Okay, so I figuratively have a vein popping out of my forehead in anticipation of writing my final forecast for the 2022 race, and while I could go a couple more days, who knows, something could come up, and I might fail to post it for whatever reason. So I'm doing it now. I may slightly edit my predictions if the final bout of polls comes out on Monday and shows a significant shift, but I honestly think the results are going to be the results.
So yeah, I'm just gonna say, this does NOT look good for the democrats. Whatever hope the dems have had in the past few months has faded, with this once again looking like an apocalyptic red wave. I cannot underscore how screwed the democrats are here. They look like they're going to lose anything, and if the Trump coalition proves to be durable, the left may be screwed for another generation. We already discussed a lot of the factors that went into this being a thing, from bad politicking to being too woke to not doing anything worth a crap to simply governing at the worst possible time. But sometimes that's all that needs to happen during realigning years. While the history of this party realignment is still being written, this is potentially a sign that things are going seriously wrong for democrats. Let's dig into the details.
Senate
Ya know, the one silver lining was that the democrats looked like, no matter what else happened, they'd retain the senate. But this time, I'm not so sure. The races seem to have gone hard red at the last minute where while it's theoretically possible for the dems to retain the senate, it's a literal coin flip and not looking very good. Realclearpolitics has 48 relatively safe seats for the republicans and 44 for the democrats, with 8 toss ups, but I will still throw three republican leaning races into the fray as they're within the margin of error. So we're going to assume 45 safe republican seats outside of the margin of error, and 44 democratic seats here.
| States | Winner/Margin | SD | % DEM Win | % GOP Win | Senate Seats if DEMs Win | Senate Seats if GOP Wins |
| Colorado | Bennet +5.7% | -1.43 | 92.4% | 7.6% | 45 | 56 |
| Washington | Murray +3.0% | -0.75 | 77.3% | 22.7% | 46 | 55 |
| New Hampshire | Hassan +1.4% | -0.35 | 63.7% | 36.3% | 47 | 54 |
| Arizona | Kelly +0.3% | -0.08 | 53.2% | 46.8% | 48 | 53 |
| Pennsylvania | Oz +0.1% | +0.03 | 51.2% | 48.8% | 49 | 52 |
| Georgia | Walker +0.6% | +0.15 | 44.0% | 56.0% | 50 | 51 |
| Nevada | Laxalt +2.9% | +0.73 | 23.3% | 76.7% | 51 | 50 |
| Wisconsin | Johnson +3.3% | +0.83 | 20.3% | 79.7% | 52 | 49 |
| North Carolina | Budd +6.0% | +1.50 | 93.2% | 6.8% | 53 | 48 |
| Ohio | Vance +8.0% | +2.00 | 97.7% | 2.3% | 54 | 47 |
| Florida | Rubio +8.8% | +2.20 | 98.6% | 1.4% | 55 | 46 |
As I said, it doesnt look good for democrats. While their prospect of keeping the senate isn't terrible, it's in question and far less safe than I previously predicted. They really need to keep Pennsylvania and Georgia, as well as any race further into their column to keep the senate. Many traditional swing states are a foregone conclusion for the GOP unless democrats overperform the way republicans have in recent years. You know things are bad when WASHINGTON is in play. And it will just get worse when I get to the governor races.
Focusing on local politics, I don't think that Fetterman's poor debate performance mattered as much as I thought. Yes, Oz is technically ahead, but by the slimmest of margins, and it's very possible for the Fetterman to win there. It's also worth noting that a lot of right wing polls are bombing the results, but unlike 2020 I won't be correcting the results, because in 2020, those skewed polls were actually accurate. Still, PA is very much "in play" as is Georgia still. This could go either way.
Right now I have to give the GOP a 56% chance of taking the senate, and the dems a 54% chance. Most likely outcome is 52-48 GOP but the dems can bring it to 50-50 pretty easily.
Interestingly, 538 seems to think similarly, but gives the dems a 53% while the GOP has a 47% in their "lite" model (again, similar to my model). Their "deluxe" model gives the GOP a 55% chance and the dems a 45% chance.
