Hello Daily Kos Community. It’s Election Eve, and as I do every 2 years, I am here to issue my final predictions for the madness that is about to ensue tomorrow evening. Much like Larry Sabato and a few other prognosticators, I have eliminated all tossups and made final calls on each race. Let’s do it.
President — Biden 334 — Trump 204
Safe D — 191 EVs — VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, DC, IL, NM, CA, OR, WA, HI
Likely D — 68 EVs — ME, NH, VA, MI, WI, MN, CO, NV
Lean D — 75 EVs — PA, NC, FL, AZ
Lean R — 78 EVs — GA, OH, IA, TX
Likely R — 54 EVs — SC, IN, MS, MO, KS, MT, UT, AK
Safe R — 72 EVs — WV, KY, TN, AL, AR, LA, OK, NE, SD, ND, WY, ID
Biden has a very large lead in the national polls, roughly anywhere from 7-10%. To me, he’s got a pretty good hold on all the states in the so-called “Core 6”, so much so that I even moved MI and WI out to Likely D, while the other four finish at Lean D. In terms of the actual road to 270, if Biden wins all states I show Safe and Likely, he only needs one of PA/NC/FL/AZ to get to 270. For sake of this analysis I’m going to assume Biden wins NE-2 and loses ME-2...the only way that can become significant is if he were to lose both and only get AZ out of my Lean D column, which would result in a 269-269 tie and the House would end up deciding the election. That being said, I don’t see that happening.
In truth, I feel my ratings are a little conservative. You could make strong cases that Biden could win any of the states in my Lean R column, which collectively make up the “Stretch 4”. Personally I feel that the national vote will come out B+8, 53-45-2. Were it to come out at B+9 or B+10 instead, that probably would be enough to tip GA and OH into his column, and TX and IA wouldn’t be very far behind, certainly anything higher than B+10 and I think he sweeps those states. I guess I’m just not quite exuberant enough to predict that.
Senate — Democrats 50 — Republicans 48 — 2 Runoff
Safe D — MA, RI, NJ, DE, VA, IL, NM, OR
Likely D — NH, MI, MN, CO, AZ
Lean D — ME, NC
Runoff — GA-A, GA-B
Lean R — SC, IA, KS, TX, MT, AK
Likely R — KY, AL, MS
Safe R — WV, TN, AR, LA, OK, NE, SD, WY, ID
The sad truth is that I was more optimistic on the Senate a week ago as I had Theresa Greenfield winning IA, but a slew of bad polling in the final week has me tipping it back into the red column. That being said, I still feel Dems more or less have a lock on 50 seats, losing AL but gaining ME, NC, CO, and AZ to claim the Senate majority by tiebreaking vote. And due to the general election 50%+ or runoff rule in GA, I see both GA races headed into overtime as no candidate in either race will clear 50%.
If you look at this more closely, you’ll see that there is a lot more downside potential for the GOP than Dems. I have 6 races in Lean R here, the aforementioned IA, followed by SC, MT, and KS, three races that have all been polling very close for months, and then TX and AK which honestly seem like the x-factor races of the cycle, TX because of how close the presidential race is expected to be, and AK because well...we just don’t ever seem to know what really is going on up there. Much like the presidential race, the difference between B+8 or B+10 or B+12 at the top of the ticket is enormous. I’m projecting a B+8 race, which means that Biden probably won’t run close enough in SC, MT, or KS to give Harrison, Bullock, or Bollier a realistic chance of finding enough ticket splitters to get across the line, and won’t be enough to pull Hegar or Ossoff over the finish line in their races. But if the race really is B+10 or even better B+12, the democrats winning all these races and getting to 54 or 55 seats becomes a real possibility. On the flip side, in the scenario where Biden underperforms, the republicans really don’t have much to aim at beyond keeping a few of their incumbents, although that could be enough for them to keep a 51-49 majority.
House — Democrats 251 — Republicans 184
Safe D — 205 seats (includes NC-2 and NC-6)
Likely D — 21 seats — ME-2, NY-19, PA-8, VA-2, VA-7, GA-6, FL-26, FL-27, MI-8, MI-11, IL-14, IL-17, WI-3, IA-3, TX-23, AZ-1, NV-3, OR-4, CA-21, CA-25, CA-48
Lean D — 25 seats — NY-2, NY-11, NY-22, NY-24, NJ-2, NJ-3, PA-1, PA-10, SC-1, GA-7, OH-1, MI-3, IN-5, IA-1, IA-2, MO-2, NE-2, TX-3, TX-10, TX-21, TX-22, TX-23, TX-24, UT-4, AZ-6
Lean R — 24 seats — NY-1, VA-5, NC-8, NC-9, NC-11, FL-15, FL-16, OH-10, OH-12, MI-6, IL-13, AR-2, MN-1, OK-5, TX-2, TX-25, TX-31, CO-3, NM-2, MT-1, CA-22, CA-50, WA-3, AK-1
Likely R — 13 seats — NY-21, NY-23, PA-16, SC-2, FL-18, OH-14, KY-6, WI-1, MN-7, KS-2, TX-6, CA-4, CA-42
Now the real meat and potatoes, and I swear, it seems every election cycle I’m too optimistic on the House by about 8-12 seats. It happened again in 2018 where I had D+52 and we really got D+40. This time, I have D+18, which is, again, probably toward the upper bound of what most prognosticators are going with. But in this case I really can’t help it. Democrats are absolutely crushing it in the suburbs across the country and republicans are very exposed in these areas still even after losing a bunch of seats in 2018. After seeing where all the individual district polls are at, its just really hard for me to imagine seeing republicans hold districts like OH-1, IN-5, MI-3, MO-2, or any number of districts in Texas. By comparison some of the more rural/small town based toss up seats, like IL-13, VA-5, or NM-2, I saw republicans winning as I don’t see the shift being quite so pronounced outside the major metro areas.
One aspect to my House rankings compared to many others you may have seen, I put a lot of stock in the 2016 Trump margin. Many of the district polls we’ve seen have shown a fairly uniform swing left this cycle from their 2016 baseline. This explains why I’m so optimistic on districts like PA-1, FL-26, and CA-25, and somewhat pessimistic on districts like MN-7, or CO-3 and NC-11, two districts where the republicans nominated weak candidates but nevertheless I see surviving due to Trump margin and PVI. That’s not to say I knocked out a big slew of red district Dems though, as I still have districts like NY-22, SC-1, and UT-4 staying blue largely due to incumbent quality and/or poor challengers. Indeed I only have 3 incumbent Dems losing, Collin Peterson whose district is simply too red these days, and Kendra Horn and Xochil Torres-Small, who I feel were given an unexpected hurdle during presidential debate 3 when Joe Biden came out against the oil industry, which specifically could cost those two their seats. Dems however will more than offset that by picking up 21 seats, an astonishing 6 of those in Texas, where a massive suburban college educated Dem surge will deliver big time (and might even deliver TX to Biden for president though I think it will fall just short of that).
Bonus Predictions — state legislatures — I project that Democrats will flip the Minnesota Senate, the Arizona House and Senate, the Pennsylvania House, the Texas House, and will reach a tie in the Florida Senate, giving Dems a gerrymander of Minnesota and breaking republican gerrymanders in Texas and Florida.
Happy Election 2020 everybody! Will see you in the comments...and best wishes for a fabulous night tomorrow!