Within the Margin

Anyone following the news of the last week would be expecting some movement toward the Republicans in this Senate update. The past week saw the Fetterman/Oz debate that launched a unsympathetic and generally insensitive national media narrative regarding Fetterman’s stroke recovery and his accompanying difficulties in the debate format, plus a bevy of Senate polls showing pro-Republican movement in several states even as some of the generic ballot House polls showed the opposite. And indeed, I was initially planning to move four races one step in the GOP’s direction – Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire from Lean Dem to Tilt Dem, and Pennsylvania from Tilt Dem to Tilt Rep. But longtime collaborator Matt Clausen has tempered my instincts a bit here. He rightly notes that the preponderance of Senate polling in recent days has come from GOP-aligned polling firms. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong! Trafalgar, for one, redeemed themselves in 2020 by catching a lot of Trump support that other firms were missing. But methodologically they remain problematic, and some of these firms have been far enough out of step on polls this year that we have to view them with caution. I’m thinking here of co/efficient in particular. Add to that stew some GOP-sponsored polls and we don’t have a lot to work with. New Hampshire actually does have a more solid-footing firm that has taken a recent look at the race; Emerson found a four-point lead for Hassan. Does that warrant a move from Lean to Tilt? Let me see more.

And as far as the Fetterman situation goes, we have to combine that lack of non-aligned firms with the fact that Oz made mistakes in that debate, too – most notably, his assertion that the decision to have an abortion should involve one’s local political leaders. Matt is inclined to wait on shifting all four races; I’m still comfortable shifting one of them:

In my view, what’s different here is that Kelly is about to face $5 million in spending on his behalf in a race where Kelly has frequently had the advantage in the air wars, and Arizona’s other statewide races don’t seem to have any organizational strength – so if Kelly slips, he won’t have as much help arresting that slide. He maintains the edge in polling, though, and he maintains the edge in our rating here.

The map, with the lone update:

As always remember that blueish-gray color is Tilt Dem. And click here for the interactive map.

The map below is my forecast from last Friday; I’ll be updating this Friday night or Saturday. You might not see as much coverage of these races as you should – in a post-Dobbs and post-contested elections world, these and state legislative races are just as important or perhaps even more so than the federal scene.

(click here for interactive map. Remember, that very gray shade of blue is the Tilt Dem seats. No toss-ups here. The idea here is to tell you where my instincts say things are going.)

That 28-22 lead in favor of the Republicans matches the breakdown coming into this year’s elections. But I have two flips in each directions. Maryland and Massachusetts represents easy takeovers for Democrats; these are very blue states each coming off of eight years under a relatively moderate Republican governor first elected in the red wave of 2014. This time, neither is running: Maryland’s Larry Hogan is term-limited and Massachusetts’ Charlie Baker opted not to seek a third term. In their place, Republicans nominated a pair of Trumpers who have been rich in controversy and far behind in polls. I have both races rated as Safe Dem.

On the flipside, Republicans are currently forecast here at Within the Margin to gain the governorships in Nevada and Oregon. In the Senate post earlier tonight I referenced my pessimism throughout the cycle with respect to Nevada; that extends to the governor’s race. In Oregon, the outgoing Democratic governor is among the most unpopular in the country. Add to that the presence of an independent candidate who, as a moderate former Democratic state senator, is pulling more votes from that party’s nominee, and you have the conditions for a Republican win. It would be their first win in an Oregon gubernatorial election since 1982.

More to come this weekend.

The map below is my forecast from last Friday; I’ll be updating this Friday night or Saturday with at least one seat moving toward the Republicans.

(click here for interactive map. Remember, that very gray shade of blue is the Tilt Dem seats. No toss-ups here. The idea here is to tell you where my instincts say things are going.)

That’s a 50-50 map, but two seats change hands from the 50-50 status quo we’ve lived under since the start of 2021. For the moment, I have Pennsylvania flipping to Dems…emphasis on “for the moment.” And in the other direction, I haven’t liked an assortment of things coming out of Nevada this cycle, and it currently sits at Tilt Republican. That could change in a future update; after all, the incumbent Democrat (Cathy Cortez Masto) continues to lead in most polling.

The map below is my forecast from last Friday; I’ll be updating this Friday night or Saturday with races moving in both directions.

(click here for interactive map. Remember, that very gray shade of blue is the Tilt Dem seats. No toss-ups here. The idea here is to tell you where my instincts say things are going.)

That 222-213 margin represents a nine-seat shift to the GOP, if we assign the three current vacancies to their previous party. By historical midterm standards it would be a fairly tame result – but obviously enough to control the chamber. The generic ballot points to a larger shift – though caveats apply. Many of the higher-rated pollsters are showing a Republican lead in the generic, but a higher number of pollsters overall are still showing Democratic leads. We can find lots of encouraging data points for Dems in the early/mail vote so far…but we can pick holes in most of it, too. It’s a less predictable midterm than most but I’m going to try to nail some of these predictions in the final weeks. Back tomorrow with more.