Election Update 7/31/26

 So, let's get to it.

Senate

So, the democrats are still narrowly favored in the Senate. Troy jackson has recovered Maine's numbers a bit. Texas is now in the democratic column despite it being contentious. On the other hand, Michigan has flipped red today. For a while, both El Sayed and Stevens were D+0.5, but newer polling shows stevens up by 0.7% vs Mike Rogers, and El Sayed is down 0.7%. Given El Sayed is overwhelmingly winning the primary there now, and is currently expected to win by around 10, well, yeah. El Sayed data, not stevens. 

Does this mean El Sayed is not electable? Not necessarily, they've been trading blows for a while and El Sayed has closed the gap pretty significantly as of late.  Honestly, both are close enough where the polling error will probably matter more than the individuals running. BUT...yeah,. Haley Stevens is slightly more electable. I am in the El Sayed camp, but Stevens has been doing a good job attacking the crap out of him as of late, causing El Sayed to lose ground here. 

As far as the senate as a whole though, it really does depend which side overperforms. As demonstrated last time, the polling makes it such a tossup that a slight breeze will make or break the night for one party. If dems overperform, they sweep. if republicans overperform, they sweep. And we won't know what happens until it happens. 

But yeah, most likely result is 51-49 or 52-48 depending where Iowa goes, with the dems having a 56% chance of control, and the republicans having a 44% chance (including ties). 

 House

 

The house results have rebounded.  Not that it matters because my model is rather inelastic anyway and the only race thats flipping back and forth at this rate is MT-01. The question isn't if the democrats take the house, it's the margin, and once again, that's likely to be decided by polling error. 

Governors

 

Updated governors data moved a few margins, but didn't really greatly change the overall picture. The only race I wanna talk about is Wisconsin, since the primary is going on there. Francesca Hong is looking to be a clear winner there. And her numbers are horrible. While Mandela Barnes was about D+3-4, Hong is down around 3 vs the republicans. This isn't a 1-2 point difference, we're talking 6-7. And that's pretty bad. Even though I like Hong personally, I really don't think she can win. This is a case where the 'electability" argument works in favor of a slightly more moderate candidate. Anyway, Barnes dropped out and now there's a straight up centrist in the race named David Crowley...and he aint expected to win either. Idk to be happy the left wing candidate is winning or upset that she's doing so good the progressive with a shot at winning withdrew from the race. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's where things stand right now. Hasn't been a very active month overall, but we have seen some movement. My forecast still has the democrats winning the house overwhelming, the senate is still in question. Governors are governors. I think the dems are doing pretty well overall outside of new hampshire and wisconsin there. New hampshire just seems to have a really popular moderate republican, whereas wisconsin....well....again, Hong....

Right now the primaries in wisconsin and michigan are the big thing going on. With the senate, Abdul El Sayed is looking to be wiping the floor with Haley Stevens, although he tends to underperform in terms of electability vs stevens slightly. Neither candidate is in great shape for the general, but I'd rather be at a 57% chance vs a 43% one, just saying. But at the same time, stevens is kind of a crappy candidate and I like El Sayed, so...it is what it is.

On the Wisconsin primary, *sigh*, that's a painful one. Don't get me wrong. I like Hong, but I feel like she's too extreme for Michigan, I kinda wish Barnes was still in the race since he seemed like at least 80-90% as good and could win as comfortably as Hong is slated to lose. And crowley....*ugh*, I really dont like hardcore centrists. Even if he can win, dude leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So I guess we're stuck with Hong...

And yeah, that's where we're at. I'll update again in a couple weeks.