Election Update 10/2/26

 Okay, so it's that time of week again, and we got some pretty big news. Isn't necessarily good news, but it's news.

Senate

 

So, as we start to enter the final stretch going into October, things are tightening up, and it seems like democrats are losing margin in a lot of these swing states. Maine is the most significant one for the senate, with Troy jackson now down to a 0.1% lead. What's driving that? Well, for his case, again, I think the problem is that the public isn't really trusting the democrats to make things better, this is primarily an anti Trump vote, and Susan Collins is the one republican senator who can say she's not Trump. She still voted with him 95% of the time, but that other 5% gives her cover to say she's a "moderate" republican. And given Jackson doesn't seem to be anywhere near as charismatic as Platner was, and doesnt seem to be drawing in as much support, he's floundering a bit. The average actually did go into Collins territory briefly this week, but for the official update, Jackson is still ahead by the slightest of margins. 

Osborn, well, yeah, I flipped Nebraska, but that's because RCP is finally posting Nebraska data, meaning I'm changing my source over to them, and they have Ricketts ahead by 0.5% on average. Still far more competitive than Nebraska has any right being, still, it is a flip. States like Minnesota, Alaska, and Texas are all narrowing as well. I know last week I was dooming over the public not wanting progressives in particular, but observing this further, I think that democrats are just floundering a bit going into the final stretch. They're still ahead, but the races seem to be narrowing. Right now El Sayed is in a rather strong position, but we should honestly expect Michigan to be like D+8 in this environment. Minnesota being narrow is just wtf. I really have to wonder what's going on here. Some of it is spending, but IMO democrat spending priorities seem pretty....decent, they're just being outspent since rich people prefer republicans obviously. 

Either way, before we get too pessimistic, let's think about where we started. Back in early 2025, I considered flipping the senate impossible. We're STILL favored to win there, despite these set backs. Quite frankly, it reminds me of my gambling luck in AC last week. I started with $5. yes, just $5, I'm not a compulsive gambler, I kinda understand you're likely to just throw the money away, but somehow, by dumb luck, I hit $60. Now, imagine being forced to gamble more, and you're dropping to like $45. That's where we are. WE'RE STILL WINNING, THIS MAP IS STILL OUTSIDE OF THE REALM OF WHAT I EXPECTED. But yeah, we are kinda losing at the margins, and given we HAVE TO keep spinning for the next month, and we cant just cash in and walk away with the winnings, yeah, its possible this is where "the house" gets back some of its advantage. We'll see where things end up on election day. Things still look good for us...just...not as good as they did.  

House

 

The house still looks as robust as ever, but to be fair there isn't a ton of elasticity with my official forecast.

Also, I AM getting polling data now for some individual districts, although not enough to build a model. Still, i would like to analyze how my model compares to the polling data. I only got 4 districts, but here's how the models compare:

NY-17

Polling- D+2

Model: D+4.6

 VA-01

Polling- D+4

Model: R+1.8

 VA-05

 Polling: R+6

Model: Safe R; not counted (R+4)

 WA-03

 Polling: R+1

Model:  D+14

So yeah, overall, that last one really pushes things toward my model being D biased, but the othere are close, only off by about 2-3 points from the polling. VA-05 wasnt counted since I only count states considered not safe by Cook PVI and last time I consulted them, VA-05 was still safe, it no longer is. If I applied it to my model, it would be R+4, given it went R+15 in 2024. So its is somewhat close.

Why is WA03 so off? It could be just some weird poll coming out of the pacific northwest that isnt accurate (see governor forecast), or it could be the specific candidate matchups, or district, idk. All I know is it went D+3 in 2024 so it should be like safe D this time, but maybe not all districts are. You can have weird moderate republicans running in blue areas who can distance themselves from trump crazy. Idk. 

But yeah. All in all, should I use this model going into the general? Well unless I get A LOT more polling data, I'm gonna have to. House districts are fundamentally underpolled and the polling in them is often horrendously inaccurate, so who the heck knows? Either way, I'm gonna be focusing more on getting the number of seats right than the specific outcomes of each seat.

EDIT: Added new districts up for grabs, model remains unchanged, other than reverting to a D+2 bias due to one of the added districts being a solid D district gerrymandering into a red district in texas. Still 235-200. 

Governors

Speaking of weird polling in the pacific northwest, wtf is with oregon? Looking at 2020 it was D+3.4, with a third party candidate taking 8.6% of the vote, so maybe it IS that close, but i normally consider that a blue state. Nebraska as the republican only up by 5, which is crazy. VT flips red, although not too crazy given that guy is a moderate and popular there. Similar phenomenon as NH apparently. New England seems to love democrats to some degree but also will vote for moderate republicans. And of course, now Georgia is flipping red. So not a lot of good news on the governor front. Not all of this is due to shifts, some of it is due to new data giving me more insight on races i wasn't aware of, but yeah, it's a bit less rosy for democrats.

Conclusion

With all of that said, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but stats are stats. And this blue wave might be...busting. idk. We'll see how things continue over the course of this month, but I'm not particularly confident in dem wins like I was. Of course, I always said to beware that this could happen, even a few points could mean the difference between a blue wave and a blue trickle, but yeah, as we go into october, things are....trickling a bit more than waving. I mean, they're still waving compared to the baseline but...republicans are still holding their own given the circumstances. This isn't a done deal for democrats at all, and we cant be complacent. Keep in mind, republicans overperform by around 3 points and we dont win the senate. If we account for my OTHER house model, we might struggle to flip the house. And keep in mind this is the best we can muster when we got an absolute moron for commander in chief who is governing on a level of stupidity few people thought possible. And a lot of them still are okay with it. I swear, this country might be cooked. The republicans seem to be winning the war on information and voters are too ignorant to know better. It's baffling how badly the dems have messed up since 2016. Even with all that's going on, a lot of people aren't sold on them enough to even vote against the republican. Scary. Makes you wonder what the future of our country is. 

But yeah, that's the update for the week. Same time next week give or take?