Ladies and gentlemen, it is the day before Election Day 2016. And it is just as well that I perform a bi-annual tradition...making my predictions for what will happen as the results roll in tomorrow night.
Some interesting fun facts before we start:
1.I have never gotten all 50 states right in the electoral college. Twice I’ve had 49 only to be denied by 1 state, OH in 2004, FL in 2012. (I missed MO and IN in 2008, as well as the split electoral vote in NE-2)
2.Since I started doing Senate calls in 2008, I have never gotten a Senate race wrong in a presidential year. I’ll be thrilled if that continues.
3.I got quite a few house races wrong in 2012, but still did well enough along with the other contests to win the 2012 DKE pick’em contest. Looking for a repeat but with the quality of the contributors we have, it’s going to be very tough!
President:
This one is not going to be nearly as close as public polling suggested earlier in the week. Clinton has the momentum now, and if you ask me, we could be in a situation like 2014 only in reverse, where there was big movement toward the GOP in the final days that came too late for public polls to pick up on it.
National Vote - Clinton 50 - Trump 44 - Others 6
Electoral Votes - Clinton 339 — Trump 199
Ratings:
Safe D — 179 EVs — CA, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT, WA
Likely D — 42 EVs — ME, MN, NM, VA, WI
Lean D — 51 EVs — CO, MI, NV, PA
Tilt D — 67 EVs — FL, NH, NC, OH, NE-2
Tilt R — 33 EVs — AZ, GA, IA
Lean R — 6 EVs — UT
Likely R — 76 EVs — AK, IN, MS, MO, MT, SC, TX
Safe R — 74 EVs — AL, AR, ID, KS, KY, LA, NE, ND, OK, SD, TN, WV, WY
Senate:
Last week I was starting to hedge a little bit on which races the democrats might win in the battleground, but I never really wavered in my thought that democrats would win the Senate majority. To me the only question is by how much they will win. One thing I do know is that in 2008 and 2012, democrats swept the battleground, just like republicans very nearly did so in 2010 and 2014. This is a presidential year with a sizeable democratic win coming at the top of the ticket, just like 2008 and 2012. As such, I’m not messing around with a winning formula. I’m calling for democrats to win all the toss up races on Tuesday night.
Looking at each race individually...Duckworth is a sure pickup. Feingold’s race has tightened but he will win by mid single digits. Cortez Masto will win by about the same amount, and McGinty will be right in that same area. That gets Democrats to 49 seats. From there, you have 2 seats in states Hillary will win (NH and NC) and 2 in Trump territory (MO and IN).
Ultimately I think that coattails will be too much for Ayotte in NH and Hassan will win it by low single digits. The same goes in NC where Burr is a weak incumbent and he committed an unforced error in the final week with his Hillary bullseye gaffe. The two toughest races for me this cycle are MO and IN. By everything I’ve heard and read, Kander has run the best race of any Senate democrat this cycle, and Blunt isn’t that strong an incumbent. Then again, this is Missouri. PVI could save Blunt, but if party insiders don’t seem to think it will, I’ll go with their advice over that of mostly bad public polling. And lastly you have Indiana, where Bayh has effectively been an incumbent even though he isn’t one technically, but the trajectory doesn’t look great. Still, I think a late surge in democratic voters downballot that polls weren’t capturing last week will come through and help him eek out a win over Young. If there’s one race I’m least sure about that is it. The only mildly competitive race that will see a republican win Tuesday night is Florida, where there will be enough Clinton/Rubio voters, particularly among Hispanics, to deny Murphy a victory, though to be honest, I think it’s more likely that Murphy wins than we see somebody like Cortez Masto, Feingold, or McGinty lose.
Final Result: Democrats 53 — Republicans 47
House:
In 2014, the national House vote was 51-45, or R+6. That led to a 247-188 republican majority in the House. In 2012, the national House vote was 49-48, or D+1, which (due to gerrymandering...jerks) led to a 234-201 republican majority. As of this morning, the Pollster average for the GCB is 46-43 in favor of the democrats. If the nation really does vote D+3, which isn’t implausible given a scenario in which it is C+6 in the presidential race (Obama won by 4 in 2012 as House Dems only won by 1 that same year), that means that you would expect to see Democrats win more than the 201 seats they won in 2012, but not a huge amount more.
With that in mind, I have Republicans retaining the House majority by a 228-207 margin. That is a gain of 19 seats for the Democrats. As you go through my ratings, you’ll probably notice that I have House Dems doing on average much more favorably in suburban districts and districts trending D as opposed to rural districts and districts trending R. My ratings are as such.
Safe D — 180 seats
Likely D — 7 seats — NY-3, VA-4, FL-13, MN-2, MN-7, NV-4, CA-24
Lean D — 9 seats — NH-1, NJ-5, VA-10, FL-26, IL-10, MN-8, NV-3, AZ-1, CA-7
Tilt D — 11 seats — ME-2, NY-19, NY-22, PA-8, FL-7, NE-2, TX-23, CO-6, CA-10, CA-21, CA-25
Tilt R — 12 seats — NY-23, VA-5, MI-1, MI-7, MI-8, FL-18, WI-8, IA-1, KS-3, AZ-2, IN-9, CA-49
Lean R — 10 seats — NY-1, NY-21, NY-24, PA-16, FL-27, IL-12, MN-3, IA-3, CO-3, AK-1
Likely R — 12 seats — NJ-3, PA-6, PA-7, VA-2, MI-6, MI-11, IL-13, WI-7, UT-4, MT-1, WA-3, WA-8, CA-39
Safe R — 194 seats