what policies we should implement to mitigate their impacts. They dont WANT us to debate the changes and policies to mitigate their impacts. They just wanna be dictators and feudal lords over the rest of us. This is dark enlightenment bull####. That's what they believe. And this is the scarier ideology that lies behind the trump administration that most arent seeing. The front facing side of the administration is bad enough, but these dark enlightenment guys are a long term threat to humanity as a whole, and this Sam Altman comment is yet another disturbing glimpse into how they really think about the masses. They literally want us to own nothing and be happy. And if we arent happy, then they use overwhelming military force to keep us in line. Because guess what, they're positioning themselves where they have that too. And oh, doomsday bunkers for the day they do have to escape the mess they made. Yeah, they've been building those too. Sick ####s....

Again, I want to present this chart I made like a year ago discussing the real political spectrum as far as this crap goes.

 I'm on the left side. They're on the right. Most of humanity is in the middle somewhere, debating over conventional politics centered around jobism. And again, I don't support jobism. yeah, much like the other side, I wanna get rid of the jobs. But I wanna do it slowly, responsibly, and with adequate guardrails to ensure that we actually have SHARED PROSPERITY in the event such a thing happens. And AI? Well, AI can wait a couple decades. As I see it, the problem with AI is, again, the business model, it's these billionaires with a god complex doing far too much, far too fast, buying up the world's supply of computer parts years in advance to build huge data centers with a huge environmental footprint that no one wants, when if we just let things go for a few more decades, we'll get there more organically. What we have now is like some guy from our era going back to the 1950s and trying to brute force 2020s technology with their era of computing. It would have the same effects: spiraling costs, massive environmental impacts, etc. They're trying to do too much in a resource constrained environment, and no, Sam Altman, the problem isnt that people have RAM in their computers, the problem is you're trying to buy too much too fast for your own little pet project that needs more time to cook. Come back in 2050 and reevaluate the situation.  I know Moore's law is slowing down, but maybe by then we could actually do what we're trying to do now with a fraction of the resources, and maybe by then it's actually economically viable. Or maybe it won't be, because AI just doesnt work that way. Either way, this isn't a pressing issue we need to solve NOW. This is an issue for the future. Let's deal with it in a few decades when the tech matures more. 

Fricking billionaires...

Once again, if you can't vote for Abul El Sayed, please leave the democratic party

 Yeah, this time Haley Stevens is making a big deal over some ad Cenk Uygur made on El Sayed's behalf criticizing our spending to Israel. It's a great ad, but OMG ANTI SEMITISM! No, it's not anti semitic, btw, these guys just scream everything that isnt 100% pro israel is anti semitic and its overusing the trope to the point of risks legitimizing actual anti semites through the boy who cried wolf effect. I watched Cenk talk about it on his show, and he basically said he's not coordinating with El Sayed and can't because that's how PACs work. So..yeah. But then Stevens is doing this weird DO YOU CONDEMN CENK UYGUR crap and when El Sayed refuses to do so she's kinda threatening to pull her support.

Look. El Sayed's the nominee, he's a good nominee, and if you cant support him, and Israel is this ride or die issue, please leave the democratic party. i dont wanna be in the same coalition as you.  Also, to double down, I don't ever wanna hear vote blue no matter who after listening to so many centrists act like whiny...you knows over progressives winning. IF YOU HATE PROGRESSIVES, GO JOIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ALREADY. Seriously. Im tired of these people. They've been acting like insufferable craps for a decade now, and the second the shoe is on the other foot "oh I can't POSSIBLY support Abdul, muh red lines." Idgaf about your red lines. Especially when your red lines are extremely unpopular among democratic voters. Get behind Abdul or leave, I don't care which. Im not negotiating with these people. 

Election Update 10/30/26

 So, we're almost here. Next Tuesday is election day, and my next update, or the one after it, is likely the final one for the season. It's taken a while to get here, but we're almost finally here. 

Senate

This senate map. This fricking senate map. It's just about perfect. Look at how blue it is. If you showed me this back in early 2025 I would've thought this was some serious copium. But here we are. How is it compared to last week? Eh, not ALL that different, there are some key updates worth discussing. Michigan and Minnesota are looking closer to where I thought they should be all along. Minnesota is D+5, which is still close for Minnesota, but not insanely close. Michigan is up above D+3, that's good. KANSAS, FRICKING KANSAS is seeing insane shifts as the race comes to a close. It really does look like people are pissed at Trump and the energy is going toward the democrats. At the same time, Alaska, Maine, and Texas are a bit more middling. And this is where things get funky. If the democrats perform on par, or better than expected, they're gonna win the senate. But as we know, there's that 1 in 3 chance roughly that the republicans just overperform and hold onto the senate. You get a R+1.5-3 result and things are going to get funky. And we libs will melt down and have a "bad" night while the MAGAts laugh at us. Will it happen? Well, it can. Imagine, if you will, you turn on the weather and see in the forecast a 30% chance of isolated storms. Odds are it won't rain. You'll have a nice day. But then you might have one of those weird specks on the radar pop up and suddenly its storming for an hour. Expect sunshine, but bring an umbrella because we could get wet.

