Despite reams and reams of polling data, election results always seem to catch us by surprise. The design of polls - at least the intended design - is to predict the future, what will happen. But pollsters just can’t help but imbue their data with their hopes about what the future holds - and therein lies a significant part of the problem.
To the polling novice, it seems pretty simple: get some representative sample to answer the phone and ask them who they intend to vote for, then tally the results. But what constitutes a representative sample? If by random chance, most of your respondents are Democrats, then your result would skew that way. Or if most of your respondents aren’t even registered to vote, who cares what they think? Or if they are registered to vote, but haven’t voted in the last three or four elections cycles, then how motivated to actually vote are they? And how is any of this even verifiable?
So what pollsters attempt to do is get a truly representative sample of who will actually vote. And for a “representative sample” they turn to the most recent election results (for this cycle it will be the 2020 results) to say “this many Republicans and this many Democrats and this many registered Independents” make up a representative sample. To get their margin of error down, they need a bigger sample - which can take a lot of effort, depending on the polling method.
As to the representative sample, basing it on election year 2020 is itself a risky proposition. The country doesn’t look or feel like 2020 - in fact, it feels a great deal more like 2010, or 1994, or even 1980 (the year of the Reagan Revolution). So do pollsters go to those years to obtain a representative mix of respondents? This is where the pollster’s “art” (and their personal viewpoints) start to enter the picture. And make no mistake, they pay a lot of attention to each other - which leads to a herd mentality and why so many of the polls you see end up saying the same thing. And why they are so often all wrong at the same time.
Looking through the poll internals we’re seeing, the pollsters have once again been using a predictive model based on most recent turnout - and oversampling Democrats as if they expect the 2022 electorate to look like 2020. I think this election will look more like 1994 or 2010 or even 1980 - and the polls should reflect that, but they don’t. Consider this one data point: In the Gallup poll on October 26, 1980, Jimmy Carter was at 47% and Ronald Reagan at 39%. Reagan went on to win by ten percentage points with a record landslide of 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49. While I don’t see a turnout quite like that, I do believe the polls are generally understating votes for Republicans this year and by a sizable margin. How much they’ve been undersampling Republican votes is the difference between a Red Wave (virtually certain) and a Red Tsunami (very possible).
The other challenge with forecasting the future is the decline of integrity in our election processes. With many states enabling the mass-mailing of ballots prior to the 2020 election, it’s difficult to discern how those ballots will be handled. Mass-mailing means that every registered voter gets sent a ballot - even if that means multiple ballots for the same person are sent to multiple addresses, because who notifies the registrar of voters when they move? Who deletes the names of the deceased? None of this happens automatically, and attempts to “purge” voter roles of duplications and dead people are systematically challenged in the courts - by Democrats. Early voting - sometimes months in advance of election day - makes it easy for candidates to discover how many votes they need to create before election day in order to win, as is already happening in Georgia and Pennsylvania. And then there’s ballot harvesting by “paid volunteers” who collect ballots and deliver them to - well, where exactly? And ballot “drop boxes” - as if US mail boxes aren’t plentiful and easy to find. There’s also the counting of votes which is questioned in large, urban Democrat districts - as we saw in the 2020 election, with highly questionable “pauses” in counting, and then resumptions that immediately posted huge, statistically improbable gains for Democrats. This is what conservatives refer to as “the margin of cheating”. And none of us has a really good idea how big it is or how it will affect results. If Republicans do win big in November, they need to crack down hard on election integrity. Because this accumulates to a strong sense of government illegitimacy.
And so, with all this polling data and concerns about election integrity, where does that leave us two weeks out? Anybody who’s watched the news the last two weeks has seen a dramatic shift toward Republican candidates - where previously the story was the “historically weak candidates” fielded by the GOP, today the headlines show Democrats shifting funding from once-safe seats to protecting unimagined losses in the safest of seats. This tells me the public polls are “trailing indicators” of what is really happening - because candidates’ polls are far more detailed and far more accurate than the public polls you and I see in the news. So something Truly Big is likely happening and I suspect it has a great deal to do with how “undecideds” are breaking and Republican turnout.
Secondly, the margin of cheating in this election is less likely to prevail, at least in the House races, most of which aren’t anywhere near large, Democrat-controlled urban centers that make vote harvesting feasible. Also, Republicans are “tuned into” these corrupt practices and have jumped ahead of the anticipated chicanery with abundant poll observers. So whatever happens at this point, I expect most of it to lie outside the margin of cheating.
What follows are what I call the “bellwether” elections - the ones I’m watching because I think they may be (or are) a proxy for what is happening nationally. There are a lot of them this year, but what happens among these, I think, will be amplified among the many other races I haven’t researched. In the two weeks remaining, if Big Moves are happening here in the polls, then you can forecast an even bigger move nationally. So to put it a little more starkly, if the Republicans show strongly in the next two weeks in these races, I predict the Red Wave may well be a Tsunami.
