Tonight and Beyond

 I don't advocate spending the entire evening waiting for election returns, thinking there may be decisive results.  My suggestion is to wait for the outcome of two House races in Virginia, in the first batch of results (closing at 7 pm Eastern).  If Abigail Spanberger can't win in its 7th District, moderate Democrats are about to be buried; if on the other hand Elaine Luria can hold on in the 2nd district, the Democratic party is still in the race for control of the House.   If one or the other can't be called quickly, there is a good possibility of the outcome described.  That's about all you will get of the big picture tonight.   

As for the Senate, it's very unlikely that we will know the outcome, probably for even more than just a day.  I stick with my previous prediction from two months ago:  The roller coaster has run its cycle and returned to start.  The most likely scenarios are either 49-50 or 50-49, pending Georgia's likely runoff.  Nevada is the #1 cause for that uncertainty, though there are many others.   Finally, I expect incumbents to win, and party control to be maintained in most other cases.  The exception, and the highlight of the Senate contest in general, would be for John Fetterman to pull out a 3 to 4 point win over Dr. Oz in the highlighted Pennsyvania Senate race, though it will not be called for days.  I still believe. 

I neglected the governor and other state races previously; there are 5-6 close races, but a variety of reasons leads me to think that none of those will be decided tonight.  Among ones that will be called,  the Democrats should pick up seats in Massachusetts and Maryland--Wes Moore, in the latter, being one of tonight's star attractions.  I expect, however, that they lose a couple of the many where they face close challenges (Wisconsin, Nevada and Kansas, in particular).  Most importantly, the Democrats will hold onto critical 2024 states Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota.  If Republicans hold onto Arizona and Georgia, those states will be harder for the Democratic party to hold in '24. State legislature battles matter, too, but that's too much detail for my free time. For wat it's worth, I'm confident Democratic control of my state's legislature is safe, and its governor's race, too. 

Some of the pundits (Cook, Sabato) feel compelled to call all races, one way or the other, leaning on their accumulated experience, while Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com takes the careful approach of leaning on probabilities rather than categorical outcomes.  Silver's approach gets my respect, while Sabato and Cook were even more careful, frankly admitting that, when in doubt, they pushed their final predictions to follow the customary midterm correction pattern (i.e., against the Administration).   The best might be the approach followed by Nathan Gonzales--he identified some 41* "Contested districts" (a lot less than CNN's 82) not clearly leaning one way or the other.  Within that, he showed those that "tilt" toward each side, with about 40% of those still "tossup".   The outcomes in those seats, and the 21 currently-Democratic ones that Cook shows as Lean Republican in his final assessment, are the ones that will determine whether this House race is a cliffhanger ("at the edge of a precipice") or a landslide ("over the edge"). + 

 Luria's seat is in both sets, and is identified as the median seat nationwide, in terms of its 2020 Presidential outcome.  As I feel we are very much in the same place as then, I endorse a singular focus on her seat as the bellwether among all others. So I repeat my suggestion:  stay up until Luria's seat reports (say 90%), then sleep soundly.  When you wake up, we'll still be waiting.

Pre-Assessing the Outcome 

Going into 2022's campaign, my main concern was whether Trumpists would win, or whether the mark of his involvement would once again be the L on the forehead.  He's tried to load the results to his favor on this critical measure, but the outcome is not determined by his primary successes, but by his general election record of wins and losses.  I expect him to have setbacks with high-profile extremist followers like Mastriano (PA-Gov.), Bolduc (NH-Sen.), and even Masters (AZ-Sen.), along with the galling win of his election-theft opponent Brian Kemp (GA-Gov.), but we should be prepared that he will have a gratifying win with ass-kisser J.D. Vance (OH-Sen.) and possible wins for likeminded reality-benders Kari Lake (AZ-Gov.) and Dr. Oz (PA - Sen.).  His stamp will remain questionable in value (particularly if he doesn't share his money) but this election will not lead to the termination of his candidacy.  Unfortunately for us all; his participation demeans. 

After the Flood

With the money thing, I have had enough:  I pledge no political contributions for 2023, and I will refrain from comments on domestic electoral politics for the full year.  I don't care who announces for 2024 then, or before then. 

The most important development for 2024 arising from the campaign was the re-emergence of Barack Obama--not coincidentally occurring as he releases his latest book.   Of course he cannot run again, but I have the feeling that he is ready to resume a position in the lead for his party (the "Obama-Biden party", as opposed to the Trump one).  He and Joe have probably discussed strategy, and Biden should be expected to be as cagey as possible about his running, or not.  Certainly not determined by anything the President who served between them does. 

I think it is quite likely Biden will not run, but he will wait to see whether Trump is likely to win nomination.  I do not feel it is certain that Trump will clear the field;  Trump's attack on "Ron DeSanctimonious" (a good one, I have to admit) shows he expects the Florida governor to be a serious rival:  he spent the time to work out a good insult nickname for him.  If Trump fades, Biden can step aside, though whether to draw a line of equivalency to DeSantis is imponderable at this point.  If he does pass on running, Kamala Harris is going to be challenged--maybe not by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is enjoying his job, but by some proven Democratic winners with more moderate profiles (such as Amy Klobuchar or Gretchen Whitmer).

To be bluntly honest, I am concerned by a trend that I detect for Democratic candidates who are People of Color (especially women) to fall a bit short in statewide general election contests to representatives of the White Christian Male Patriarchy.  Meanwhile, Republicans are finding some winning candidates who are sometimes not white, sometimes not Christian or male, but almost all sufficiently loyal to the Patriarchy (and its archon, Drumpf).  I'm not sure what to do about that--Wes Moore is a notable counter-example--but I think the remedy is the rise of younger voters, which must happen in 2024 if it does not in 2022.  In them I place my ultimate faith. 

Fear Not

Although we are surely in a transition period toward a New World Disorder, and the US is right in the middle of it, I don't see a lot of difference in the USA coming out of this election (with the proviso that complete whackos don't win in Michigan or Pennsylvania governor's races).  The House, even with a margin of a few votes, works like a Parliamentary majority.  Padding the total for the Republicans, or keeping it as narrow as possible for the Democrats, matters more in terms of positioning for control after 2024's election. Kevin McCarthy's margin will matter in terms of  how much he has to give in to the extremists' hostage demands, but nothing the House comes up with will pass the Senate, let alone get by Biden's veto pen.  Anything that gets done, and it will be precious little, will originate from bipartisan efforts in the Senate that somehow get through the MAGA House.  Mostly required legislation that even those who want to kill the Federal government's authority will have trouble opposing. 

I refer to the 2022 outcome as the Red Wade, drawing off someone's typo in a comment on PredictIt.  The waters are shallow--it is astonishing how shallow the nationalized arguments have become--but there's plenty of blood in the water.  

Bill Maher was correct when he said Americans have two chances left to save their democracy (I would add: such as it is.).  We are likely to waste one of them today, though that is not certain.  I do think that some of the focus on screwing with election processes and processors from the MAGA side will dissipate quickly if they get a victory in 2022's election. 

* I liked his electoral judgments more than his math, which was always off by a seat or two out of the 435. 

+ See Sabato's list of "Tends R" seats in comment.  I will include Gonzales' Tossups.