House
Once again its difficult to do every house race and there is poor polling anyway, so I'm gonna go by other peoples' stuff. RCP still has the house a foregone conclusion for the GOP, while 538 has the GOP at 76% and the dems at 24% in their lite model.
If I were to go by RCP's model, with the dems having 174 safe seats and the GOP at 228, with 33 toss ups, I'd expect the GOP to to win around 244-245 seats while the dems will have 190-191. That's assuming half break one way and half break the other. Ouch.
Governors
There are 11 governor races up for grabs. You'll see some states here you'd never expect to be in play. New York? Oregon? Yeah, that's how badly the democrats are doing. States that shouldn't even be in question are surprisingly close. On the flip side, you'll notice I'm leaving PA out of this analysis, why? Because Shapiro is wrecking Mastriano by 10.7%. Well at least I'm likely to keep abortion rights for a few more years then.
| States | Winner/Margin | SD | % DEM Win | % GOP Win |
| Maine | Mills +8.0% | -2.00 | 97.7% | 2.3% |
| New York | Hochul +7.0% | -1.75 | 96.0% | 4.0% |
| Minnesota | Walz +4.3% | -1.05 | 85.3% | 14.7% |
| New Mexico | Lujan Grisham +4.0% | -1.00 | 84.1% | 15.9% |
| Kansas | Kelly +3.0% | -0.75 | 77.4% | 22.6% |
| Oregon | Kotek +1.3% | -0.33 | 62.9% | 37.1% |
| Michigan | Whitmer +1.0% | -0.25 | 59.9% | 40.1% |
| Wisconsin | Michels +0.6% | +0.15 | 44.0% | 56.0% |
| Nevada | Lombardo +1.7% | +0.43 | 33.4% | 66.6% |
| Oklahoma | Stitt +2.3% | +0.58 | 28.1% | 71.9% |
| Arizona | Lake +2.7% | +0.68 | 24.8% | 75.2% |
To be fair, New York isn't that much in play, barely making this list, but it shouldn't be anywhere near close. NY is considered one of the bluest states in the nation. It's like California in that sense. And then Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon are in play too, yeah, not good. Oregon is so close because theres a third party candidate there. NM and MN are swing states that occasionally make appearances but they're normally pretty safely in the blue column. I still expect dems to win there, but yeah, it's in play. On the flip side, it's weird to see Kansas not only in play but swinging democrat, but they've actually swung hard left due to the abortion thing this year I've noticed. Oklahoma, no idea what's happening there.
As I said, PA failed to make the list because Shapiro is just so far ahead there. It's weird to see PA less in play than NY. It should also be noted other "near misses" from this list in the dem column are Connecticut and Illinois, states that are almost unthinkable to go red. On the flip side, for the GOP side, Florida, Georgia, and Texas are "near misses" in the 8-12% range. All three of these states have technically been in play as of late, but are moving out of it. Texas isn't surprising, it's very much a tease for democrats. Georgia is too honestly. It's only swinging purple due to Atlanta as of late. Florida used to be very swing but is safely in the GOP column now with DeSantis in charge there. Don't see what people see in that guy other than him sticking it to wokeism and resisting covid lockdown stuff, but that seems to be what the GOP stands for these days. Culture war nonsense and insisting on making a public health crisis worse.
Conclusion
I mean things may swing one way or another in the next 3 days. I do kind of expect some last minute polls out on Monday, but I dont expect things to change much. I'll report any major changes I see, but I think this provides a good picture what's going on. Keep in mind a lot of states have had voting for weeks already. So results are already in somewhat. We just need to know what the last minuters who show up on election day are gonna do. Im guessing go red between this year being this year and conservatives not believing in mail in voting, but who knows.
EDIT 11/7/22 8:08 PM EST: Updated the predictions with new information.
If you wonder why florida is included in the senate, it WAS included in the original 11/5 version but new polling moved the margins from 7.5% to 8.8%. Since modifying these charts on this site is so difficult, I decided to keep it rather than make an entirely new chart.
EDIT: 11/8/22 2:37 AM EDT: Final update, locking this crap in, when I wake up tomorrow, it's election day.
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