Alaska has a bizarre system of “ranked choice” voting that was installed to protect left-wing Republican Lisa Murkowski’s Senate seat in perpetuity. However, in what is now looking like a bellwether for US politics at large, Murkowski is trailing her Republican challenger, Kelly Tshibaka by an average of 4 points. If Alaskans ignore the ranked choice option and vote only for their first choice, Tshibaka will win this race easily. If they do follow the ranked choice, there’s a strong chance the Democrat challenger picks up the seat with a plurality of votes. The Alaska legislature really needs to fix this corrupt system. But I think Tshibaka pulls this out. We won’t know the final results until likely mid-December however. Because that’s how ranked choice voting works if nobody gets 50% of the vote on the first “pass” through the data.
What’s happening in Arizona is yet another bellwether for my predictions. I believe the GOP candidate for governor, Kari Lake, has electrified this election and will have coattails that extend to Blake Masters, who is challenging incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly. Public polls show Lake with a 4 point lead - expect that to look more like 8-10 points on election day. Immigration is the issue in Arizona and I expect Mark Kelly to take it on the chin for his support of Biden’s indefensible border policy. Watch for Masters to pull this out by 2-3 percent.
In Georgia, Governor Kemp is beating his challenger by 7-10 points, which I expect to increase on election day. I call it for Kemp by 12-15 points. I think this extends to Herschel Walker in his bid to unseat Democrat Rafael Warnock, which the polls at this point show as roughly even. Walker had but to not lose his debate with Warnock, but actually performed much better than predicted, with the impression that he actually won that debate. I think Kemp’s coattails will carry Walker to +4-5 over Warnock. Watch polls this week to show a Walker lead.
Illinois’ gubernatorial race offers an unexpected, yet highly telling story of what may happen nationally. While I don’t see Democrat Pritzker at serious risk, recent polling suggests the race is actually quite close. But Chicago politics are about as solid of a Democrat machine as can be imagined - expect the Machine to produce for Pritzker. But watch this state nonetheless for signs of a Big Move by GOP challenger Bailey this week. Again, this may tell of a broader story nationally.
Michigan’s governor’s race is tight - statistically even, at this point. But I think Whitmer’s mishandling of the pandemic has made for a quiet groundswell of support to unseat her that isn’t showing in the public polls. Watch for polls to “flip” this week and in two weeks, I think we’ll see Dixon pull this out comfortably by 4+ points.
Nevada has been hard hit by the Biden recession and polling reflects this, making this state yet another bellwether for what happens nationally. Both Republican Senate challenger Laxalt and gubernatorial challenger Lombardo are leading in the public polls, well beyond the margin for error. I expect both these polls to break more heavily for the Republican challengers this week, resulting in an 8-10 point win for both on November 8th.
New Hampshire’s election this year has gotten very interesting, with Senate Republican challenger Don Bolduc “surging” (there’s that word we see so often) to roughly even with incumbent Senator Maggie Hassan. But this state’s gubernatorial election isn’t even close, with Republican incumbent Sununu leading by double digits. I see a win by Bolduc as likely in yet another pickup for the GOP in the Senate.
New York’s governor’s race is one of those surprises we’ve been hearing about. Incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul inherited the seat when Mario Cuomo resigned in disgrace. Surging crime in New York is the highest priority of voters there and Hochul is paying the price. Republican challenger Lee Zeldin is now leading in most recent polls, which has Democrats (who are on defense nationally) pouring money into what was considered a safe seat. Democrats nationally now stand, potentially, to “lose twice” - as they divert campaign funds from other races to defend a candidate who shouldn’t even be at risk.
Democrats had strong hopes for a Senate seat flip in North Carolina this year, but those hopes have all but vanished as the Republican candidate to succeed retiring Senator Richard Burr (Ted Budd) leads his Democrat challenger (Cheri Beasley) by a comfortable 5 points. Look for the public polls to put this race solidly in GOP hands this week.
Ohio is generally considered a bellwether state and this year I suspect that is no exception. Running for retiring GOP Senator Rob Portman’s open seat are Republican JD Vance opposed by Democrat Tim Ryan. Ohio went for Trump by +8 just two years ago, so I never believed Ryan was a serious challenger, but the public polls have said it was a very close race. Republican Governor Mike DeWine is easily winning his re-election bid by 15-20 points, and I expect him to have coattails. Expect Vance to win this Senate race by at least 8 points.