If I really had to guess though, the energy is on the side of the democrats. I think this will be closer to 2018 or 2022 than 2016, 2020, or 2024 energy wise. It's a blue wave year, and as people are making up their minds, they seem angry at republicans, REALLY angry. But, then I also hear anecdotes in texas about how "James Talafreako" wants to trans their kids. And some voters are eating that crap up. If the public were rational, the democrats will overperform, but the public isnt always rational, and we cant really impose our smart guy biases onto people who probably didn't even start tuning in until the past week or so. The public is unpredictable, and a large segment of them are just really freaking ignorant. I don't know how to fix this at this point. Just keep trying I guess. But yeah. 

House

At this point, I'm going to use the polling model as my main model. I'll still keep a copy of the fundamentals model and update it, but there's nothing to call home about with it. Still at 235-200. This one is at 239-196. It has less certainty than the fundamentals model, at only 96% instead of 99%, but at the same time, the polling only model has a slightly higher result on average, and a slightly higher ceiling.

Either way, for the most part, the debate isn't about whether democrats will win, but how much. I guess if we go by a 95% certainty two tailed, the polling model predicts anything from 214-221R up to 259-176D so technically the dems CAN theoretically lose, but the odds are relatively small and remote. These are like Obama 2008 style numbers in terms of certainty, just to give you an idea of how I expect this to go. And yeah, I don't have a ton to say here.

Governors

 

The governors map is just what it is. Some races that are hopeless for republicans in the senate are viable in the governorships. it just goes to show, in my view, that 2026 is more a rejection of trump and the federal version of the republican party, but it's not necessarily a rejection of conservatism or tacit approval of the democratic party. The democrats are just the alternative, and while not particularly popular themselves, they are popular enough in the senate to have a massive blue wave. Still, for the governors map it looks more like an Obama era map more or less. I guess the rule is, if you can distance yourself from trump and come off as a radical moderate, you can still win elections on the local level. It's why I think susan collins can still win the senate too. 

Conclusion

So, we've come a long way, but it really does seem like the democrats can pull off both a house and senate victory. The house is a lot more certain than the senate, but clearly, they're favored to win in both chambers. It's bonkers. However, when you really think about it, maybe not. See, we've been here before. Basically Trump decided to make the bad move of all bad moves and attack iran, driving oil prices up and making America like the Carter years again. His tariff policies also have echoes of Herbert Hoover in the great depression. I ain't saying that Trump's legacy for his second term is as bad as hoover's yet, but he's definitely working on being Jimmy Carter. Either way, this could escalate into a party realignment if the republicans aren't careful. It is time after all.

At the same time, I'm a bit skeptical of the narrative that we will see a massive permanent shift to the democrats and a new political reality to define politics for decades to come. People dont seem willing to reject conservatism as a whole yet (even though they should). They just seem to be rejecting Trump. This is why we see such differences between the senate map and the governors map. Republicans can still win if they're moderate, sane, and know when to shut up. The problem is, in the age of trump, many won't. And it will cause the democrats to win again in 2026, and probably 2028 as well. The real question is: can they hold their Ws? That remains to be unseen. And Im not even gonna say if only we ran democratic socialists we can win by this point. Much like with Trump, the imitators like AOC dont seem as popular as the possible realigning guy. In 2016, Bernie absolutely could've won. But he's too old, and in 2024, we didn't even have a decent left wing candidate, and as I've been saying, AOC's numbers arent great for 2028. At the same time, establishment democrats arent popular either. With that said, it almost feels like w'ere doomed to repeat this song and dance again. Dems suck, lose support, and people vote for republicans again eventually when democrats retake power. So idk. Either way, it does seem like we're ending an era either way, with Trump and possibly trumpism and that in your face brand of politics finally losing its appeal. Trump cant run again, and people hate his successors. The best you can do is have JD Vance or Marco Rubio try to look sane. 

Of course, I also suspect things will get worse before they get better. The AI bubble is arguably starting to pop and by 2028, the country might be in a full on second great recession. In that case, populist politics might end up coming back again for the democrats. All in all, we'll have to see where things go, although I know what I want for 2028 (Andrew Yang). Still, Im not sure that's where the country wants to go. Again, we'll see.

Anyway, that's the prediction for now. I'll update monday and possibly refine that prediction on tuesday before polls close to have my final prediction. I dont expect it to be a great deal different than this, but yeah, we can see where things are going.