United States Congressional & Gubernatorial 2022 elections

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NOTE: This thread started out as Senate-only but has expanded to include the entire Congressional and Goober elections.

Class 3 of the United States Senate is up for election in 2022.

Ballotpedia has some info on it.

I don’t know of any vacancies in Classes 1 or 2.

The current makeup is 50 Rs and 48+2 Ds+Is.
24 Rs & 10 Ds are up for election in 2022.

5 senators, all Rs & all in Class 3, from AL, MO, NC, OH, & PA are retiring.

These are the races (along with the current party holding that seat) that I see as competitive:
AZ D, GA D, NV D, PA R
Right now, I see all of them going R…but just barely.

These are leaning strongly for the incumbent:
CO D, FL R, MO R, NC R, OH R, WI R

NH is leaning strongly to switch D to R.

For these, well, let’s just say that something catastrophic would have to happen:
R: AL, AK, AR, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, OK, SC, SD, UT
D: CA, CT, HI, IL, MD, NY, ND, OR, VT, WA

In the last week, futures markets shifted to R for AZ, GA, & NV.

My current prediction is the Rs pick up 4 seats (AZ, GA, NV, & NH). The first three are close. NH is pretty certain. The only chance for Ds to pick up a seat is in PA where Toomey is retiring, but it’s currently leaning R.

Current Initial prediction & (Initial) Best case scenario for Rs
R: 54 (pick up AZ, GA, NV, NH, hold PA)
D+I: 46 = 44+2

(Initial) Best case scenario for Ds:
R: 50 (pick up NH)
D+I: 50 = 48+2 (pick up PA)

Your thoughts?

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We’re in deep shit

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I heard Portman was retiring, but Ohio’s other Senator is a D. I know Ohio has been shifting from a bellwether to a leans-R, but do the Dems really not even have a chance at that seat?

I haven’t looked into specific candidates on either side, FWIW.

What’s going on in NH that makes the shift so likely when we don’t even have candidates picked?

Thanks for putting this analysis together. Those are the two that jumped out to me as being slightly unexpected.

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If it’s currently 50-50 and each side will have one pickup (and therefore also one loss)… wouldn’t it still be 50-50?

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yup…I fixed it above.

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According to the traders on predictit, at this point in time, Ds only have a ~15% chance at that seat.
That’s the extent of my OH-political knowledge.

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Same answer as for OH…also, trading volume on Predictit might not be sufficient enough for it to be a reliable indicator…but it’s the method I prefer.

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Well it will certainly be interesting to watch state polls in the coming year.

Many states hold the governor’s election in the even years that aren’t Presidential election years / years divisible by 2 but not 4. I’m guessing this helps the turnout in those states compared to the states that don’t also have a Governor’s election. (Turnout is almost always higher in a Presidential election, of course.) It’ll be interesting to see if that has any discernible impact, and also whether Covid has killed off more Republicans than Democrats causing any noticeable effects.

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Senate is definitely gonna flip back to R next year.

Presidency has a 90% chance of flipping back to R in 2024.

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I’d say that a lot will depend on individual economic status late 2023 through early 2024.

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I doubt that matters at all. It’ll be mostly dependent on whether or not Trump will stir the pot with other R candidates.

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In a typical presidential election I would disagree with this vociferously…

…but as long as Trump is involved nothing will make sense.

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Also who is running… on both sides. Biden could well step down. Or die. I think he’s already the oldest President ever, and we’re not even a full year into his first term.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I think that DeWine vs Harris would look very different from Trump vs Biden.

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Here’s my prediction - The D’s are going to stop making that cacophony of noise concerning the filibuster. Soon, it will be their close friend once again.

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That would certainly be the prudent thing to do. We may all have different ideas on when and why it’s going to happen, but at some point they will once again be the minority party.

That much seems like an absolute certainty. Reasonable people can disagree on the “when” and “why”, but not the “if”.

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Right? What bigger existential threat could this country face other than one party not controlling all three of the House, Senate, and White House?

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Let’s try an example. Suppose one party promotes the Lie that the presidential election was “stolen” by illegal voters or illegal counting. Suppose that say this so consistently and so widely that they get a mob to support breaking into the Capital building for the express purpose of violently preventing congress from announcing the winner of the presidential election.

I consider any representation of that party in congress a matter of “grave concern” and an actual majority in either house an existential threat to our democracy.

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:iatp:

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Kamala Harris? No shot. I can’t imagine a candidate that she would not get landslided by.

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I agree that she is not a good candidate. However, if a sitting or past VP decides to run for POTUS, they basically always get their party’s nomination. The only semi-recent exception I can think of is Dan Quayle, and I think he was even less popular than Kamala Harris, and also running against his boss’s son.

Let’s see, looking at the last 70 years of past VPs we’ve got…

Mike Pence - did not seek (yet)
Joe Biden - won nomination
Dick Cheney - did not seek
Al Gore - won nomination
Dan Quayle - exception that proves the rule
George HW Bush - won nomination
Walter Mondale - won nomination
Nelson Rockefeller - did not seek
Gerald Ford - won nomination
Spiro Agnew - did not seek
Hubert Humphrey - won nomination
Lyndon Johnson - won nomination
Richard Nixon - won nomination

Honorable Mention to Bob Dole who never actually served as VPOTUS, but did run for VPOTUS in 1976 as running mate of the sitting POTUS, and subsequently won his party’s nomination for POTUS.