Oregon’s governor’s race is, like New York’s, just not supposed to be in play. And yet it very much is. In fact, GOP challenger Christine Drazan is now leading in the polls to succeed term-limited, retiring Democrat Governor Kate Brown. The wild card in this race is unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson - who is nominally a Democrat but has become so disgusted with her party that she launched an independent candidacy. Johnson has captured the “reasonable voice” of the Left, pulling the less-insane votes away from Democrat nominee Tina Kotek. I expect Drazan to win this race with a solid plurality of the vote.
Early voting is highly problematic everywhere and so with Pennsylvania’s Senate candidates debating just this week, votes have been collected for over four weeks now. But will it change anything this time? I’m not sure it will. Fetterman is a terrible candidate (for every reason beyond his health) and Oz is not seen as a harsh or radical alternative. The public polls show the race as “tight” but I see this coming out as +4 comfortably for Oz. Watch for the public polls to flip in the coming week. Pennsylvania’s governor’s race is really close - with the better polls showing this at a two-point race, within the margin of error. I think Mastriano, the Republican candidate, can edge out Shapiro, but it will be very close. Watch the polls on this one closely this week - if there’s a big move by Mastriano, that says a great deal about what is happening throughout the country.
What makes Texas interesting this year are the prospects of Republican flips in the 15th, 28th and 34th congressional districts. No, the governor’s race isn’t interesting, as incumbent governor Abbot easily puts it away by a wide margin over the Fake Latino. What is interesting is what looks to be a referendum on Biden’s immigration enforcement policy (or lack thereof) in these three safely Democrat border districts. There hasn’t been a great deal of polling in these districts (because they’re well below most pollsters radar). So watch for “upset” victories by at least one, probably two and possibly all three Republican candidates. These are a strong indication of how poorly the Democrats perform on immigration among Hispanic voters.
Utah’s Senate race has garnered a bit of attention as Democrats hope to pick off incumbent Senator Mike Lee by running “independent” Evan McMullin. Previous polling didn’t show this race as very competitive, with Lee easily winning. But at least one recent poll shows McMullin leading by six points. All these polls are at least two weeks old, so if there’s movement (and there certainly is) that’s not apparent at this point. Watch this week to see where the movement is and if Lee is going to pull this out.
Washington state has a competitive race for Senate against incumbent Senator Patty Murray. Murray is a dreadfully inept, unintelligent partisan, but the state has gone reliably blue for a long time now. GOP candidate Tiffany Smiley is, I think, within striking distance, but nearly all the undecided voters would need to break her way. As much as I’d love to see Murray pack it in, I don’t see it happening.
Wisconsin is another state where the Democrats had hoped to gain a Senate seat this year. Incumbent GOP Senator Ron Johnson has been in a close fight (according to the polls) but I believe most of these have been “push” polls intended to make the race out as winnable for Democrat challenger Mandela Barnes. I think the issue of crime ultimately pushes this race to Johnson, who has been leading among the more respectable pollsters since this started. New polls out in the week ahead will likely show this seat “breaking” for Johnson.
Wyoming is now only interesting because departing bitter Congresswoman Liz Cheney was defeated in her primary by an historic margin of 38 points. Cheney has gone on to committing to defeat Trump-endorsed Republicans throughout the nation, and she has leftover millions to spend on that project. So it will be interesting to see if she is able to accomplish this in any race this year. I think she’s just wasting her money, but then it was mostly donated by California Democrats to begin with, so I’ll enjoy watching the folly. My projection: don’t look for any mainstream media interviews of Cheney after election day.
So whether it is a Wave or Tsunami election, I predict it will be a change election. I see the Republicans winning both the House and Senate - but is that by 35 and 4 seats respectively, or 50+ and 10+ seats? I believe that depends on the depths of the resentment the majority of voters feel - about inflation, gas prices, crime, immigration and an education system that is unhinged from their reality. Democrats are clearly playing defense now as their internal polls show much worse developments than what we’re seeing in the public polls, which are already trending away from Democrats.
So will it be a Wave or a Tsunami? Watch the polls in these races in the next two weeks and if you haven’t already voted, make sure you get to the polls and take conservatives with you when you go.
My Prediction for November's Red Wave
So what would a tsunami look like, 262 GOP in the House and 60 GOP in the Senate?
Youve obviously put a lot of good work into these numbers, Jeff, but..... i would bet a large sum of money that even your tsunami outcome won't and can't make any real difference in the basic, DC operating system. Our system has been thoroughly and completely captured by a criminal Oligarchy at the federal level. It really is a Uniparty. Rs and Ds are the charade to make us plebes think we have a say. State and local elections may still matter, but whomever goes to dc is either pre vetted to be a willing accomplice to the Oligarchy or (for those rare, honest patriots) quickly sidelined and rendered impotent. The Fourth Branch of government (ht Sundance) is not going to allow any change that would threaten their power.
So dream your dreams of monster waves if that makes you happy. Reality will be there when you wake. It's a revolution we need, not an election.