This is the last in a series of briefings on the 2022 midterm elections, scheduled to be held on the 8th of November. The last briefing, from late October, can be found by clicking the button below. Each briefing includes the latest forecast for the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as updates on specific races. Given that we are one day away from the elections, my projections below rely mainly on the qualitative aspects of my modeling as survey results and quantitative inputs reach the limits of their relevance.
House of Representatives
Based on my model, these are my final projections regarding the House of Representatives election
I continue to expect the House to flip to a Republican majority. This is to be expected, as anti-incumbency benefits the opposition party in the midterms.
The net amount of seats that each party will win has not changed since my last briefing. Local opinion polling and news updates have led to some seats trading hands, however.
The generic ballot poll input to the model gives the Republicans a 1.5% lead in the popular vote. Handicapping other data (namely President Biden’s approval rating) to adjust for selective turnout, the model currently projects a 2.7% Republican lead in the popular vote.
Considering that the Democrats won 222 seats in 2020 to the Republicans’ 213, the model predicts that 18 seats currently held by Democrats would flip in November.
Senate
Based on my model, these are my final projections regarding the US Senate election
I am currently predicting that the Republicans will control a majority of seats in the US Senate by a slim single-seat margin, a break from my prior projections indicating a perfectly divided Senate.
There have been no rating changes since my last update. It should be noted that, since my last update, FiveThirtyEight has gone from predicting a split Senate to matching my prediction of a 51-49 Republican majority.
Georgia and Louisiana require a candidate to win above 50% of the vote to be elected; if no candidate can get 50.01%, the top two will face off in a runoff election. Therefore, there is a very large likelihood that control of the Senate may not be decided based on tomorrow’s results. This is especially true because it's unlikely that Georgia’s winner on November 8 can cross the 50% threshold.
Other News
Several people are keeping an eye out on early voting totals. I personally do not put too much stock in them, as every election has unique circumstances that skew the ways people choose to vote. However, analysis of early voting totals, which tend to skew Democratic, are giving Democrats lukewarm chances in Nevada and Georgia, as they slightly trail the 2020 early voting totals.
The Oklahoma gubernatorial race, mentioned in the last update, has remained incredibly competitive as the Democrat, Joy Hofmeister, has landed endorsements from prominent figures in the Oklahoma Republican Party like J.C. Watts and Lisa Johnson Billy.
Democrats, meanwhile, have made late surges in the Oregonian Gubernatorial race, though it remains unclear whether they have made up enough to win the race tomorrow.
A race that has recently become surprisingly close is New York’s Gubernatorial race, where a late round of polling has shown the incumbent Kathy Hochul to be struggling against Republican Lee Zeldin, mainly due to voter frustration with Hochul’s perceived inaction on crime. These polls were followed by a debate where Hochul struggled to take control of the issue, and thus, while she is still favored, the race is not safe by any means for her.
The most patriotic thing we can do on the 8th of November is to get out and vote. Thank you for keeping up with my updates, and I’ll be putting together a post-mortem piece once the dust has settled around the Senate results (especially Georgia).