Election Update 9/25/26

 So, I almost forgot about this. I just spent yet another week in atlantic city, came back today, and I'm tired as fudge. I almost forgot about this update, but I do wanna get it out tonight, so let's do this.

Senate

 

A lot has happened this week, a lot of polls came in, but all in all, not a lot has changed. New Hampshire has recovered a bit. Minnesota is closer than it should be IMO. Talarico keeps gaining steam in texas. El Sayed is doing okay. Susan Collins is kinda holding on in Maine. Troy Jackson is ahead, but by a relatively unhealthy 1 point margin. Iowa is now tilting democratic. Nebraska has been updated to also be tilt D. 

So...what can I deduce from this? Well, between this and the governor races, where republicans seem to be doing a bit better in the same states, here's my honest interpretation. This blue wave is more a negative reaction to Trump, rather than a rejection of the GOP at large. Federal races seem to have a strong democratic bias, but governor races have less so. It seems like there are split ticket voters who still lean republican, but are sending a strong message against Trump and his horrible management of the country. It's why Susan collins is still viable. It explains the apparent ticket splitting between state wide and federal races. Federally, the public is sending a strong rejection to Trump, but they're not really against conservatism at large. This is an important distinction, and something we on the left need to read correctly. 

The races where republicans are doing worst are in races with very strong trumpy candidates on the federal level. But at the same time I aint seeing a huge appetite for progressivism. El Sayed isnt doing as good as I hoped. Flannagan in Minnesota is underperforming. So is Troy Jackson. We saw in primary data that in most races, progressives generally underperformed moderates by 1-2 points. Not a huge difference, but enough to be noticed. And I think this explains some of the trends we're seeing. 

As an ex republican, I kinda get the vibe. When I left conservatism, I realized it wasnt just the current crop of conservatives that were bad, it was the entire ideology. But a lot of people can very well say that "well, it's not that all conservatism that's bad, it's just Trumpism." So they'll reject current guy, and then touch the hot stove again and again. It would be nice if people could wake up and realize that the entire ideology is bad, because it is, but sadly, a lot of Americans are brainwashed by "the cave" and are just like "well i dont like this puppet show, but I like puppet shows and you're bad if you don't." You try to tell them the whole puppet show thing is bad and they get angry and reject you. 

It's frustrating. It's like watching these guys touch a hot stove over and over again. You just wanna shake them and say THE PROBLEM IS TOUCHING THE STOVE. And they'll be like "no, it's just that particular burner" and keep getting burned again and again. But that's where people are at. For whatever reason, they dont like liberalism. Is it in part a messaging problem? Yes, despite the more positive polling of the moderate wing, I dont think moderates really offer a convincing message to voters. Most conservatives would rather vote for conservatives, and most liberals would rather vote for someone further left. A pragmatic moderate might look good on paper, but due to the worldview issue, they just dont appeal to anyone.

At the same time, that worldview issue is what makes americans so conservative. Underneath politics are deeper philosophical differences stemming from religion. The more hardcore Christian people are, the more conservative they are. Meanwhile atheists and agnostics are the most liberal. My worldview trends toward the latter. But your median American citizen is some flavor of Christian. A "moderate" Christian, like a casual catholic or mainline protestant, but a Christian nevertheless. And that serves to keep them in the cave and keep them moderate. And even as conservative screws them again and again, they'll keep going back to it because "well it's just that iteration of it, sure, neoconservatism tea partyism trumpism is bad but this time it will be different. It never actually is, because it's that ideology and that worldview that's the problem. But these voters never make the connection, they remain conservative as it fails them again and again. This is why I kinda think Americans are secret socialists, but also not really. Like the argument for "secret socialism" is that they clearly realize something is broken and are clamoring for change...but any time the change slaps them in the face, they're like "no not like that" and go on about how the solutions offered go against "their values." Well...did you ever consider your values suck? But I digress. I just wanted to explain where I see this election going. 

House

 

Sticking with the normal house model. When I take that other one I floated at face value, I get extreme volatility with just a few points difference. That's why it has such a low probability of dems winning. While the GCV currently aligns with this model roughly, a few points difference could drive the race to either be republican favored, or for democrats to win like 270 house seats. I dont see either of these outcomes as realistic. Looking at other models, they seem to align more with this specific model than the other. Fifty plus one kinda viewed the 270 dem house seats prediction as possible, but about as likely as republicans winning the house. I'm more convinced that we're likely going to see something between say, 220 to 250 seats for democrats, with 235 being a good middle ground. I could even say 220-240 with 230 being a middle ground. I dont see there being a ton of volatility here. 

 

 Governors

 

 While democrats dominate the senate, they're often having problems making the same inroads in the house. Especially down south. This gives us a more Obama era esque map, where the rust belt governors are seemingly outperforming the senate candidates in places like Minnesota and Michigan, but down south, Texas is still red, and Georgia is tilting red at the moment. We also see stuff like red New Hampshire. Again, I think conservatism is still alive in America, the problem is Trumpism. People aren't necessarily looking for a progressive to fix things here, they're more reacting to Trump right now. Doesnt matter that conservatism is a crap ideology with little to no redeeming features, a lot of people will trending toward it for ideological reasons, only to get burned on the hot stove again and again. 

Conclusion

 

 I guess that's where I'll leave it. Again, kinda half asleep while writing this, maybe a bit ranty, but yeah. It's where I've been thinking about it. In some ways, this map is VERY VERY good for democrats. But...it also seems to come with some nuance and lessons within. Maybe people arent looking for progressives and democratic socialists to fix everything atm (even though they probably should), they seem to reacting more to Trump in particular. It's how I best make sense of this data, since some democrats clearly seem to be doing better than others, even bucking state trends. Maine, Michigan, and Minnesota arent as blue as they should be. And then there's the governorships. Maybe I'm oversimplifying. I dont think progressives are not viable, and I'll remain stubborn that if we wanna fix America's problems, we NEED progressives to do that with bold agendas. Band aid fixes won't do it. And conservatism causes the problems in the first place. But that doesn't mean that most Americans are on the same page as us, even in this relatively populist era. They got too many ideological brainworms where they'd rather touch the hot stove again. And let's face it, often progressives make stupid and unproductive ventures into idpol and weird foreign policy spats when they should be focusing on economics. So even progressives often get lost as they focus on the wrong issues. That's frustrating too. But I digress.

And yeah, for the rest of this election cycle, you should expect weekly updates at minimum. Fridays/weekends at the very least, and maybe more often closer to the date itself.