Abridged election update (10/24)

 So, I still plan to do my final analysis some time before November 8th, but it's still too early for that, but I do want to give an update because people are freaking out over us potentially losing the senate.

While it CAN happen, I do want to remind people I still expect a 50-50 split. Pennsylvania and Georgia are still in the blue column, although the lead has been waning significantly. Ultimately, it hinges on Georgia, which is expected to go Warnock by 1 point. While that's not a very significant lead, and the last time I looked at it, it was 2.4% (which is a bad sign, red shifts closer to election day could mean we're underestimating republican support, which is what happened in 2016), I still have to throw it in the blue column, although at that margin it's really 60-40 in favor of the dems. Pennsylvania at 2.2% lead for Fetterman gives him a 71% chance of winning by my methodology, which are still reasonably good odds. Also, don't forget Laxalt is less than a point ahead of Cortez Masto in Nevada, so that can flip the other way too. At 0.8% lead, I only give Laxalt (R) a 58% chance of beating Correz Masto (D). So we still have a few close races in play.

Honestly, the results can be anywhere from 53-47 GOP to 52-48 DEM realistically, depending on whether this proves to be more of a red or blue wave vs the results. I don't put the democratic enthusiasm very high based on the polls I've seen, so I'd trend toward the results favoring the GOP relative to the polls (similar to 2016, 2020), but if the polls were dead on, it's still 50-50, which given Harris as the tie breaker, I still expect her to win. 

I just wanted to bring this up, since people seem to be freaking out over the dems losing everything this year. I mean this is shaping up to be a bad year for them, but I still expect the dems to walk away with some wins here and there.

And yes, the house is screwed for dems as far as I know. I'm just going to mirror 538's forecast, but their "lite" model (most similar to my model) has the GOP having a 72% chance of taking it. 

As for governors I won't go into every race, but being from PA, I'll focus on Shapiro vs Mastriano. Shapiro is 9 points ahead, which with a 2.25 z score...yeah, Shapiro has a 98.7% chance of winning. So I can sleep soundly knowing abortion rights will be safe here for 4 more years, minus the GOP's attempt to put it to referendum, which will likely go badly for them if Kansas is anything to go by.

Again, I'll do one final major update with all my charts and graphs right before election day. I dont want to put in all that work multiple times as it is time consuming to make that stuff and compile it. But I did want to comment on the state of the race in a more abridged fashion, and focus on the key points.

TLDR: senate contested but I still give the dems a slight edge with a 60% chance of retaining it with a 50-50 split.

 House the GOP has a 72% chance as per 538's "lite" forecast (which does the numbers in a similar way to how I would do it).

Governors vary by state but PA's race where I live looks very positive for the democrats, with Shapiro being out of the margin of error at this point.